I mean somewhere closer to 100% is generally a decent number? You’re not going to hit 100% by any respect, but 46% of a population trusting a government is shit.
I mean somewhere closer to 100% is generally a decent number? You’re not going to hit 100% by any respect, but 46% of a population trusting a government is shit.
So in the OECD the country with the highest high or moderately high trust in governments is Switzerland, by a long way at 60%. Next is Luxembourg at 55% and Mexico at 50. Then there’s us, Canada and Belgium at around 47%
Numbers near 100% are absurd.
I did a very quick search and Finland was hitting 77% at certain points, Luxembourg at one point had 82%, Switzerland had 83.2% in only 2021
the fact that the numbers across the board are so low at the point is exactly the point. People across the world have no trust in their government.
Unfortunately for them, by then it will have all been spunked on Christian Porter’s legal fees.
Yeah but is that because political corruption has increased globally, or is it just part of broader trend of distrust in institutions overall?
It’s the general trend of politicians doing shit that brings everything they touch into disrepute. That stems from the acceptance of political donations, corruption, lack of checks and a whole raft of other things. I mean it’s not that hard to see the two worst case scenarios in terms of where politics can go. You have the North Koreans with their ultra-authoritarian regime and then you have the US with all the corruption and shit that’s happening there. The fact that the Supreme Court is actually allowed to accept presents from individuals in cases they’ve ruled on after the fact, is absolutely mental… Yes they’re not politicians in the traditional sense, but I mean, they are…
Youre saying that governments in all the developed countries are so much more corrupt than they used to be that they bring all other institutions into disrepute?
Are you sure you’re not just reading a bunch of factoids on the internet about judges in America and that might be influencing your feeling? And that that might the a big part of the problem around the globe?
Does anyone here have any experience with running/working on an independent campaign?
So you’re focusing on corrupt, depsite the fact that i’ve corrected myself and mentioned it’s not just corruption. But do you not see a general trend in world politics? The individuals that are getting in, are getting in based on the Trump play book. They’re promising to drain the swamp, fix their countries, kick out the migrants that are ruining everything. People are dissatisfied with their current way of living. You have a Libertarian currently running Argentina. A nutjob that could very well be the President of the US. The UK left the EU on the same premise as the above. Netherlands is now run by a right wing government, as is Slovakia and Austria. France only saved Macron’s arse when the far left, left, centre and centre right made the weirdest possible coalition, did the maths and made sure the most likely candidate that wasn’t far right stood in each electorate.
The point stands that populist figures are on the rise, and it’s because people are tired of politicians. The populists are using a myriad of bullshit to get in, they’re using lies and disinformation, but they’re also relying on a system that’s generally seen to have failed anyone that isn’t ridiculously rich.
I don’t think the actual level of corruption and cronyism has changed all that much, but the level of visibility and brazenness has increased dramatically as the usefulness of the press as a watchdog/arbiter of behaviour has vanished as they flail around trying to survive, coupled with the ease with which social media can be used by bad actors to influence opinion plays a huge role too.
Hmm ok. I think you’re drawing a link between the rise of populism and a kind of class warfare, that I’m not totally convinced is that simple.
I don’t see:
Sick of system that benefits rich people → wish for politics where people are open and honest about their interests → vote for Trump.
There is a level of disenfranchisement from society and misinformation on the internet and Fox that are absolutely major factors. And low socioeconomic context + lack of education tends to equal populist. But I’m not sure it’s a resentment of the wealthy that’s driving populism, even though inequality is a major underlying factor. I do think it’s more about values.
Fwiw trying to force strange rules about property ownership on MPs and senators, that don’t reflect the standards we have for the rest of society, arent really shown to improve anything and are really just the result of a perceived lack of trust in government, sounds kinda populist-ish to me.
Who the fuck are the 68% that trust the police! I want names!
Good to see Littleman is still with us.
You only need to look at where politicians who have control over policies go after they leave parliament to see how much corruption there is.
True in some cases.
But also, at one level it’s kind of natural. If your major knowledge base and skill set is how government works, it makes a certain kind of sense.
Which is why I’d prefer ex-MPs actually have a much better post-parliamentary pension, and are barred from more types of employment and engagement. But I suspect not many people want ex-MPs to get paid more.
It’s quite an assumption that ex-MPs wouldn’t just take a cushy, well-paid post-politics job regardless of how much pension you gave.
This is one unintended consequence of the change made 20 years ago (fuck I feel old) to do away with the lifelong pension for pollies that entered from the 2004 election onwards. It used to be that they could retire on 70% of their past 3 years’ salary, and then go and do work on charities and whatnot knowing they never needed to really work another day in their lives. For those other than the interminably greedy that was great.
On the trust in politics thing, if the media only ever tells you bad politicians are and how they’re stupid and not paying attention to the needs of people, and at the same time never actually digs into policy to see if it makes any sense, only to tell you if there are winners and losers, there’s no incentive for politicians to enact difficult policies. Why do the hard work? At the same time, there’s no punishment for a venal brand of politics that focuses only on winning the daily news cycle.
So it’s a matter of incentives. Good politicians do actually do good work, but the media only wants to write about the horserace and the horseshit, and the shitheads still do shithead stuff but if they’re “landing a punch” they “win the day”.
It’s fucked.
Oh several would try, hence the rest of my post.
We also have several decades of the old pension; I wonder if anyone’s done a study of the post-Parliament employment outcomes.
I would suggest politicians need to stop focusing on the negatives just as much though. Politics everywhere is now 90% they’re going to screw up with what they want, rather than “I don’t agree, this is what i’d do instead.” Granted it’s right wing politics, but left wing politics isn’t getting the right message across either. Just look at The Voice
Literally every law about employment would be a conflict of interest then. The economy isn’t neutral and it’s impossible to be unbiased about it.