May30

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Approval Ratings Are a Mystery, Worldwide (Part II)

Not a lot of political news in the U.S., thanks to the holiday, so let's remain on the foreign beat. Last week, we had an item running down Morning Consult's approval ratings for various world leaders. Since then, they have issued an updated list. Here it is:

The results aren't all that different from the previous entry. Joe Biden moved down a slot, but all the leaders' numbers are roughly the same. Morning Consult also added Yoon Seok-youl of South Korea and Petr Fiala of Czech Republic, both of whom elevate France's Emmanuel Macron out of the basement. The new additions are deeply underwater, as are most world leaders, reiterating the point we made last time that it's (apparently) very difficult to be a popular leader in the 21st century.

Again on top by a mile, and defying the overall trend, is Narendra Modi. We remain mystified by this, but luckily, several readers wrote in to enlighten us. Here are some of those responses:

• A.T. in Seattle, WA: As someone who follows Indian politics to a degree, it seems that Narendra Modi's popularity is largely based on a few factors.
  
  First, is that he has had a lot of socioeconomic successes, from electrification to toilets, there has been a major improvement in India since he came into office. Indian GDP growth is among the best in the world, and India seems likely to benefit from businesses looking to diversify away from China. Anecdotally, I myself visited Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, last month after a 10-year absence, my last trip being in spring 2013, also to the same area, and I can say that I did notice a significant quality-of-life improvement overall.
  
  Second, is that he is seen as being successful on the international stage, India is viewed as a rising power, integral to world affairs, especially as many of its rivals seem to be stumbling. Not all of this is due to Modi, but he has positioned himself well to reap the benefits.
  
  Third, is that the political opposition to Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fractured and comparatively weak, rife with issues of nepotism and corruption. Even with its recent defeat in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, the BJP is still seen to be in the driver's seat with regards to the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 (the elections for the lower house of the Indian parliament).
  
  Fourth, is that Modi's stances on Indian cultural issues are very popular among many Hindus, who make up about 80% of the population of India, particularly in regions of North, Central and West India, regions heavily affected by Mughal and British rule. Hindu identity is very important to a large percentage of Indians (according to Pew, about 64% of Hindus feel it is necessary to be Hindu to be truly Indian).
  
  Fifth, is that Modi is personally viewed favorably by a large percentage of Indians, he is seen as largely self-made, rising from tea seller to prime minister (compared to Rahul Gandhi, who is seen as only being where he is due to his lineage), and is considered hard working and honest (so far he has avoided being personally implicated in corruption scandals). Similar to how Abraham Lincoln earned a reputation as honest and having risen from "Log Cabin" roots.
  
  This personal aspect has also allowed Modi to avoid any backlash from any of his policy failures, such as currency demonetization or the COVID response, since the public still gives him credit for effort.
  
  As a result of these factors, his popularity has remained quite high throughout his time as PM, and likely will ensure that the BJP retains majority control after the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
  
  
• S.P.B. in Maharashtra, India: In all the years I have been following politics, I always envied U.S. politics because how much data is available to analyze. Also the accuracy of pollsters. Indian politics has been not so, for the lack of a better word, lucky. Our pollsters have been generally inaccurate, and even when they have been right, their methodology has been pretty suspect.
  
  With that said, the polls about Narendra Modi are probably accurate. To give you a background, Modi belongs to a nationalist party, BJP. Policy-wise they are quite socially conservative and economically liberal. The main criticism of the party has been its fascist tendencies. Narendra Modi was chief minister of a fairly prosperous state of Gujarat. During his stint as chief minister, he arguably led a corruption-free government. He managed to transplant that clean image to national level and come to power on the back drop of huge corruption allegations against the previous government in 2014. Since then he has become Kim Jong Un lite. There is no government communication even at local level that shys away from giving him credit. He has a knack of turning disastrous policy decisions to his favor. For example, one of his biggest policy decisions was demonetization of high value currency notes. This was disastrous to the economy, probably took about 2-3 percentage points off the GDP growth for that year, and achieved exactly zero of the policy objectives. However, he has managed to salvage his image out of it. His cabinet doesn't even sneeze without giving him credit. He is everywhere, quite literally. He doesn't shy away from giving himself credit even for most mundane "accomplishments," such as G20 rotational presidency! To add to Modi's aura of invincibility, the largest opposition party Indian National Congress is going through a leadership crisis.
  
  We have a bunch of news channels that make Fox News look like paragon of journalism. They have constant wall-to-wall praise of Modi's government and, oddly, criticism of opposition parties even though they have been out of power for a decade now.
  
  In light of the above factors, Modi's approval rating is not surprising. Also note this rating doesn't always translate to electoral success. In fact Modi's party just lost an important state election. In this election Modi personally campaigned for the state party almost as if he was on the ballot.
  
  Here is a book that explains the Modi effect.
  
  One final note: This kind of approval rating is not unheard of in Indian politics. Indira Gandhi was probably even more popular at her peak. And so was her father, Nehru.
  
  
• L.T. in Vienna, Austria (but from India): Not sure who Morning Consult's local pollsters are, but their understanding of India may be lacking. Worse, like so much of the Indian media and public-facing institutions, they may well be compromised (similar to my current neighbor, Hungary). So, only positive findings for the Dear Leader, a man who is as much of a bully as Viktor Orbán or Donald Trump, and like them, hits back at any criticism.
  
  India is a big and diverse place. Modi has huge support in the "Hindi-speaking cow belt," which does encompass some of the biggest states, which are also by far the least educated. So if they are overrepresented in the sample, it would be like polling Trump's popularity mainly in Texas, Ohio, West Virginia, Wyoming and the Dakotas (my apologies to the good people there).
  
  Outside that belt, Modi's party just lost badly in local elections in Karnataka, a medium sized state in the South, got zero seats in Kerala, another Southern state, and badly lost West Bengal, another medium sized state.
  
  Due to the first-past-the-post system inherited from the Brits, Modi's party has a decent majority in Parliament, but they actually only won little more than 40% of the vote.
  
  To conclude, one can take that 78% approval with a bucketful of salt.
  
  
• J.M. in New York City, NY: Modi has run a half-rockstar/half-ethnic-machine campaign and governance or, put another way, seems to combine the flash, pugnacity, and patronage of a Huey Long with the raw bigotry of a Donald Trump. I only hope, for India, that his fall will be less destructively convulsive than his rise.

Thanks to those who wrote in! We'll run some assessments of other leaders later this week; if anyone cares to comment on any of the 20 or so folks in the list above, and why they're at where they're at, approval-wise, here is the e-mail address. (Z)