Confidence index in relation to political will?

Indicators of Political Will, Remedial and Coping Capacity? (Part #5)

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There is an interesting correspondence between the elusiveness of political will and the manner in which the arguably analogous sense of confidence is measured. The concern in the latter case is a continuing feature of polling with regard to the confidence in institutional authorities (Tom R. Tyler, Public trust and confidence in legal authorities, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 19, 2001, 2; Juan Carlos Martin, et al, Design of an indicator of confidence in the public authorities based on fuzzy logic, Investigacion Regionales, 43, 2019).

Potentially more relevant is the manner in which the business community measures confidence in various countries and regions. Thus the OECD Business Confidence Index (BCI):

... provides information on future developments, based upon opinion surveys on developments in production, orders and stocks of finished goods in the industry sector. It can be used to monitor output growth and to anticipate turning points in economic activity. Numbers above 100 suggest an increased confidence in near future business performance, and numbers below 100 indicate pessimism towards future performance.

This is notably complemented by consumer confidence indices, most notably in the USA. Other indices include the Employee Confidence Index, namely a measure of employees' overall confidence in the economy, their employer, and their ability to find other employment. A Voter Confidence Index has been developed by NBC in the USA. Of related interest are indices of trust, as with the Edelman Trust Barometer: global report (2019) and the SAI Global Consumer Trust Index., the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Tust Index.

OECD Business Confidence Index	US Consumer Confidence Index

Missing would appear to be any analogous measure of confidence in either the coping capacity or the remedial capacity of authorities. Nor do measures of business confidence (or confidence in the business and financial community) translate into confidence in their ability to act effectively on issues outsourced by government authorities. The relation between measures of confidence and political will would seem to remain elusive.

A striking example of the challenge would appear to be any measure of confidence in military capacity -- to the extent that this is understood as the ultimate fallback for governments overwhelmed in their capacity to cope with a problem, let alone to offer remedial options -- other than those of a repressive nature. It would be expected that a body like NATO would have developed some (necessarily "confidential") measure of military capacity of its members beyond that of any assessment of the equipment and personnel they each control. A publicly available equivalent is evident in the Global Firepower ranking of military strength. The unclassified aspects are extensively summarized by NATO under the heading NATO's capabilities (6 July 2018)

NATO's modern defence posture is based on an effective combination of two key pillars: cutting-edge weapons systems and platforms, and forces trained to work together seamlessly. As such, investing in the right capabilities is an essential part of investing in defence. NATO plays an important role in assessing what capabilities the Alliance needs; setting goals for national or collective development of capabilities; and facilitating national, multinational and collective capability development and innovation.

Unfortunately the focus on "capability", understood in terms of hardware and personnel, avoids the question of the "political will" enabling its effective use by individual members or by the Alliance as a whole. This lack is especially evident at the time of writing in the repeated claims of President Donald Trump to be in command of the far strongest military force in the world. This claim is at variance with the multi-decade challenge of Afghanistan and other conflict arenas -- and the "political will" to achieve successful resolution there, most notably with respect to the original goal of "nation building".

As many have remarked, there would seem to be a fundamental disconnect between military capability and any notion of remedial capacity (Transforming the Unsustainable Cost of General Education: strategic insights from Afghanistan, 2009). Under the circumstances, any complementary notion of "soft power" invites an interpretation in terms of lack of political will.

Military situation rooms may indeed offer an unquestionable sense of coping capacity but they would seem to lack any insight into remedial capacity -- other than framed in respressive terms. Seen as a remedy, use of weapons of (mass) destruction is always an option offering the illusion of effective control -- even though this is only elusively related to any durable remedy (like nation building). This is the challenge of "revolution" as so widely advocated -- and of calls for "action now".

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