Despite all the controversy and turmoil in political life, Italy still has a very strong "national brand image".

The Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index measures national
reputation – as perceived around the world – about culture and
heritage, population's reputation, tourist attractions, investment and
immigration (N.B. measuring how attractive as a place to work and live
in), governance and, finally, the quality of products and services it
exports. The rankings are updated and published once a year, and the
2009 index says that Italy has maintained its 6th global position.

To tell the whole story, the
Country-specific summary says that brand strength is mostly strong in
things related to the past and not to future assets, and this means
that the country has probably "topped its own limits". This is in line
with my perception: the bottom line is that everybody loves Italy, but
there's a lot of perplexity about how it works as a system…

The top 10 for 2009 (2008 in brackets):

1. United States (7)
2. France (2)
3. Germany (1)
4. United Kingdom (3)
5. Japan (5)
6. Italy (6)
7. Canada (4)
8. Switzerland (8)
9. Australia (9)
10. (tie) Spain (n.d.), Sweden (10)