Citizens of some of the world’s richest, most democratic nations are questioning whether their countries are really governed in accordance with the public will, according to the latest GlobeScan tracking.
In 2011, GlobeScan asked citizens to say whether they considered that their country was “governed by the will of the people.” With many of the countries also surveyed back in 2002, the findings show how perceptions have shifted over nearly a decade.
They reveal that there have been significant decreases in four of the world’s biggest economies—Germany, Japan, the UK and the USA—in the proportions who believe that the will of the people governs their country. Proportions who believe this have fallen from 32% to 21% in Germany, 44% to 29% in the USA, 27% to 21% in the UK, and 15% to 4% in Japan—the lowest proportion in the survey.
Despite unrest about alleged vote-rigging in recent parliamentary elections, Russia is one of the few countries where the number of citizens satisfied with the government’s responsiveness to public opinion has increased over the decade—still, fewer than one in five Russians (19%, up from 12%) believes that the country is governed by the will of the people.
With negative perceptions of public power more common in the world’s major democracies than in China (where 47% believe the country is governed by the will of the people), it seems that elections in themselves may no longer be sufficient to create a strong sense of popular sovereignty.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 2, 2011
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
The last year has seen an increased profile for activism of all types. Sometimes this has manifested against the practices of corporations (such as the ongoing Occupy movement) while at others the targets are governments, as with the Arab Spring and Wikipedia’s online protest against proposed US anti-piracy legislation.
GlobeScan and SustainAbility recently polled an international panel of experts in sustainability on what they considered the most effective activist tactics to be. As the chart above shows, the panel (drawn from businesses, NGOs, government and academia) rated tactics that focus on key business value drivers as the most effective in influencing corporate behaviour: product boycotts (or on the flip-side, preferential purchasing) for their impact on sales and shareholder activism for its effect on access to capital. The most confrontational tactic – civil disobedience – is seen as the least effective by some distance, while the more collaborative method of dialogue with companies is rated the second-least effective.
With experts also rating socially responsible investors – a group in a particularly strong position to shape companies’ business value drivers – as the most important audience for businesses and government to pay attention to, the pressure on companies to respond to different agendas as they move towards sustainability looks likely to increase.
Finding from The 2011 GlobeScan/SustainAbility Survey
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Government leaders have fallen well behind leaders of NGOs, corporations, and multilateral organizations in advancing the sustainability agenda ahead of the Rio+20 Summit, according to GlobeScan and SustainAbility’s recent survey of experts in the field. GlobeScan and SustainAbility surveyed over 500 sustainability experts from across 60+ countries on the sustainability performance of key players at the Rio+20 Summit. With experts giving high marks to NGO leaders on advancing the sustainability agenda, middling ratings to corporate leaders and leaders of multilateral … “Ahead of Rio+20, governments on back foot”
Perceptions of how well the corporate world as a whole is living up to public expectations around its social and environmental responsibility have improved in the latest wave of GlobeScan tracking, for the first time in ten years.
At the start of the last decade, in the wake of Enron and a number of other major corporate scandals, GlobeScan recorded a sharp decline in the degree to which people around the world saw a range of industries as living up to these responsibilities. At the same time, public expectations of companies across a range of different social and environmental responsibilities rose, creating a large gap between perceived corporate performance and public expectations around CSR. Despite an ever-increasing focus on environmental and social goals among corporations in the decade since, this gap had persisted – and indeed, continued to widen.
However, this year’s slight increase in perceived corporate CSR performance suggests that the responsible business message may, perhaps, be starting to get through – although in some key countries such as the USA, no improvement is apparent. A continued focus by corporations on relevant and coherent themes in their CSR messaging, a judicious use of corporate brands to unify initiatives, an understanding of how to use new online communication channels, and appropriate partnerships with NGOs and government will all be required if this improvement is to continue.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2011
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Public demand for increased regulation is markedly higher in industrialised nations than in emerging economies, the latest GlobeScan Radar data show.
Respondents across 20 countries were asked to say whether they thought there was not enough, the right amount, or too much regulation across eight industry sectors.
North America, northern Europe and Australia all emerge as regions where demand for regulation across the board is high. China is the only emerging economy which shares this perspective—perhaps an indication of the widespread assumption that government playing a central role in the economy. High demand for more regulation in the USA is clearly at variance with current political rhetoric that demands less ‘big government’. Those in developing nations in Africa and Latin America, in contrast, seem to prefer a light touch approach to regulation while their economies develop.
The findings also reveal that it is often the sector that is critical to the local economy that faces highest public expectations for tight regulation—for instance, the mining sector in Chile (particularly after the recent incident when miners were trapped underground for several months), the oil industry in the USA or the banking sector in the UK. Companies in the sectors in question can expect to come under significant pressure and scrutiny from government and other stakeholders in these key countries to ensure they meet public demands to operate responsibly.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 2, 2010
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Fact Sheet for the BSR/GlobeScan State of Sustainable Business Poll 2009, released at the BSR Conference 2009
Full Report of the BSR/GlobeScan State of Sustainable Business Poll 2009, released at the BSR Conference 2009