Time of the Tough Guys

Excerpts adapted from Newsweek

Time of the Tough Guys

By Jonathan Tepperman

A new poll taken in 20 countries released exclusively to NEWSWEEK revealed that bosses of what are often cast as the biggest, baddest authoritarian states - China and Russia - are among the planet's most trusted officials. The world's most popular leaders (well, the LEAST UNPOPULAR, anyhow): Hu Jintao, Valdimir Putin and Gordon Brown - one democrat and two dictators were ranked based on a survey where 28%, 30% and 32% of residents of 19 countries answered "a lot" when asked how much confidence they have in each leader to "do the right thing regarding world affairs". Bush received a rating of 25%, just 3% ahead of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Has the tide turned on democracy?

Is autocracy the new in?

To be fair, virtually all leader's standing slipped slightly in the past year. What explains this universal vote of no confidence? The short answer is a serious bout of global pessimism: most people polled seem very unhappy about the state of the world. Ivo Daddlder, a former staffer on the National Security Council suggests that these numbers are simply a "general reflection of how people feel about their own conditions".

Americans for example, were extremely negative giving all leaders in the survey a confidence rating of just 29% and their own leader 42%. In contrast, the Chinese gave high ratings 93% to their leader, 75% to Putin and even 41% to Bush. Steven Hull explains that their generosity by arguing that "when you are on the rise, there's an upbeat feeling that leads to a sunnier disposition. The Chinese feel that life is working for them".

It's nonetheless remarkable to see confidence ratings for major world figures cluster within such a narrow and low band. This supports the cliche that all problems are now global and there's often little that individual governments can do about them. Festering conflicts like acute food and oil shortage, global warming, wars, famines, natural disasters, create scary headlines everywhere. Rapid advancement in technology - high speed internet connections, virtual platforms and the media also spread planetary crises of confidence.

Still, the widespread pessimism doesn't explain the relatively high scores enjoyed by the autocrats. The fact that they did so well in their home countries isn't surprising. Government control of the media is tight in both Russia andChina and Putin and Hu are able to use the full machinery of the state to carefully groom their images. The economies of both states are booming, nationalism is oin the rise and citizens feel grateful to their national chiefs for restoring their pride and place in the world.

What is harder to grasp is why Hu and Putin also scored higher ratings in countries other than their own - better than any democrat with the exception of Brown. One suggestion is that this owes in part to dumb luck. Russia for e.g. sits on huge carbon reserves at a time when oil and gas prices are skyrocketing. This unprecedented generation and accumulation of wealth helps explain the autocrats' confidence rating abroad.

Another contributing factor include the Iraq War which added damage to the US style democracy promotion and the result in a global slide in the public's faith in democracy as a system. Adding to the fuel is autocratic leaders like Putin who turned himself into a poster boy ,an appealing icon for all those who object the perceived arrogance of Washington and its allies; and Hu whose country lauched generous aid programs, maintained a firm commitment to nonintervention and state sovereignity and the protrayal of its growth as nonthreatening, peaceful rise.

If all these sounds like bad news for the West, at least, one hope lies with Gordon Brown who happens to stake his reputation on finding new, cooperative solutions to a range of global ills such as transational problems, HIV/Aids, climate change, African development etc. The British PM's global standing suggests a keen worldwide appetite for a politician who will act on a range of present dangers and one who will take on the world's problems and help the planet through its multiple messes.

And who would that be? The spotlight might be on the next American president, hopefully the right person with a right message - say, a certain young black senator who preaches a gospel of hope, or his colleague from Arizona who promised to "restore the world's faith"? The world is now waiting.