Sustainability seems to have been largely absent from the conversation in the 2012 US Presidential campaign. Apart from a couple of fleeting moments when the spotlight has fallen on the issue—an argument between the candidates over energy policy in the second debate, and a joke about the President promising to stem the tide of the rising oceans by Mitt Romney in his convention speech—the American public could be forgiven for thinking that neither candidate cares much about sustainability issues. However, … “President Obama Viewed as the Candidate Most Likely to Fast-Forward Sustainability”
In a slowing global economy, many nations are aiming to out-compete their rivals and offer a more attractive environment for global companies to operate in. But GlobeScan’s most recent tracking illustrates that there may be cultural factors for countries to contend with. Citizens sometimes perceive national and global companies in a different light. Trust in global and national business is certainly correlated—if a country’s citizens trust global businesses, they are also likely to trust its own national companies. However, in … “Global vs National Business: Interpreting the Gap in Trust”
Twenty years after the collapse of the USSR, Russia continues to present a difficult business environment, with an economy dominated by an elite circle close to the seat of political power. For foreign companies, navigating the nuances of the Russian system can prove particularly challenging, and GlobeScan’s latest polling demonstrates a large degree of social alienation, which could make conditions for foreign investment yet more difficult. In 2012, more Russians feel that economic wellbeing has improved over the past 20 … “Russia: Disenfranchisement, distrust—and opportunity”
Even though many commentators have suggested that China’s slowing economy poses risks to its political and social stability, GlobeScan’s polling shows that the Chinese public retains a much higher level of trust in their national government than they do in other social institutions. The degree to which the public trusts different institutions in China may reflect the country’s insular, government-dominated past. China’s sustained economic success over the past two decades is probably a major factor in the public’s continuing faith … “Trusted and powerful: the Chinese remain faithful to their government”
In a week when business leaders in the UK met with the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster to discuss ways to resurrect the reputation of the corporate sector, GlobeScan’s most recent global polling shows that while religious groups generally enjoy higher levels of trust that they will operate in the best interests of society than other institutions, in many countries there is greater skepticism about the impact they can have through their actions. While only scientists and NGO score higher on … “Religious groups highly trusted, but greater public skepticism over their impact on society”
US President Barack Obama may be enjoying a bounce in the polls this week after last week’s Democratic convention, but GlobeScan’s contextual polling suggests that he faces a much more challenging environment in terms of public attitudes than his predecessor George Bush did when seeking re-election in 2004.
Going into the 2004 election, 72 percent of Americans trusted their federal government to act in the best interests of society, and 60 percent believed that their children and grandchildren would have a better quality of life than they did. Yet in 2012, only 47 percent have such faith in their national government, while the proportion of those who believe that their children and grandchildren will have a better quality of life has fallen to 32 per cent.
In 2004 the dominant issue was foreign policy, and the incumbent was in a secure position. Twice as many Americans cited terrorism as a serious concern as cited the economy, and 64% viewed military force as an effective way to combat it—effectively endorsing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 67% saw America’s role in the world as positive, legitimizing Bush’s unilateralism.
President Obama enjoys no such positive consensus on the current issue of the day—economics. Despite improvement over the past three years, nearly half of Americans (44%) still feel themselves to be worse off than a year ago, and a similar proportion (48%) are pessimistic about their leaders making economic progress over the next twenty years (48%). Indeed, while in 2002 79 percent of Americans felt that America was doing a good job of reducing international terror—indicative of a strong alignment between the government’s actions and society’s wishes—today Americans are more likely to blame the government for their economic problems than they are to blame private enterprise (19% say they government is most to blame, as opposed to just 2% who blame managers and companies).
Despite the favourable environment for President Bush in 2004, he won only narrowly, with 51% of the popular vote. With another closely fought election looming, the social optimism that was present in 2004 is missing. While positive economic and social data are not necessarily required for re-election, President Obama will have to hope the American public blame their woes on his predecessor if he hopes to clinch a victory in this very different backdrop.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 2, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
There is a widespread global consensus that the decision whether to treat people and the environment responsibly should not be left to the corporate world, but that national governments should take steps to compel companies to do this.
According to GlobeScan’s most recent polling, nearly nine in ten citizens (88%) across 23 countries support governments taking active legislative and regulatory steps to ensure social and environmental responsibility by companies, rather than leaving it to business to take steps voluntarily.
Among the populations who feel most strongly that governments should apply further pressure to force corporate responsibility are many with large, often controversial commodities sectors, such as Russia (95%), Nigeria (93%), Peru (92%), and Indonesia (91%). Other countries where over 90 percent of those surveyed feel further governmental action is required are crisis-hit Spain (97%) and Greece (91%), as well as France (94%), which recently elected a socialist government committed to higher levels of taxation for both businesses and the rich.
There are some surprises—India, location of the Bhopal disaster, one of the most infamous incidents of corporate negligence in history, has the lowest proportion of respondents who support government-mandated corporate responsibility in the survey—but even in India three out of four citizens support a firm government hand in this area.
While these results cast further light on the anti-business narrative GlobeScan has previously highlighted in the West, the breadth of this consensus—particularly in the developing world—demonstrates that business as a whole urgently needs to improve its approach to social citizenship. Continued failure in this regard risks a general upswing of anti-corporate feeling around the world, as well as specific impacts, driven by reputational damage, to the share prices of unresponsive corporations.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Since the nadir of the global financial crisis in 2008–2009, there has been at least some degree of recovery across most of the global economy. Yet the financial situation in Spain remains precarious, and Spain’s problems, along with those of Greece, Italy, and Portugal, risk dragging Europe and the world back into recession. Meanwhile the Spanish public, left reeling by an economic crisis blamed in large part on corporate bad behaviour, expect ever higher standards of corporate responsibility from their banks.
GlobeScan’s most recent opinion tracking suggests that while the Spanish—and global citizens in general—feel that companies have extensive responsibilities to society, they do not believe that banks, often seen as the sector with most to blame for the world’s continuing economic problems, are meeting those responsibilities. Ratings of the banks’ approach to corporate responsibility were falling from already low levels by 2003, and this fall has accelerated through the crisis, with attitudes in Spain worsening even more rapidly than those in many other countries, as the extent of the financial sector’s involvement in the crisis—and particularly the role of Spain’s poorly regulated cajas—has become apparent.
However, the proportion of people in Spain who expect companies to meet certain social and environmental standards has risen throughout the crisis. This creates a difficult situation for bankers and policymakers alike. Banks’ focus in current circumstances is likely to be on survival rather than meeting these broad social expectations. Governments, meanwhile, are already committed to the politically unpopular but economically necessary strategy of propping up the institutions blamed for the crisis in the first place, and may find themselves courting public resentment if they use taxpayers’ funds to guarantee an industry that is widely considered to flout social and corporate norms.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
In the immediate aftermath of the US sub-prime mortgage scandal and subsequent banking collapse, many politicians around the world were keen to characterize the crisis as one that began in the USA. At the time, this often played into a widely accepted anti-American narrative in the years following the invasion of Iraq. Yet three years on, with the future looking ever more uncertain and America a relative economic bright spot, opinion has softened towards the USA and hardened towards the sector that has become synonymous with economic catastrophe: banking.
In all but one of the ten nations surveyed by GlobeScan both in 2009 and 2012, the proportion who blame the USA for the crisis has fallen, sometimes by large margins. Americans themselves are among those least likely to point the finger at the USA.
In contrast, with many feeling that the financial sector has failed to take the opportunity to embrace reform and cultural change, the opinion that banks and other financial institutions are to blame for the crisis has become more common in the last three years. This is particularly the case in the Western countries surveyed, with 32% of Britons, 41% of Germans, and 23% of Canadians now blaming the banks for the crisis. And with malpractice allegations, liquidity crises, stubbornly low levels of consumer lending, and the prospect of huge Eurozone losses continuing to dog the sector, it seems unlikely that banking’s reputation will improve any time soon, whether or not economic recovery is forthcoming.
While national governments are still the most-cited culprit in the crisis, the proportion mentioning them as being to blame has also fallen sharply in the past three years, from 29% to 22%. The global nature of the present malaise is increasingly apparent, and this may be causing citizens to re-evaluate the degree to which their own country’s economic policies are at fault. Equally telling, perhaps, is the rise in the proportion saying they do not know who is at fault for the crisis, from 10% to 15% over the past three years. The crisis continues, but for many its roots are less clear than they were. To avoid further waves of public censure, the institutions that many hold responsible for their economic woes must be the ones to work together and find a way forwards.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Three weeks ago, our featured finding looked at the despair and anger in Greece, the hardest-hit of Europe’s crisis stricken countries. This week, we look at the situation in Germany, the economic engine at the heart of Europe—a fellow Eurozone nation, but one facing very different challenges.
Germans’ faith in their institutions, for one thing, seems to be fairly resilient. In 2012, 38 percent of people say they trust their national government to operate in the best interest of society, less than for national and global companies (48% and 41% respectively) or the press (42%). German levels of trust in these institutions are thus higher than those of fellow Eurozone members Spain and France. If institutional trust has remained more robust in Germany since the crisis, it is hard not to conclude that a renewed sense of national self-confidence emerging from Germany’s seeming economic resilience, its government’s hardline position towards Europe’s debtor states, and its newly assertive European leadership position have all been factors.
Nonetheless, as in other developed economies, optimism about the long term is in short supply—when people were asked this year if they thought their children and grandchildren would have a better quality of life, fewer than three in ten Germans (28%) agreed, down eight points since 2007. Yet unlike Greece, just 25 percent feel things have become worse economically in the two decades since reunification, and only 27 percent feel society has become less equal and less healthy: 37 percent of Germans feel things have got better for both measures. Reflecting these levels of social and economic satisfaction, 35 percent of Germans—roughly the global average—believe that the rich deserve their wealth. This has risen six points since 2009.
A sense of vindication of Germany’s economic and social model is likely to be a key factor behind these figures, even if its current mini-boom is less spectacular than Greece’s bust. The challenge for German policy makers will be to maintain the level of social and economic cohesion in the face of the growing storm outside the country’s borders; for investors, the challenge will be to hold their nerve.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)