Global Leadership: Forces of Good or Ill?

The BRICS summit kicks off in the Russian city of Kazan today, marking the first of its kind since Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates joined the namesake members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in expanding the group. While Saudi Arabia has been invited to join too, it has not formally done so yet. The bloc’s growing influence as a global economic and political player is increasingly being recognised as a counterweight to the G7 on the international stage.

Data from a recent Ipsos survey of some 23,800 adults across 31 countries shows that people are generally skeptical of countries trying to use their influence abroad. In the cases of Russia and Iran, respondents were particularly likely to think that these two countries use their influence mostly for bad purposes around the world. This view has become more widespread since 2019. Now, only one in ten respondents say that Russia or Iran mainly use their influence for good.

Views on China are slightly more mixed, with three in ten saying the country uses its influence abroad for bad purposes, while a similar share considers the country’s foreign policy to have both positive and negative impacts. Perceptions of China have declined by 10 percentage points between the two survey waves.

As this chart shows, India is perceived somewhat better internationally than its aforementioned BRICS counterparts, with a lower 12 percent of respondents stating that it uses its influence mostly for bad. Three in ten respondents even said that the country does not use its influence at all. Meanwhile, pending group member Saudi Arabia saw its image improve marginally.

The United States, a key player in the G7, is also viewed with skepticism. It had the highest share of respondents stating that it uses its influence abroad for both good and bad, at 36 percent. Among U.S. respondents, 32 percent agreed with this statement. In South Korea, this rose to 50 percent. Of the 31 countries polled, the populations with the worst views of the U.S. were Indonesia and Turkey, where 36 percent and 33 percent, respectively, said the U.S. used its influence mostly for bad. The U.S. and Israel had the highest share of people saying the country used its influence for good (34 percent, 31 percent).

While this survey is extensive and informative, this data only captures part of the picture as some world regions are underrepresented. For example, South Africa was the only country surveyed in Africa.