Category Archives: Government

Drone Attacks Visualized

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The use of drones to eliminate enemy targets has become routine practice for U.S. military operations since 2004, specially in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pitch Interactive has created the visualization above, showing the number of drone attacks since 2004 to date, as well as the number of casualties. Of an estimated 3,105 casualties, 175 were children (5.6%), 535 were civilians (17.2%), and 2,348 (75.6%) were casualties classified as other, which can include male able-bodied enemy combatants, their neighbors, and possible militants.

Data for this visualization was obtained by Pitch Interactive from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,  the New America Foundation, and Living Under Drones.

 

 

Government Debt as a Percentage of GDP

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Government Debt as a Percentage of GDP

Using data from Eurostat, we identified the top 10 European countries with the highest government debt as a percentage of GDP. The chart above shows that as of the third quarter of 2012, the latest period for which quarterly data is available, Greece, Italy, and Portugal had the highest government debt ratio. Ireland was close behind Portugal, with a ratio that has been increasing at the fastest rate out of all the countries in the list. Cyprus, which has been in the news lately due to problems in its banking sector, had a debt ratio not much higher than Germany.

Source: Eurostat

The Political Rights of Women Worldwide

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Back in 1912, the only countries where women had the right to vote were: New Zealand, which had granted voting rights to women as early as 1893; Australia, which had granted women the right to vote in 1902; and Finland, which had granted voting rights to women in 1906.

 

Fifty years later, in 1962, most nations in the world had granted women the right to vote. However, there were still many countries where women could not vote. Such countries included African nations like Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Congo, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, and Lesotho; countries in the Middle East like Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Oman, Iran, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh; Papua New Guinea, the only country is Asia. The nation that comes as a surprise in Switzerland, where women were granted voting rights as recently as 1971.

 

As of 2012, women have the right to vote anywhere in the world, except in Saudi Arabia.

For interactive maps on women voting rights, the right of women to stand for election, and first women elected to office worldwide, please visit:  777 Voting: Women’s Political Rights Around the World

 

Places U.S. Secretaries of State Have Visited Since 1989

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The Washington Post has mapped the frequency of visits of U.S. Secretaries of State to foreign nations since 1989.

According to the map, the top visited nations by U.S. Secretaries of State Baker, Christopher, Albright, Powell, Rice, and Clinton include: Israel, with 90 visits, followed by Egypt with 61 visits, Syria with 48 visits, the Palestinian authority with 47 visits, and Jordan with 35. Other nations frequently visited include: Britain, France, Germany, Belgium (NATO headquarters), Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Mexico.

For the interactive map, visit: Washington Post: Fascinating interactive map: Where U.S. secretaries of state have traveled since 1989

 

 

Military Spending Worldwide

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According to an article of The Guardian, in 2008 the defense budget of the United States was $607 billion, ten times that of China and the UK, fifteen times that of Germany, seventeen times that of Russia, and twenty five times that of India. In fact, the defense budget of the top nine countries combined (shown in the first graphic) adds up to $377 billion, or 62% of the military spending of the U.S. Those numbers would make the U.S. the top country in defense spending in the world.

But, if one looks at defense spending numbers as a percentage of the GDP, we have a different story. In that case, Myanmar becomes the top defense spender with a military budget of 26% of its GDP, followed by Jordan, Georgia and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. moves to number eight, with a military budget of 4% of its GDP. Large military spending by these nations is due to different factors. Some of these countries are dictatorships, some are monarchies. Others need to actively protect their borders from foreign aggression.

To read the article from The Guardian, visit: The Guardian: Data Store – Show and Tell, Information is beautiful: war games

 

The Global Public Debt Clock is Ticking

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Global public debt is increasing every second. This debt clock shows government debt, in dollar terms, for almost all countries. Governments with the highest debt include the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia, India, China, and several western European nations.

Additional indicators such as public debt per person, public debt as percentage of GDP, total annual debt change, and country debt comparisons can be seen in the interactive map at: The Economist: The global debt clock

 

The Role of Social Media in Politics

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The role of social media in the political arena has increased considerably as of lately. During the Democratic National Convention, last week, it was clear that social media was an important channel for disseminating information as events were taking place. According to the online site TechCrunch, first lady Michelle Obama’s speech had generated 28 thousand tweets per minute.

A report published by the Pew Research Center, based on a survey on social network site users, states that Democrats are more likely to consider the use of social media important or very important in keeping up with political news, recruiting people for their cause, discussing political issues with other people and finding other people who share their political views, compared to their Republican or Independent counterparts.

Corruption Indicators

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Firms expected to give gifts in meetings with tax officials (% of firms)

For someone living in a country where corruption is widespread, it is very easy to cite examples of corruption, bribery, graft, traffic of influences, nepotism, etc. Measuring corruption in a systematic way is, in contrast, a much more difficult task. Going through the database of World Bank indicators we found two indicators directly related to corruption:

Click on the links above to find out where your country ranks in terms of corruption. Note though that the World Bank does not have data for all countries.

For a far more comprehensive effort at measuring corruption, you may want to check the web site of Transparency International and its annual reports on corruption.