Chart Reveals Countries That Trust Their Government the Most and Least

The 2017 edition of OECD’s Government At A Glance report reveals confidence in government has faltered badly in some countries and is higher than expected in others.

Statista, a German-based statistical database firm, provides market research and business intelligence from statistics gathered from sources like OECD. Niall McCarthy of the organization provided some context on the OECD government report:

 The level of confidence in a country’s government is generally determined by whether people think their government is reliable, if it can protect its citizens from risk and whether or not it is capable of effectively delivering public services.”

Given that perspective, which countries do you think would have the highest results? Here are the top five, with the percentage of trust by their citizens: India, 73; Canada, 62; Turkey, 58; Russia, 58; and Germany, 55.

These five are the only countries with over 50 percent trust from their people. India, the leader of the pack, recently surprised its people by making bank notes illegal. Oddly enough, two of them (Turkey and Russia) are viewed as having authoritarian regimes and Germany is in the midst of a serious migrant crisis.

If the survey was taken again right now, do you think the results would change, or are the citizens in these countries just hapless dupes?

In the next grouping, those countries under 50 percent but higher than 33 percent (one-third) are these four: South Africa, 48; Australia, 45; The United Kingdom, 41; and Japan, 36.

Among the surprises here is South Africa, where part of the country is experiencing serious racial upheaval as descendants of the Dutch white settlers are being murdered and having their property confiscated. The UK is undergoing major turmoil with the Brexit vote to leave the European Union and an ongoing string of radical Islamic terror attacks.

Wait, where’s Uncle Sam? The good old USA, the Red, White and Blue?

Not surprisingly, we made the bottom six that were under one-third. Leading that pack at 30 percent were the United States and Spain. France was right on their heels at 28, with Brazil trailing at 26 and South Korea limping along at 24.

That’s five of the losers, so which country came in dead last?

No surprise here. Greece somehow managed to score 13 percent despite its recent economic and political upheaval. It’s hard to believe anyone there has any level of trust at all in government.

In recent years, Greece has had to deal with multiple elections, bank shutdowns, defaulting, the introduction of capital controls and being on the frontline of the European migration crisis.”

The low American score bears out the fact that voters in 2016 came to the polls to register their dissatisfaction with the direction in which the country was headed. As a result, Donald Trump was able to reach the highest political office in the land in his first-ever try in politics.

By promising to “drain the swamp” and “Make American Great Again,” President Trump tapped into the massive distrust more than two-thirds of Americans have in their federal government.

As he scales back burdensome regulations and encourages investment in America, President Trump will regain some of the trust of the American people. But as Congress continues its inability to address the issues Americans really care about (health care, tax reform, border security, immigration), trust in both major political parties will continue to deteriorate.

Source: ZeroHedge