Top10 Rankings 2013 Summary Report

Research Note: World Leader Rankings on Twitter December 2013 3 A total of 133 world leaders out of 167 countries1 had accounts on Twitter set up in their personal name or through an official government office. This represents a growth of 8% over 2012. In 2011, only 69 out of 1642 countries had embraced Twitter, but in 2012, the Digital Policy Council observed a tremendous growth in the number of governments embracing social media — 123 out 164 countries or three out of four heads of state had embraced Twitter, a 78% increase in the number of heads of state and national governments on Twitter from 2011. Despite the fact that Twitter has changed the political landscape, in 2013, there remain leaders in government who have yet to harness the benefits of a platform that allows for direct interaction with constituents. In 2010, the notion that governments had the potential to openly engage their citizens as well as work toward building participation and collaboration into the government process was emphasized with President Obama’s open government directive. Soon after, the Open Government Partnership was formed, as nations made official commitments to work toward creating more transparent, participatory and accountable governance. Today more than 60 nations are involved in that partnership, striving to advance measurable progress in key policy areas such as government integrity, fiscal transparency, citizen empowerment, open data, and natural resource transparency. As part of President Obama’s open government initiative, he directed federal agencies to make publicly available their daily operations and he crafted new guidelines for the Freedom of Information Act. The commitment to “open government” in terms of demonstrable actions has been questioned of late and as Obama pursues his final term in office, a second wave of momentum is necessary to push for increased governmental transparency. In 2013, Twitter continued to be the platform of choice for political activists to champion government accountability. Across the world, citizen protests were again spurred by the 2011’s pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings where authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and northern Africa fell to rebellions that were in part inspired by social media. Many of the most prolific and popular world leaders on Twitter encountered an increase in protests in their countries in 2013. While some remained unrelenting or failed to acknowledge the protests via Twitter, they all were likely to become better informed about their own constituents having access to their collective opinions and wishes for their nation. 1 The DPC uses for its research the 167 countries (as of 2013) in the Polity dataset of political regimes tracked by the U.S. government's Political Instability Task Force. The Polity dataset monitors countries with populations over 500,000 and provides coding on the types of government and political stability of these countries. The data provides insight to our research; e.g. political stable countries regardless of whether they are a democracy, monarchy or anocracy are the highest users of Twitter while politically fragile states tend to shun it. 2 Prior to 2013, the Polity dataset contained 164 countries.

Top10 Rankings 2013 Summary Report

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