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Politically Active Adults - International
Based on voter turnout, stakeholder engagement for developing regulation, political participation, and civic engagement, the five first world democratic countries with the highest levels of advocacy action among adult voters are the UK, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Estonia.
VOTER TURNOUT
- One way to measure advocacy action among adult voters is by examining the voter turnout rate. A high voter turnout reflects the participation of many citizens in political processes and legitimizes the actions of the government.
- In Belgium, 87.2% voted in 2014.
- In Sweden, 82.6% voted in 2014.
- In South Korea, 77.9% voted in 2017.
- In Israel, 76.1% voted in 2015.
- In New Zealand, 75.7% voted in 2017.
- The remaining five members of the top ten are, respectively, Germany, France, the UK, Canada, and Spain.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT FOR DEVELOPING REGULATION
- Another way to measure advocacy action is through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) "Stakeholder Engagement for Developing Regulations" indicator. This indicator, on a scale from zero to four with four being the highest, measures the level of public engagement in encouraging and creating government action.
- Mexico has an indicator of 3.2.
- The UK has an indicator of 3.1.
- The Slovak Republic has an indicator of 3.0.
- South Korea has an indicator of 2.9.
- Canada has an indicator of 2.9.
- The remaining five members of the top ten are, respectively, Australia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Poland.
POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
- A third way to measure advocacy is through political participation, which encompasses the various ways that the public advocates government action through political parties, protests, donating money, and more. The political participation rankings from the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI) are included below.
- The Czech Republic has a score of 10.
- Estonia has a score of 10.
- Uruguay has a score of 10.
- Costa Rica has a score of 10.
- Taiwan has a score of 9.8.
- The remaining five members of the top ten are, respectively, Lithuania, Slovakia, Chile, Jamaica, and Poland.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
- Lastly, another way to measure advocacy action is through civic engagement. Civic engagement includes the variety of ways in which people further the work of philanthropic organizations and organize themselves in non-government channels.
- Gallup's 2018 Civic Engagement index presents the rankings listed below.
- Indonesia has a score of 59.
- Australia has a score of 59.
- New Zealand has a score of 58.
- The United States has a score of 58.
- Ireland has a score of 56.
- The remaining five members of the top ten are, respectively, the UK, Singapore, Kenya, Myanmar, and Bahrain.
TOP FIVE COUNTRIES
- Based on the previous four categories of measurement, the top five countries for advocacy action among adults are listed below.
- The UK appears in three categories and has an average ranking of 5.3.
- South Korea appears in two categories and has an average ranking of 3.5.
- Australia appears in two categories and has an average ranking of 4.
- New Zealand appears in two categories and has an average ranking of 4.
- Estonia appears in two categories and has an average ranking of 4.5.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
To arrive at our final conclusion of the top five first world democratic countries with high levels of advocacy action among adult voters, your research team began by identifying ways to measure advocacy action. The research request's reference for advocacy refers to this website, which discusses examples of civic engagement, political participation, and voting as advocacy actions. With these categories in mind, we searched for sources from major global research institutions for indexes and rankings of these categories. In the process, we also discovered the OECD's index which is included in the second section.
After gathering the most recent data from credible institutions with four different types of measurements, we compiled the information in an excel sheet to identify the countries that appeared most frequently across the different measurements and ranked the highest. In our final ranking, we prioritized a high frequency across different measurements over a high average ranking because we noticed relatively high variability from year to year within each measurement. Based on this analysis, we arrived at the top five countries that are listed above.