GlobeScan/BBC Study: More People Identify as "Global Citizens" Now

Nick Kangadis | April 29, 2016
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A survey conducted by GlobeScan and reported by BBC World Service reveals that for the first time since GlobeScan began tracking opinion data in 2001, more people identify as “global citizens” than “citizens of their country.”

The survey, which polled more than 20,000 people across 21 participating countries, showed that 51 percent of those polled said they were citizens of the world. Does that mean that those people think there are no borders anymore?

The intriguing part of this study that no one is mentioning is the fact that the study repeatedly mentions OECD countries and non-OECD countries. Who or what is the OECD?

OECD stands for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This entity that not many people have ever heard of shapes our world more than anyone knows or would ever notice.

According to the OECD website:

OECD's work is based on continued monitoring of events in member countries as well as outside OECD area, and includes regular projections of short and medium-term economic developments. The OECD Secretariat collects and analyses data, after which committees discuss policy regarding this information, the Council makes decisions, and then governments implement recommendations.

That’s right. The OECD discusses policies with world governments and those governments put their “the Council’s” decisions into practice. Who exactly “the Council” is remains a mystery, but apparently they make decisions that shapes government policy around the world.

The study finds the United States ranks fourth in countries whose citizens still hold a sense of nationalism as compared to believing they are global citizens. In the poll, 56 of Americans said they “disagree” with the notion that they see themselves “more as a global citizen” than a citizen of America. Russia ranks first for the most nationalistic (74 percent disagreed), followed by Chile (65 percent disagreed) and Germany (57 percent disagreed).

Majorities in Nigeria (73 percent), China (71 percent) and Peru (70 percent) find themselves on the other side of the coin, indicating that they believe they are more citizens of the world rather than of the country they live in.

GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller commented, “The poll’s finding that growing majorities of people in emerging economies identify as global citizens will challenge many people’s (and organisations’) ideas of what the future might look like.”

The problem with this study is that it could possibly be completely skewed. The GlobeScan study covered questions involving whether or not people believed they are “global citizens,” interracial/interethnic marriage, immigration, acceptance of refugees fleeing conflict and “defining criteria of self-identity.” However, the problem surfaces when the study states that “not all questions were asked in all countries.”

What is to say that GlobeScan only asked certain questions in certain countries in order to push their “global citizenship” agenda?

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