Recent Ipsos survey provides insight in numbers
According to a recent survey by the polling firm Ipsos, an average of 60 per cent of people between the ages of 18 and 64 believe that their governments are heading down the wrong path.
The survey conducted back in September asked over 18,000 people in 25 different countries whether they believe that their country is going on the right path. The poll does not allow follow up questions to describe their digression.
The most pessimistic countries were France, Brazil, and Mexico (all of them embedded in political turmoil). The most optimistic countries were China, India, and Saudi Arabia which are experiencing more comfortable economic growth.
The poll also indicates significant pessimism among many European countries. According to Ipsos, 88 per cent of the people in France believe that their government is heading down the wrong path. Additionally, 82 per cent of people in Spain and 83 per cent in Italy hold a similar pessimistic perspective.
“…isolated, helpless, victims of powerful forces they can neither understand or influence…”
France, where 55 per cent of the respondents believe that terrorism is among their three biggest concerns, has experienced the growing popularity of the extreme right-wing National Front party. The National Front has gained a great deal of momentum through its anti-European and anti-immigrant rhetoric, especially with recent terrorist attacks in Bastille and Paris. According to The Guardian, they gained four per cent of the vote in 2007, but are now polling at 24 per cent across Europe and 27 per cent in France.
In Spain and Italy, the radical right’s influence has lost much of its momentum, while parties that lean much more towards the left have gained momentum. In the former, right wing parties like Lega Nord and the National Alliance have lost ground, while the left-leaning Five Star Movement won 25 per cent of the vote in the recent 2015 elections. The latter is currently experiencing a 35 per cent split between the anti-establishment and anti-austerity political party Podemos, and the right-wing anti-corruption Citizens-Party.
This survey and the political atmosphere can be attributed to the recent financial crisis and continuous economic inequality throughout much of the world.
In a June interview with Truthout, political theorist and activist Noam Chomsky pointed out that, “The state-corporate programs of the past 35 or so years have had devastating effects on the majority of the population, with stagnation, decline and sharply enhanced inequality being the most direct outcomes.” Which in consequence, “has created fear and has left people feeling isolated, helpless, victims of powerful forces they can neither understand or influence.”
“This is what defines the neoliberalism period, not only in the U.S. but in Europe and elsewhere,” explained Chomsky.
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