Morning Consult Counter/Consensus: Global Political Briefing, September 5, 2024

1. Global Soft Power Trends (Consensus)

Walk softly. A country’s image abroad can have an impact on everything from its foreign policy efficacy to its economic clout. Research into how a country’s standing in a given market can affect its exports to that market suggests the effects can be huge. Tourism, another industry that depends heavily on overseas demand, is analogous: A number of studies have shown close connections between a country’s image abroad and tourists’ desire to visit. 

By measuring public opinion about a given country or organization in up to 42 peer countries, we created a measure of soft power using our global country favorability data to see who is winning the world’s hearts and minds. Shifts in soft power closely track geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics, such as the decline of U.S. and E.U. soft power after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict, or China’s relative popularity in Africa and Latin America. 

The European Union has the most soft power of any major geopolitical actor, while the United States recently got knocked out of second place by Brazil following anger surrounding U.S. policies toward Israel amid the current conflict. Russia’s global image was severely damaged following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but has been steadily recovering. China has also been making modest gains, recently surpassing India for the first time in two years.

Beyond these trends, we also rank countries and organizations based on how they fare. Stay tuned for the launch of Morning Consult’s Soft Power Rankings on September 10 to get access to the ranking and trends going forward. 

2. Russia (Counter)

Family values, Russia style. Last October, Russian authorities in a number of provinces began clamping down on abortion access, ostensibly to combat demographic decline. Putin eschewed a total ban for practical reasons, but spoke favorably of the Orthodox church’s fight for life and against abortion, encouraging women to carry children to term. 

In other data series we track in Russia, we have seen public opinion shift to align with official government positions, such as views of “enemy” countries among Russians turning overwhelmingly negative after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, or even attitudes on respect for intellectual property shifting as legal changes condoned IP theft from such countries. But not in the case of abortion. Since January, there has been virtually no change in Russians’ support for abortion access. 

Russia’s soviet history meant many decades of easy access to abortion and its relative de-stigmatization, in contrast to other issues often lumped in with abortion in the West, like LGBTQ+ rights. Because of this, Russian public opinion on abortion access looks rather Western, with 58% of Russians supporting access. This puts them between the United States and Canada. 

We can expect additional attempts by both national and local governments in Russia to restrict abortion access on the margins. Putin’s cautious avoidance of an outright ban makes it unlikely that Russian women will engage in widespread political action on the issue. However, the fairly high acceptance of the practice, coupled with the record use of less drastic options like contraception, also makes it unlikely that Russia’s demographic woes will end anytime soon. 

3. Thailand (Consensus)

Prime minister for a day. Newly seated Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is off to a good start following the court-mandated departure of her predecessor. Two weeks into her administration, Paetongtarn’s net approval rating among Thai adults is already nearing the upper end of Srettha’s, and is well above that of the latter’s predecessor, Prayut Chan-o-cha (first chart below). Our country trajectory metric — which reports the net share of Thai adults who say their country is headed in the right direction — is similarly on track for a rebound (second chart below).

But there is still work to be done. While the Thai public soured on Srettha in the run-up to his departure, the share of Thai adults who saw their country moving in the right direction generally outpaced his approval rating over the course of his administration. This helps explain Paetongtarn’s preference for policy continuity: She has indicated she will continue her predecessor’s flagship “digital wallet” scheme, and will now distribute some of the allocated funds in cold hard cash, which could broaden its accessibility. In turn, we expect this to sustain a near-term boost in Thailand’s country trajectory metric and engender further goodwill toward Paetongtarn.

Where the rubber hits the road, however, is cost and financing: The scheme has widely been touted as fiscally irresponsible and poses inflationary risks. While the plan may juice near-term growth (which has recently been anemic), knock-on effects arising from perceived profligate spending could be net-negative for markets, which are already under stress.

At present, the most likely outcome is a near-term boost for Paetongtarn’s own approval rating — as of April 2024, nearly 70% of Thais approve of the digital wallet plan — with longer-term risks of trend reversal anticipated should the desired economic effects not materialize.

4. Japan (Consensus)

Three’s company. Much has been made of Japanese Prime Minister Kishida’s abysmal political fortunes: Kishida is poised to step down as Liberal Democratic Party President this month following a recent fundraising scandal and other perceived shortcomings, with the media routinely citing Kishida’s rock-bottom approval numbers in the interim. To be sure, Kishida could be doing better: His net approval rating is currently hovering near the lower end of its range, and for months has been pinned below the nadir of the two most recent prime ministers to precede him (Abe and Suga).

A cross-country perspective nevertheless offers a slightly different view on things: Kishida is no Milei or Modi, but relative to his European peers, he sits alongside France’s Macron and Germany’s Scholz following relatively disastrous elections in both countries (French parliamentary elections and German local elections). And while Japan has recently seen a slate of prime ministers move in and out of office, only two have seen longer tenures than Kishida in the past 25 years.

The comparison to Scholz and Macron is not necessarily flattering to Kishida, but it places him within a broader context: It’s been a tough year for incumbents. A pandemic hangover characterized by sticky inflation in many countries — and in Japan’s case exacerbated by the Yen’s global weakness — created powerful headwinds. Idiosyncratic events, like the revelations linking Kishida to a fundraising scandal involving the Unification Church, didn’t help. As the global election supercycle draws to a close, Kishida remains one of many beleaguered leaders in both economically and geopolitically important markets that are poised to see ongoing instability heading into 2025. 

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