Simon Anholt: Who would the rest of the world vote for in your country's election?
After 20 years working with the presidents and prime ministers of 54 countries, Simon Anholt has a plan to make the world work better. Full bio
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election were as follows:
were shared between abstainers
the Libertarian candidate.
do you suppose I live in?
and that is how the world voted.
and explain what I mean by that.
called the Global Vote.
does exactly what it says on the tin.
of other people's countries.
the United States of America,
that you're interested in,
from the recent presidential election
of São Tomé and Príncipe,
of each of those candidates
the one you like, you vote.
presidential election,
in another country's election?
that you wouldn't want to do it,
processes of another country.
is I release the results
individual country has already voted,
interfere in that process.
of individual countries.
proposed to do for the Americans
the Americans can vote on.
you're only considering one aspect of it,
going to do for the rest of us?
because we live,
of hearing people tell you,
massively interdependent world
of people in other countries
no matter where we live.
a hurricane on the other side,
that we live in today
domestic and international affairs.
and the oceans, which belong to all of us,
and they could help all of us.
with this globalized reality.
are allowed to vote for those leaders,
of the United States,
in a few weeks time,
the nuclear launch codes
a potential impact on all of us,
for the referendum on the Brexit vote,
of British people voted on that,
whichever way it went,
of people around the world.
very small numbers of people.
that sounds very democratic.
of all of the candidates.
two questions every single time.
going to do for the rest of us,
who live on this planet?
for your country's future in the world?
I send them those questions.
of the United States,
most of the time,
that they don't all answer, but many do.
enthusiastic and most exciting way
for Saviour Chishimba,
presidential election.
were basically an 18-page dissertation
potential role in the world
so anybody could read it.
with this extraordinary group of people?
who won the global vote.
by the domestic electorate.
we always seem to go for the woman.
is still thinking very nationally.
What's in it for me? ...
they should be asking today,
with this amazing team of glorious losers.
who I mentioned before.
in the Icelandic presidential election.
her amazing talk at TEDWomen
for more women to get into politics.
from São Tomé and Príncipe.
of the United Nations.
of New Zealand,
member of the team.
could travel around the world
of the necessity in our modern age
the international consequences.
is a bit of a difficult one to follow,
really important elections coming up.
I'm sure you've noticed, in the world.
are all critically important.
of the Austrian presidential election,
in Europe since the Second World War.
is not a stand-alone project.
which I launched back in 2014,
is basically very simple.
of what's wrong with the world
I've already hinted at.
an enormous and growing number
global challenges:
economic chaos, weapons proliferation.
which threaten to wipe us out
globalized problems.
of tackling them on its own.
and we have to collaborate as nations
countries still persist in behaving
battling against each other,
since the nation-state was invented
or a change in ideology.
to the world's problems.
and collaborate a great deal more
are going to carry on getting bad
much sooner than we anticipate.
that things have changed.
that the culture has changed.
that they've got a new mandate.
was very simple and very single:
of power or authority,
and your own tiny slice of territory,
the best thing for your own people,
on the planet, that's even better.
in a position of power and responsibility
of power and responsibility,
child and animal on the planet.
for your own slice of territory
of the earth's surface
you should not be in power.
to get across to our politicians,
things are done these days.
of "America first."
a pretty banal statement
and probably should always do.
the interests of their own people.
and so old-fashioned
about his take on that
means everyone else last,
means making everybody else small again,
over the last 20 years or so,
of examples of policies
and the domestic needs,
to be altruistic or self-sacrificing.
that we need a new form of governance,
and those good for everybody else.
of left wing and right wing
from looking inwards and backwards,
in looking forwards and outwards.
splitting the world right down the middle.
but it's not meant to be.
in looking inwards and backwards.
when you're short of money,
insecure and vulnerable,
human tendency to turn inwards,
that the past was somehow better
could ever be.
that that's a dead end.
and turn backwards,
very quickly indeed.
about humanity is its diversity,
that diversity, that cultural mixture
more exciting, more productive
in human history,
we've got a job on our hands,
very, very quickly.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Simon Anholt - Policy advisorAfter 20 years working with the presidents and prime ministers of 54 countries, Simon Anholt has a plan to make the world work better.
Why you should listen
For 20 years, Simon Anholt has worked with the presidents, prime ministers and governments of more than fifty nations, devising strategies and policies to help them to engage more imaginatively and productively with the international community.
In 2014, impatient to do better, Anholt founded the Good Country, a project aimed at helping countries work together to tackle global challenges like climate change, poverty, migration and terrorism, by mobilizing "the only superpower left on the planet: global public opinion."
According to The Independent, Anholt's aim is to change the way countries, cities and companies work "...by us all encouraging their leaders to think about the global impact of their actions, rather than cut-throat self-interest."
Measurement of Good Country progress is done through Anholt's Good Country Index, the only survey to rank countries according to their contribution to humanity and the planet rather than their domestic performance. According to The Guardian, "He has built his career in part as a formidable cruncher of data." Since 2005, his research into global perceptions of nations and cities has collected and analyzed over 300 billion data points.
In 2016, Anholt launched the Global Vote, a project that enables anybody in the world to vote in other countries' elections, choosing the candidate who is likely to do most for humanity and the planet: three months later over 100,000 people from 130 countries took part in the Global Vote on the US Presidential Election. The Global Vote now covers an election somewhere in the world almost every month.
Anholt is an Honorary Professor of Political Science and the author of five books about countries, cultures and globalisation. He is the founder and Editor Emeritus of a leading academic journal focused on public diplomacy and perceptions of places.
Simon Anholt | Speaker | TED.com