A mix of politicians, public intellectuals and movie stars top the annual YouGov polls of the world’s most admired people, which are compiled globally and also broken down by various countries.
Snowden, who came after former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the Dalai Lama and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, has received positive recognition in Germany for his revelations about NSA surveillance. He also placed sixth among Russians and eighth among Danes.
— Dateline_DC (@Dateline_DC) February 3, 2015
Snowden was given the 2013 Whistleblower Award as well as the 2014 Fritz Bauer Prize, awarded by the German Humanist Union, a prominent civil rights organization. Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Snowden to publish much of his information, also received the Scholl Siblings Prize in 2014 for his book on the leaks. And both of them, along with filmmaker Laura Poitras, received the 2014 Carl von Ossietzky Medal from the International League for Human Rights.
Among the most admired women for Germans, current chancellor Angela Merkel came out on top. Nobel prize winning equality activist Malala Yousafzai — who appeared at or near the top of many lists — was second. German singer Helene Fischer, Queen Elizabeth II and Angelina Jolie, who topped lists in four different countries, rounded out the German top 5.
Globally, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Jolie — who has recently worked as Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees — topped the rankings.
— USA for UNHCR (@UNRefugeeAgency) February 2, 2015
US President Barack Obama — who topped the US list — held the second slot globally — in parallel with former US Secretary of State, and object of endless 2016 presidential speculation, Hillary Clinton on the women’s list.
Along with heads of state, and entertainers, faith leaders — notably the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis I — were also common top-ranked choices.
Francis I has made global headlines constantly since taking over from Benedict XVI for taking tradition-breaking stances on everything from the treatment of the LGBT community to criticizing global capitalism. Not surprisingly, he was Time Magazine’s person of the year in 2013. He was second only to Barack Obama in US opinion, and sixth globally.
— Hispanically Yours (@HispanicallyUrs) January 2, 2015
— Mindful Annapolis (@MPGAnnapolis) February 3, 2015
YouGov says they sampled people in 34 countries to compile lists of 25 people to then present to a second poll. People were asked both “who do you truly admire?” and “who do you MOST admire?” and the scores were combined to “understand both the breadth (i.e. global reach) and the intensity of a person's support.”
