Learning from Classical Arab Writers: G-Zero and the Cultural Aspects of Changing Global Leadership: Rediscovering Ibn Khaldun’s “Asabiyya” with the Latest PEW Global Survey and World Values Survey Data

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the current vacuum in global leadership with global opinion survey data from the latest freely available PEW Global Survey, 2018 and World Values Survey, 2017–2020 data files, using multivariate factor analysis of the opinions of the global citizenry. On a population-weighted basis, the Chinese leadership model is accepted by only 27.63% of the global population. The dismal United States Leadership under President Donald Trump was backed by only 50.17% of the citizens of our globe, while 52.51% of global citizens “voted” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and 57.16% were expressing support for French President Emmanuel Macron, and 60.35% were in favor of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The inroads, Chinese or Russian leadership concepts could make among Western publics are considerable. For the Gulf countries, this global leadership vacuum, now often being referred to as “G-Zero” has considerable implications. We find that secular orientations have an influence on the growing distance to America and test the analytical merits of two approaches to deal with the role of religion in that context: Inglehart’s model of religion’s sudden decline (Inglehart, in Religion’s sudden decline. What's causing it, and what comes next? Oxford University Press, 2021) and the model adapted from classical Arab historiography, based on Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). We present empirical tests for both approaches, and find that the corrosive effects of social decay in the wake of secularization in many countries of the world have been underestimated. We finally present some estimates on how global values are distributed among the world’s generations.