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The author is the chairman of Rockefeller International. His latest book is 'What Was Wrong With Capitalism?'
As Donald Trump prepares to take office, his victory is still widely seen as part of a global story about disillusioned voters turning against incumbent leaders. But this rebellion is not universal. It is confined to the developed world.
Last year, conservative parties lost 85 percent of elections in developed countries, up from an average of 25 percent in the early 2000s. In developing countries, the attitude changed the other way. Incumbents lost 25 percent of the election in 2024, down from 50 percent in the early 2000s. Opinion polls tell a similar story: the share of respondents who approve of their leader has fallen to around 30 percent in developed countries, while holding steady at over 50 percent in developing countries.
Incumbents are, if not, more popular than ever in the developing world. So what causes this huge difference?
Hostility to European powers, Japan and the US is tied to varying degrees to recent spikes in immigration and commodity prices, fueling a sense that the system is getting worse and biased towards the middle class. This is further fueling the long-term decline in public trust in government. But all these forces are small or non-existent in many developing democracies, including large ones where parties have already won, led by India, Indonesia and Mexico.
Voters in the US and Europe said one of their biggest concerns last year was inflation, where the legacy of the pandemic has left the prices of basic necessities painfully high. Because inflation has soared in the developed world, the voter shock deepened.
By 2024 in the US the price of eggs, for example, was already 200 percent higher than before the pandemic – compared to 50 percent higher in India and Indonesia. Even after adjusting for broad inflation, house prices rose by 17 percent in developed countries, compared to just 3 percent in developing countries, which helps explain why unaffordable housing causes strong opposition in the US and UK.
Meanwhile, increased immigration has become a hot-button electoral issue in the west but not in developing countries, which are the countries that leave most of the migrants.
Although the post-epidemic recovery has caused a lot he benefits more from the rich than othersthe gap is steadily widening in developing countries. Since 1980, the income share of the top one percent has more than doubled in the US to 21 percent, while it inches up just 3 points to 18 percent on average in major developing economies. Most surprisingly, Mexico is one of the few countries where the income of the top 1 percent is falling.
The growing effects of inflation, immigration and inequality help explain why only about 20 percent of Americans express trust in government, down from a peak of more than 70 percent in the 1960s. In developing countries, trust is on the rise, which has been boosted over the past decade by large gains in countries where incumbents have won in the past year. Nearly 50 percent of Mexicans and 70 percent of Indians and Indonesians now express confidence in their government.
One of the reasons for increased trust is the rapid digitization of government, which improves the delivery of public services by preventing fraud. By 2022, led by India's gains, developing country governments will surpass their developed peers in the World Bank index of “government technological maturity”.
In the developing world, electoral battles are rare and local. In Mexico, the ruling party won last year for reasons including its anti-poverty record, and in Indonesia because of the popularity of outgoing president Joko Widodo despite allegations that he was positioning his son as his successor. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost his majority in the legislature, but won a third term, thanks to an increase in the effective distribution of welfare benefits. Across India, incumbent parties have fared well in recent state elections.
This trend seems set to continue. By 2025, polls show that incumbents are set to lose all three national elections in the developed world – Germany, Australia and Canada. There will be major national elections in developing countries and emerging markets, but the polls point to mixed results. Incumbents suffered defeats in national elections in Poland and Romania, victories in Ecuador and major legislative elections in Argentina and the Philippines. At the moment, most developing countries see no urgent need to get rid of these lumps.