Top 10 Rankings 2015

Research Note: World Leader Rankings on Twitter December 2015 3 Analyses as of December 2015 reveals that 83% heads of state are active on Twitter. A total of 139 world leaders out of 167 countries2 had accounts on Twitter set up in their personal name or through an official government office. This represents a growth of 2.2% over 2014. In 2011, only 69 out of 1643 countries had embraced Twitter, but in 2012, the Digital Policy Council observed a tremendous growth (78% increase) in the number of governments embracing Twitter. Despite the fact that Twitter has altered the political landscape, in 2015, there remain leaders in government who have yet to harness the benefits of a platform that grants direct interaction with their constituents. 91.5% of the World’s Democracies Tweet The DPC’s analyses indicated that 86 countries out of the 139 tweeting countries were classified as fully democratic4. With a total of 94 countries in the world classified as fully democratic 5 , this signifies approximately 91.5% of the leaders of the world’s democracies tweet. In contrast, only 64.4% of non-democratic nations have leaders that tweet. There are only 7 democracies in the world whose leaders are not tweeting to their citizenry down from 10 in 2014. The three deomcracies moving off the “shame list” from last year include Denmark, Nicaragua, and Mauritius. The current “shame list” is delineated above. Further, the DPC’s analyses reveals that 87.3% of the countries in the world considered politically stable have leaders that tweet, reconfirming that heads of state who are confident in their leadership role and assured of their political legitimacy are most comfortable with social media -- regardless of the form of government whether they serve in democracies, monarchies, or autocracies. In contrast, only 61.2% of politically fragile nations have leaders that tweet. The political leadership of the most fragile nations, or those with a high degree of political instability did not maintain or initiate accounts due to lack of resources, poor public response or a limited understanding of how they could employ Twitter effectively as a means of strategic communication. 2 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. 3 Prior to 2013, the Polity dataset contained 164 countries. 4 Countries with a Polity Score greater than or equal to 6. Polity score measures degree of democracy on a 21 point scale (-10 to +10) ranging from autocracy to fully institutionalized democracy with the range being -10 to -6 "Autocracy", -5 to +5 "Anocracy", +6 to +10 "Democracy". 5 Polity dataset contains 94 fully democratic nations and 73 anocracies / autocracies (non-democratic nations) DEMOCRACIES NOT TWEETING 1. Austria - President Heinz Fischer 2. Comoros - President Ikililou Dhoinine 3. Guyana - President Donald Ramotar and Prime Minister Sam Hinds 4. Lesotho - Prime Minister Tom Thabane 5. Niger - Prime Minister Mahamadou Issoufou and President Brigi Rafini 6. Solomon Islands - Prime Minster Manasseh Sogavare 7. Taiwan - President Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Mao Chi-kuo

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