Yes, governence is key. That should ideally have it's users as stakeholders and be for public benefit and not for profit. Oh and be efficient. There's no technical reason why domains should cost more than $5.
There has to be a government connection since the DNS infrastructure in a developed country has to protected against bad actors will necessarily be linked, but not controlled, by national cybersecurity.
Oh and it should be a politically stable country. Problematical for the US?