The Foreign Service Journal, June 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2013 11 came in at 36 percent approval, and 41 percent of respondents approved of German diplomacy. The poll also asked participants whether they wanted to permanently relocate to another country, and if so, where. The top destinations for reloca- tion were (in descending order) the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Germany. In Liberia, 37 percent of adults polled said they would move to the United States perma- nently if they could. The data used in the report came from face-to-face and telephone interviews with approximately 1,000 randomly selected adults (age 15 and older) in urban and rural areas of 130 countries. For results based on the total samples, one can say with 95-percent confidence that the margin of sampling error ranges from 1.7 to 4.8 percentage points. —Jeff Richards, Editorial Intern TALKING POINTS How the World Sees U.S. Leadership T he latest report from the U.S.- Global Leadership Project, released on March 13, is a decidedly mixed bag. While some regions continue to give the Obama administration high marks for its diplomacy, America’s median global approval rating slipped from 46 to 41 percent over the past year. Still, the United States continues to be held in higher international regard than any other major power. The project, which has conducted surveys in hundreds of countries each year since 2009, is a joint initiative of the Meridian International Center and Gallup. Its purpose is to analyze the factors driving global views of U.S. leadership, create a context for collabo- ration on how to improve those views, and enhance public and private global engagement efforts. Approval of U.S. leadership stands at 70 percent in Africa, by far the highest of any region. Indeed, seven of the 10 countries whose respondents are most positive about America are located on that continent. One notable excep- tion is Egypt, where the U.S. has only a 17-percent approval rating—a percent- age that has remained basically steady ever since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak. But in Libya, another hot spot, the figure stands at 54 percent, the highest anywhere in the Middle East or North Africa. Closer to home, only 40 percent of respondents in Central and South America approve of U.S. leadership. But in Haiti, where Washington played a major role in disbursing relief in the aftermath of the horrific January 2010 earthquake, approval of American lead- ership stands at a whopping 79 percent. In Asia, sentiment toward the United States has remained relatively stable throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, hovering around 37 percent. That figure would be even higher were it not for several countries that have expe- rienced strained relations with the Washington, such as Iran (12 percent), Pakistan (12 percent), the Palestinian Ter- ritories (15 percent), Yemen (18 percent) and Iraq (22 percent). In contrast, Syria has recorded one of the larg- est increases in approval of the United States over the previous year (a jump of 13 points to 29 percent). European approval ratings for U.S. leadership have dropped 11 points since the start of Barack Obama’s presidency, from 47 to 36 percent. The country giv- ing the United States the highest marks is Kosovo, while Russia is at the other end of the spectrum in its assessment. The U.S.-Global Leadership Project also conducted a comparative study, asking participants about the leader- ship Russia, China, the United King- dom and Germany have shown on the world stage. Although Beijing received a higher approval rating than did Wash- ington four years ago, the first time Meridian and Gallup conducted this survey, that is no longer the case. China now stands at just 29 percent. Moscow fared even worse: Only 13 percent of respondents said they approve of Russian leadership. London European approval ratings for U.S. leadership have dropped 11 points since the start of Barack Obama’s presidency, from 47 to 36 percent. Source: U.S. Global Leadership Project