Citizens the world over are expressing deep dissatisfaction with governments and their ability to address the concerns that matter to them. In a world that sometimes feels like it’s spiraling out of control with violent conflict, cost of living crises, climate change, artificial intelligence (AI) threats, pandemic risk, and other challenges, the chasm between citizens’ expectations and governments’ delivery is widening.
This matters. In 2024, more than half the world’s population will elect new governments, that’s some 4.2 billion voters across 65 countries. And those governments that are not seen to be stepping up will feel the consequences.
At the heart of the challenge lies the social contract, the idea popularized by Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes. It preconizes that citizens accept laws and taxes in exchange for things like law and order, a social safety net, and protection from external threats.
In today’s global society, the set of expectations has widened. Citizens now tell us that they expect their governments to manage the cost of living, pandemic preparedness and response, accessible health care, perceived inequalities, and navigate poorly understood threats from new technologies such as AI.
Whether or not you believe these missions should lie within the remit of government, the point is that many citizens expect it. The organization I lead, the Future Investment Initiative Institute, has polled 50,000 citizens in 23 countries, and the findings should be taken by governments and leaders the world over as a stark wake-up call.
Our polling has shown that 70% of people in developed countries say their nation is not doing enough to address inflation and the high cost of living. Two-thirds don’t feel protected by their government when it comes to health care, social services, and crisis response. And 62% in the U.S. say their government is not doing enough to regulate the impact of emerging technology on society.
Governments tend to be staffed by capable, intelligent people many of whom share a deep sense of civic duty. So why are solutions not forthcoming?
The key to understanding the limits of leadership and government failure in this age of adversity is the recognition that many of these problems are global in nature, hugely interconnected, and simply defy the ability of a single nation to tackle them. Climate change is the most obvious example: It’s a global issue, but the costs of inaction will be felt tomorrow, not today, and responsibilities for the crisis are hotly contested.
AI, a subject on everybody’s lips, represents an unknown set of risks and imperfectly understood changes to society and the global economy. Unless governments are aligned amongst themselves on efforts to regulate AI, the risks will simply persist and slip through the cracks, as unscrupulous forces exploit the lack of any meaningful unified regulatory regime.
Similarly, pandemic preparedness, disaster response, and economic management are all global issues that require considered and coordinated global, not local, action.
This is why leaders across the planet need to be able to frame these citizen concerns as global problems and find meaningful collective mechanisms to deliberate and act.
The input of investors, bankers, policymakers, innovators, and businesses is vital to these conversations. The decisions made by value creators, entrepreneurs, and inventors can help find cures for diseases, grow and stabilize the economy, and make breakthroughs that enhance the quality of life. In a world in which Elon Musk’s proposed $56 billion pay deal is bigger than the annual GDP of over half the countries in the world, and the total assets managed by sovereign funds worldwide top $12 trillion, only the most naïve would ignore the relevance of global investors.
With the spotlight firmly on the challenges and demands of global leadership, this is an opportunity to engage intelligently on these issues before it is too late.
Richard Attias is the CEO of the FII Institute.
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