I blogged some time ago on last year’s global attitudes survey here. Now, they have a new survey out (full report here, summary here).
It seems that the trust between US and Europe has gone down as a result of the disagreement over the Iraq war. The view of the US is now less favorable, though it has recovered from the lows just before the start of the war. Similarly, Americans view France and Germany unfavorably now. That is a huge change from a year ago. In fact, more Americans are boycotting or thinking of boycotting French and German goods than French and Germans doing the same for American goods.
I don’t know how this mistrust will pan out and what the long-term consequences will be, but even Muslim countries which had favorable opinions of the US last year have changed. Indonesia is a good example.
An interesting feature of globalization is the widespread use of the English language (as discussed here). It seems that lots of people realize that now. According to the survey, “three-quarters or more of those interviewed in almost every country think children need to learn English to succeed in the world today.”
One strange thing I found in the poll results was the number of people who still think about territorial disputes.
There are still sizable minorities of people in US [32%], Great Britain, France [25%], Germany [33%] and Italy [42%] who think that there are parts of other countries that really belong to them. […] Fully 63% of Russians believe that “there are parts of neighboring countries that really belong to Russia.” […] Broad majorities in the Philippines [79%], India [73%], Lebanon [71%], South Africa, Pakistan [67%], Nigeria, South Korea [63%] and Turkey also feel that parts of other nations rightfully belong to their country.
Which country do the US, Britain, Italy and Turkey have claims on? I thought Turkey renounced all its Ottoman holdings.
They also have an interesting measure for nationalism. Can’t say I disagree much though.
Large majorities in several countries affirm each of these sentiments —- they believe their culture is superior, that it needs defending, and that other lands are rightfully theirs. People in India, for example, are among the most likely to agree with all three statements. Turks, Bangladeshis, South Africans and Pakistanis also rank relatively high on all three measures. By contrast, the British, French and German people express far less nationalism, based on these questions.
The US scores on Latin American levels for the superiority and defense questions, i.e. higher than most Europeans and less than those paragons of nationalism listed above. This is significant because the US has somewhat similar level of religiousness. Unlike western Europeans, Americans generally condition morality on a belief in God. They are however much better in this regard than most of the Muslim world where atheism is a dirty word.
Also, more Americans think that their way of life needs to be protected against foreign influence than Canadians, French, Germans or British.
It’s a bad time for immigrants. Support for immigration is down everywhere. However, Bulgarians don’t want to restrict entry more than their current laws. Anyone want to go to Bulgaria? Also, “only in Canada does a strong majority of the population (77%) have a positive view of immigrants. Among other advanced countries, Americans show the greatest support for immigrants (49%).”
There are some interesting results related to the Iraq war.
Countries that in which a majority thinks Iraqis will be worse off without Saddam include: Morocco (53%), Pakistan (60%), Indonesia (67%), Jordan (80%) and Palestinian Authority (85%). What are they smoking? For God’s sake, read Salam Pax.
What I found more interesting was the fact that the reconstruction efforts got poor ratings from almost everybody.
Roughly half of Australians (53%) and British (50%) say the U.S. and its allies are doing only a fair or poor job in addressing the interests of the Iraqi people. Views of the reconstruction effort are even more negative elsewhere. Majorities in Western Europe, Russia, South Korea and most Muslim publics give the allies a rating of fair or poor for taking into account the needs of the Iraqi people as they rebuild the country. That is the case as well in Israel (60% fair/poor).
I can understand this in the countries where the public opinion was against the war. But Israel? I thought they had overwhelming support for the war. The only one besides the US actually. So why do they think the reconstruction is going poorly?
The poll results on the Israel/Palestine problem are a disaster. The bad news: A majority in all Muslim countries except Nigeria (which is about 50% Muslim) thinks that there is no way to reconcile an Israeli state with Palestinian rights. The good news: Israeli Arabs think differently.
Arabs in Israel, who voice the same criticisms of U.S. policy in the Middle East as do other Muslims, generally believe that a way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that Palestinian rights and needs are addressed. In fact, Arabs in Israel are nearly as likely as Jews to hold that opinion (62% of Arabs, 68% of Jews).
I guess living in the same country has actually worked to some extent. There is obviously mistrust between Jews and Arabs in Israel and discrimination as well. The Israeli Arabs have sympathy for the Palestinians, but they do seem to have developed into a separate group.
It also seems that calls for secularism in Muslim countries are premature. People in most countries want a role for religion in political life. That, however, is a different question than whether religious leaders should play a larger role in political life. For example, 56% of Pakistanis think that Islam plays a large role in politics now and 86% actually want a larger role. However, only 63% want religious leaders to play a larger role. So 23% want religion but no religious leaders in politics.
Despite the increase of religion in politics, the commitment to democracy has improved. In fact, religious leaders and followers are turning to democracy and elections to win support for their program.
In most countries, supporters of an active role for Islam are no more or less committed to these democratic ideals [of electoral competition and freedom of expression], and in a few predominantly Muslim nations, notably Bangladesh and Pakistan, those who are most supportive of a role for Islam in public life and politics are also the most supportive of freedom of speech and electoral competition.
The Iraq war has also spawned some, though minor, hopes of democratic blooming in the Muslim world. May be the neocon dream (and nightmare) will come true in the form of democracy with ascendent Islamic parties.
Substantial minorities of Muslims in many countries say the region will become somewhat more democratic, but only in Kuwait do as many as half predict the Middle East will become much more democratic. Expectations of major political changes in the Middle East are modest in countries that participated in the war. Just 16% in Great Britain, 14% in the U.S. and 10% in Australia think that the Middle East will become much more democratic.
The poll results for social issues are also interesting. Birth control, it seems, has become popular in most of the Muslim countries covered in the survey.
Globally, people have a broadly favorable view of birth control and family planning, with the notable exception of populations in aging industrial nations, such as Italy, Japan and Germany. […] In most of the developing nations of Africa and Asia, 70% or more say birth control and family planning have changed things for the better.
However, there are still issues about women working in Jordan and Pakistan.
Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan are the only countries in which majorities believe it is better for women to stay home and take care of the children while the husband provides for the family. In Pakistan, 41% of women strongly agree that they should be allowed to work compared with 24% of men.
The chart on whether women themselves should decide whether to wear a veil is shown on the right. In Turkey where wearing the veil in government offices etc. is banned, there is widespread support for the decision to be given to women. Pakistan is almost equally divided on the issue. Do 44% of Pakistanis really want to force women to wear the veil in Pakistan?
POSTSCRIPT: CalPundit has discussed this survey as well.
Some of the charts are covering up part of the text of the entry:
Israel/Palestine co-existence
Religious leaders should play a larger role
Women should decide on veiling
Any ideas how to fix that for all browsers/settings?
Is it ok now?
Zack — the Pew research is great. But it also can tell us a lot about the attitudes of the people who work there adn, by inference, the American elite.
What the Hell is a ‘conflict area’ (a category that includes uzbekstan, egypt, pakistan, but not nigeria or bangladesh). They aren’t in conflict with each other, and they have no more civl conflict than many other places.
The onyl way I read it is that the people who work at PEw think they are in conflict with Uzbekstan, Egypt, Pakistan, etc.
(Also, the questions asked and presentation of results clearly show a particular research agenda. Frex, if you wanted to find otu whether the US has third world social values, you could not easily see the answer from their report. More on this topic in my blog, later.)
Americans view France and Germany unfavorably now. That is a huge change from a year ago. In fact, more Americans are boycotting or thinking of boycotting French and German goods than French and Germans doing the same for American goods.
Frankly, I’m stupefied at the amount of bile flowing from the US in European direction. European anti-Americanism, doubtlessly there and unsavoury enough, is not only an order of magnitude less, but it does often differentiate between US as a country (language, daily habits, etc.) and its government — a combination that seems not to exist in the States with regard to France. The funny thing that even after the US got their way and their war, euro- and especially francophobia show no signs of dying down.
I cannot say that I am worried about the American public sentiment as such all too much. I won’t be visiting the country in the nearest future, it’s not my skin ;). I am worried about a political class catering to mass paranoia, all the more in a country this powerful. Concentrating too much on an imaginary external enemy is never good for the political culture.
I have just seen a blogger, M. Totten, I think, comment the same survey with something to the tune of “France should better watch out”. I am curious whether any Americans realize that they are much more the ones to watch out (unless, of course, the States plan to attack France… it may be hiding Iraqi WMDs, you know… but no, W. has just proclaimed Chirac his friend…)
Ikram said:
You are correct. I had to go to some of the actual tabulated data to find info related to that. It’s not in their glossy 136 page report.
I was thinking of blogging about that continuing from my comment on your post about diverging values, but I’ll wait for your take on it. Might save me some work.
Miranda: I am surprised at the emotions on display in the US as well. Today, it’s France which doesn’t affect me but if the national mood is as fickle and dangerous, it could be trouble for anybody. I think there really is something to the US having nationalistic and social values closer to the third world than western Europe. This is how I would expect Pakistanis to behave, for example.
Miranda –
French Anti-Americanism is high enough that Thierry Meissan’s book is a bestseller. You know, the one that says that 9/11 was a CIA-Mossad plot. So it’s a bit disingenuous to say that somehow Continental anti-Americanism is “an order of magnitude less”.
The fact is that the continent has gotten away with running on an anti-American platform for years and years. Schroder and Chirac pushed that to new heights. The only difference now is that Americans perceive that our security is at stake, and we’re not willing to tolerate it any more.
What stings to me and to people who think like me is the rank ingratitude. Sure, stuff like “freedom fries” is silly, but France and Germany need to recognize that the only reason they’re still democracies – rather than former Socialist Republics or part of the Third Reich – is because of the United States. We helped them when the security of the West was at stake, when there was an existential threat to their way of life. We said that an invasion of the Fulda Gap would be equivalent to a strike on the US homeland. We risked the continued existence of our nation for them for more than 40 years. And now, when our homeland is at risk, they spit in our face? That’s what gets to me.
GC, I think you miss an important detail. The conclusions usually drawn from Meyssan’s — completely paranoid, I agree, though rather entertaining if you regard it as a work of fiction, in the best of Tom Clancy tradition — book are that of an unfortunate people in the grip of ruthless elite. Neither Schroeder nor Chirac have ever — to the best of my knowledge — made any clearly nationalistic comments. Their objections, justified or not, were about political issues. There is little comparable to the same downright racist sentiment that you see in the States towards Europe these days. I can think of no linguistic counterparts for American expletives preceeded by “Euro-” that seem to have become part of the regular American thesaurus.
As for the rest — I have typed a lengthy reply and deleted it. Not only don’t I want to litter Zack’s blog with off-topic discussions, I also don’t care to reiterate that 2×2=4. You may want to chill down a bit and examine the basic premisses behind your conclusions in a rational manner.
Zack, I overlooked your reply on the first reading.
I think there really is something to the US having nationalistic and social values closer to the third world than western Europe.
You don’t know Western Europe. If you were living here as an immigrant of obvious non-(Western)European background, you might wind up singing the praises of the US. Back in the 90ies, a lot of people who could compare both of the experiences did. Maybe things are still better in many respects. So far, I haven’t seen a single comment neither on your blog, nor on those of your fellow not-quite-WASPish Americans (citizens or residents) suggesting that you clear out of the country if you don’t like its politics, that you have no business to criticize them (whether or not you are a full citizen and taxpayer) — a common “argument” with European natives of a certain type.
What I am worried about is the irrationality of the American public debate with its clearly nationalistic undertones. To put my finger on the main distinction: Frenchmen cheerily leave their bookshops with Meyssan’s opus and a couple of American novels in the same bag. Yet how many American eurobashers have ever read a line of French fiction?
What exactly do you mean with “social values”?
godless: You need to chill, man.
Miranda: I have lots of relatives in Britain. My brother also studied there. A few friends, both French and Pakistani, in France as well. I have heard lots of horror stories about immigrants there. I still maintain that the US is better for immigrants.
By social values, I mean things like belief in God, tolerance of gays, and general social behavior.
At first, I used to laugh when I read about people in other countries believing in conspiracy theories. Then I saw how many Americans seem to believe that the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi and I stopped laughing.
I find the amount of venom directed at the French by some Americans to be disturbing. There have even been incidents of harassment faced by French-Americans. That is not the kind of behavior that Americans should take any pride in.
P.S. Zack, whatever you did with the tables seems to have fixed the problem.
as an american i would like to make a comment(hopefully a rational one)(though it may arouse indifferent feelings). first off i am a waitress and when i first heard “freedom fries”or other such slander i thought it was childish playground tactics. I work in a very diverse atmosphere where debating around the counter is welcome.
not all americans have bad feelings towards france and germany just the uneducated ones. there our alot. some people even say they voted for g.w.b. because he believes in god. well so do i so maybe i should run in the next election.
I do not like this administration and i am not going to leave the country because my fathers helped to make this country into what it is today. They fought so that I could have my freedom of speech and i will take full advantage because that is my patriotic duty. most americans still believe iraq had wmds. its to bad we wasted our time into disstabling that country because we could have used our recourses fully to disban the terrorist networks that are still at large thanks to GWs lack of good judjment or brains. sorry i probably filled the page i was on a trip