New Delhi: India leads in support for autocracy and military rule among surveyed nations, according to a Pew survey, released on February 28.
The report is titled ‘Representative Democracy Remains A Popular Ideal, but People Around the World Are Critical of How It’s Working’. It asked respondents in 24 countries about different forms of governance, including representative democracy, direct democracy, autocracy, technocracy and military rule.
Support for autocracy, military rule
Sixty-seven per cent of Indians surveyed express support for autocracy, according to data from Pew Research. In 2017, it stood at 55%.
India stands out with the highest percentage of people endorsing autocracy among the countries surveyed by Pew. In comparison, Kenya has 52% of supporters for autocracy, while Indonesia has 51%.
Respondents were asked to consider a system in which a strong leader is free to make decisions without interference from a representative body or independent judiciary.
Overall, there was a broad opposition to autocracy from most countries surveyed including the US (26%), Canada (19%), and the UK (13%), among others.
The survey also added that countries with a higher GDP per capita tend to have fewer people who think rule by a strong leader is a good way to govern.
Military rule also has a huge support in India – the highest among all nations – with 72% embracing it, the survey found.
However, in over half of the countries surveyed, majorities believe it would be a very bad way to govern, showed the survey.
The survey suggested that people with lower incomes are more accepting of the idea of a strong leader whose power goes unchecked. And those with less education are more inclined to view autocracy favourably compared to their more educated counterparts.
The report, however, didn’t specify which countries were included in these categories.
Also read: Are We Headed for an Open Autocracy?
Support for technocracy goes up in India
Since 2017, the number of technocracy supporters has gone up in most of the countries surveyed.
In a technocratic system, individuals with specialised knowledge and expertise in areas such as science, technology, economics, or engineering are appointed or selected to govern or lead, based on their qualifications and competency.
According to the survey, this shift could be tied, at least in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2020, many have turned to scientists and medical professionals for their expertise on how to manage the crisis.
In India, support for technocracy has gone up to 82% in 2023 from 65% in 2017.
Do elected officials care what people like them think?
Sweden is the only country surveyed where a majority (56%) of people believe that elected officials care what people like them think.
In India, 55% of those surveyed believed that elected officials don’t care what people like them think.
In every country surveyed, individuals who say their country’s economic situation is good are more inclined to believe that most elected officials care about people like them, compared to those who perceive the economic situation negatively.
What if more elected officials were women?
In India, 68% of those surveyed said the policies in their country would improve if more elected officials were women. This figure stands as the highest percentage among the countries surveyed, closely followed by Brazil and Nigeria, both at 62%.
In September 2023, India introduced a gender quota to approve a third of seats for women in parliament.
The Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, that seeks to provide 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies. Most opposition parties supported the Bill in principle but questioned the delimitation clause tied to the legislation, which would lead to its implementation not before 2029.
Also read: India, Globally: A Fortnightly Highlight of How the World Is Watching Our Democracy
The Pew Survey by Taniya Roy on Scribd
The most favourable leaders
The survey also found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi emerge as the most favourable leaders across the world.
Of the 24 national leaders polled across the world, Modi has a 79% favourability rating, the third highest in the world after Indonesian president Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo (89%) and Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (82%), said the survey.
Gandhi’s rating (62%) is the second-highest among all opposition leaders surveyed globally. The most favourable opposition leader is Indonesia’s Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (68%), the survey found. Note that the survey posed the “favourability” question exclusively to individuals from the opposition leader’s respective country.
The survey studied the favourability ratings of 33 opposition leaders across the 24 countries. Three of them were from India.
As earlier mentioned, 62% of Indians surveyed are in favour of Gandhi, followed by Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (42%) and Mallikarjun Kharge (46%), according to the survey.
With respect to political parties, 73% of respondents held a favourable view of the BJP, while 60% viewed the Congress favourably.
For non-US data, the Pew Survey report relies on nationally representative surveys conducted among 27,285 adults from February 20 to May 22, 2023. Phone surveys were conducted with adults in Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Face-to-face surveys were conducted in Hungary, Poland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
