What institutions do people trust?
The 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer surveyed 33,000 people in 27 countries on their trust in the institutions of government, media, business and NGOs. Its annual report for 2014 found that only 43% believe CEOs have credibility. However levels of trust in search engines and social media are rising.
State of the Union 2015
Read the official White House transcript of President Obama’s speech. The Atlantic has some interesting analysis of the words used in all speeches since 1790
Open government
How open is your government? The latest Global Open Data Index from the Open Knowledge Foundation ranks 97 nations according to the openness of their data on 10 themes: national statistics, government budget, election results, legislation, national maps, company registers, transport timetables., pollution levels, postcodes and government spending. Useful examples from the UK government at […]
Where is the best place to be a woman?
According to the 2014 Global Gender Gap report issued by the World Economic Forum – Iceland is top of the rankings. It benchmarks national gender gaps of 142 countries on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria. ILO website gender data World Bank Genderstats
Catalonia Referendum Results
The Catalan News Monitor is a useful English language site created by Plataforma pel Dret de Decidir, an umbrella organisation of more than 700 associations campaigning for the right to vote for independence. It has useful daily news summaries about Catalonia from local and international press and aggregates Twitter postings.
Whitehall Monitor 2014
The Institute for Government has released this fascinating annual report on the size and structure of UK government. Explore data on the resources of individual government departments.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Try these recommended sources: BBC radio and TV archive footage 1948-1990 Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg has 250 short videos on life in divided Berlin Chronicle of the Wall is a multimedia history compiled by Federal Centre for Political Education, Deutschlandradio and the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam Good contemporary news coverage of the 25th anniversary can […]
Facebook government data requests
The latest update from Facebook shows increasing demands from governments for data on users and content removal. It also provides information on legal challenges.
World ranking of prosperity
Legatum Prosperity Index is an annual ranking of 142 countries. It uses eight categories: economy, entrepreneurship & opportunity, governance, education, health, safety & security, personal freedom and social capital. The website has information on the methodology and data for the last 6 years.
Historical American Newspapers – a reminder
The Chronicling America database from the Library of Congress provides access to more that 8.1 million newspapers 1836-1922. It has now added some useful guides which link directly to key stories on topics. These include elections, communism and the League of Nations. Leicester students will find a link to the web site on our American […]

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