Pew Global Attitudes Survey Research Articles

An Exploration of China’s Image Perception, Influencing Factors and Communication Strategies from a Latin American Perspective — An Empirical Study Based on the 2001–2023 Latin American Barometer

The world is undergoing a great change that has not been seen in a 100 years, and the international situation and international pattern are changing profoundly. In order to promote China’s “going out” and explore China–Latin America relationship to build a better national image, this paper, based on the 2001–2023 Latin American Barometer, 2001–2023 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, China Knowledge Network database and 2001–2023 Chinese government website’s reports on Latin America, government website’s reports on Latin America and Africa, tries to discuss Latin American people’s perceptions of China’s national image. This study mainly used Octopus, SPSS and other tools to crawl and analyze the data. The study found that there is a correlation between China’s national image and its national image.

From Bush to Biden: British public opinion and the image of America

The scholarly literature on US–UK relations has been marked by recurrent debate over the health and utility of the special relationship, recently enlivened by the policy tensions and political turbulence of the Trump presidency. The literature has also seen a social and cultural ‘turn’, with a growing focus on the broader linkages between the two countries’ societies and cultures. However, there has been limited analysis of public opinion in Britain in recent scholarly research. This article examines the ‘image of America’ in British public opinion in the twenty-first century, across recent Republican and Democratic presidencies. It uses data from the annual Pew Global Attitudes survey series and Transatlantic Trends survey series to undertake systematic analysis of these quantitative data sources. It examines the following areas: the performance and policies of presidents from Bush to Biden, the US and its people, the state of bilateral relations, and NATO. It examines aggregate-level opinion and also pays close attention to views across different societal groups, based on demographic characteristics, party support and left–right ideology. The paper makes a significant and distinctive contribution to scholarly research into US–UK relations.

Religiosity and Political Islam: Divergent Influences on Support for Terrorism

AbstractThis study examines the intricate relationship between religion and attitudes towards terrorist violence, with a specific focus on individual sympathy for al-Qaeda and justification for suicide bombings. While religion has the capacity to promote both harmony and social cohesion, as well as division and conflict, it is crucial to explore the complex and contradictory nature of religious beliefs in relation to individuals’ attitudes towards terrorism. To address this paradox, the study differentiates between religion as a belief and religion as an ideology. Drawing from a subset of the 2011 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, encompassing countries with substantial Muslim populations (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey), the research investigates how religiosity and political Islam influence public attitudes towards terrorism, considering political and economic grievances in these contexts. Multivariate statistical analysis suggests that religiosity and political Islam exhibit distinct associations with the justification of suicide bombings and support for al-Qaeda, and these dynamics vary across countries. Ultimately, the study underscores the importance of perceiving religiosity not as a threat but as a potential remedy to prevent extremism by fostering an educated and deeper understanding of religious principles.

Assessing the relationship between terrorist attacks against ingroup or outgroup members and public support for terrorism.

Terrorist groups rely on constituency support for their long-term survival. Here, we examined the extent to which terrorists’ own activities are related with public opinion on terrorism. Specifically, we assessed whether more frequent and more costly terrorist attacks against the ingroup are associated with war weariness or retaliatory sentiments, thus, either weaker or stronger approval of terrorism. We further investigated if more frequent and costly attacks that target an outgroup predict higher levels of justification of terrorism. Lastly, we identified the timeframe during which domestic and outgroup terrorist attacks correlate with (lower or higher) public support. The analyses focused on Jordan (ingroup) and Israel (outgroup), over an 8-year period (2004–2011), drawing on data from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey and the Global Terrorism Database. Results showed that support for terrorism in Jordan decreased in 2005 and, again, in 2008. The frequency of terrorist attacks and fatality/injury rates in Jordan did not vary significantly during the study period. The number of attacks and fatalities/people injured in Israel, however, changed between 2004 and 2011. Cross-correlations of the time-series further demonstrated that the number of attacks and fatalities/people injured in Jordan was not related with the level of public approval of terrorism in the country. Importantly, and in line with the literature, the casualty rate in Israel was positively associated with support for terrorism in Jordan, in the next year. That is, there is evidence that more/less costly terrorist attacks on an outgroup can predict stronger/weaker public support for the tactic relatively quickly. Those findings provide insights for counter-terrorism measures.

Education and Trade Attitudes: Revisiting the Role of Economic Interest

AbstractWhy are highly educated people more supportive of international trade? Two competing explanations exist for this empirical finding. On the one hand, the economic interest approach suggests that the highly educated realize that trade can benefit them economically. On the other hand, the ideational perspective argues that this relationship arises because highly educated people are more cosmopolitan, and cosmopolitanism is positively related to support for trade. To contribute to this debate on the education–trade attitude nexus, we present and empirically test four hypotheses. Using data from the PEW Global Attitudes survey (2014) for 36 countries at various levels of development, we find that as expected by the economic interest approach, the effect of education on people's perceptions of the consequences of trade is conditional on respondents’ individual and subnational economic context. The results thus show that economic interest at least partly explains education's effects on public opinion towards trade. Beyond adding to this specific debate, the research note makes several broader contributions to research on trade and public opinion.

Together or Not? Dynamics of Public Attitudes on UN and NATO

This study investigates the driving forces of public endorsement of two major intergovernmental organizations—the UN and NATO. More specifically, I scrutinize the effects of two sets of independent variables on individual support for security intergovernmental organizations: respondents’ subjective evaluation of the domestic economic conditions and the gap between the home country’s foreign policy preferences and the mean preference within the said intergovernmental organization. For the empirical analysis, I employ cross-sectional survey data acquired from Pew Global Attitudes Surveys covering a sample of 37 countries and 10 waves spanning 2007–2017. The statistical analyses lend strong support for both hypotheses. Specifically, citizens who are dissatisfied with the national economic conditions are less likely to be in favor of intergovernmental organizations. The negative correlation between the perceptions of domestic economic performance and attitudes toward intergovernmental organizations is particularly compelling in countries that contribute more to the budget of that intergovernmental organization. Second, in countries where the foreign policy preferences converge with the other members of an intergovernmental organization, public opinion is more favorably disposed toward that intergovernmental organization.

Social standards in trade agreements and free trade preferences: An empirical investigation

Free trade generates macroeconomic gains but also creates winners and losers. Historically, to reconcile this tension, governments compensated globalization losers with social spending in exchange for support for free trade, known as the embedded liberalism compromise. In the neoliberal era, what other policies can governments pursue to strengthen support for globalization? We assess the effect of social standards in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on individual preferences for free trade. We analyze data from an original survey experiment and find that respondents in advanced industrialized countries have greater support for free trade when PTAs include social standards. Differences do exist in how these social standards are perceived: while we do find evidence of an embedded liberalism compromise recast, fair trade norms have the most salience. An external validity check using the PEW global attitudes survey confirms the hypothesis. Our analysis has serious implications for the legitimacy of the global trading system suffering from neo-mercantilist creep.

World Society Divided: Divergent Trends in State Responses to Sexual Minorities and Their Reflection in Public Attitudes

This paper extends existing world society literature on the international diffusion of norms by examining divergence in world society. First, we identify polarizing trends in national regulation of homosexuality. Since 2005, the dominant post-WWII global trend toward liberalization has been challenged by a countervailing trend in which some countries have adopted more repressive laws regulating homosexuality. Second, we seek to identify whether states’ alignment with either liberal or conservative world models influences public opinion. Analyzing three waves of data on public acceptance of homosexuality from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey between 2002 and 2013, we find that world public opinion concerning homosexuality has become increasingly polarized and that public opinion is embedded in broader institutional structures. Characteristics including education, age, and religious affiliation (and the lack of thereof) also affect individual acceptance of homosexuality, whereas the influence of age and education has diminished over time.

Another Story: What Public Opinion Data Tell Us about Refugee and Humanitarian Policy

The global reaction to US President Donald Trump's executive order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” of January 27, 2017,1 revealed great public sympathy for the fate of refugees and the principle of refugee protection. In the case of Europe, such sympathy has, however, been dismissed by politicians who have read concerns regarding security and integration as reason for introducing restrictive policies on asylum and humanitarian assistance. These policies are at odds with public sentiment. Drawing upon public opinion surveys conducted by Amnesty International, the European Social Survey (ESS), and Pew Global Attitudes Survey across the European Union and neighboring states, this article records a marked divide between public attitudes towards the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers and official policies regarding asylum and humanitarian assistance, and seeks to understand why this is the case. The article suggests that post-9/11 there has been a reconfiguration of refugee policy and a reconnecting of humanitarian and security interests which has enabled a discourse antithetical to the universal right to asylum. It offers five possible explanations for this trend: i) fears over cultural antagonism in host countries; ii) the conflation of refugees and immigrants, both those deemed economically advantageous as well as those labelled as “illegal”; iii) dominance of human capital thinking; iv) foreign policy justification; and v) the normalization of border controls. The main conclusion is that in a post-post-Cold War era characterized in part by the reconnecting of security and humanitarian policy, European governments have developed restrictive policies despite public sympathy. Support for the admission of refugees is not, however, unqualified, and most states and European populations prefer skilled populations that can be easily assimilated. In order to achieve greater protection and more open policies, this article recommends human rights actors work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners to challenge the above discourse through media campaigns and grassroots messaging. Further recommendations include: • Challenging efforts to normalize and drawing attention to the extreme and unprecedented activities of illegal and inhumane practices, e.g., detention, offshore processing, and the separation of families through the courts as part of a coordinated information campaign to present a counter moral argument. • Identifying how restrictive asylum policies fail to advance foreign policy interests and are contrary to international law. • Evidencing persecution by sharing information with the press and government agencies on the nature of claims by those currently considered ineligible for refugee protection as part of a wider campaign of information and inclusion. • Engaging with minority, and in particular Muslim, communities to redress public concerns regarding the possibility of cultural integration in the host country. • Clarifying the rights of refugees and migrants in line with the UNHCR and International Organization for Migration (IOM) guidelines and European and national law in order to hold governments to account and to ensure that all — irrespective of their skills, status, nationality or religion — are given the opportunity to seek asylum. • Identifying and promoting leadership among states and regional bodies to advance the rights of refugees.

Who Favors al-Qaeda? Anti-Americanism, Religious Outlooks, and Favorable Attitudes toward Terrorist Organizations

This study examines why ordinary people sympathize with a terrorist network in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Holding literalist religious outlook resonating with al-Qaeda’s marginal interpretation of Islam constant, it is maintained that anti-Americanism and its varieties matter a great deal in explaining attitudes toward al-Qaeda. Using Pew Global Attitudes Surveys conducted in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia, the authors run conditional mixed process estimations combining seemingly unrelated regressions with selection models to account for the missing values and endogeneity problems. The analysis reveals significant variation both cross-nationally and in the effects of varieties of anti-Americanism on favorability of al-Qaeda. While the dislike of certain aspects of American culture generates sympathy toward al-Qaeda, anti-Americanism as a general attitude does not. More interestingly, dislike of American democracy, technology, and policy has either negative or no effect on favorable views of al-Qaeda. Literalist religious outlook generates positive views of al-Qaeda, but religiosity has a negative impact. These findings imply that we need to draw careful distinctions between politicized Islamic preferences and personal religiosity as well as the different types of anti-American sentiments in understanding Muslim political attitudes about terrorist groups.

The 'Euromaidan,' Democracy, and Political Values in Ukraine

This paper examines the political system, attitudes towards democracy, and their determinants in Ukraine before, during and after the “Euromaidan.” The research question is as follows: What type of political system has emerged in Ukraine since the “Euromaidan?” The related research question is to what extent political values in Ukraine are supportive of democracy. This study is based on theories of democratic, semi-democratic, and authoritarian political systems, democratization, and political culture. A number of major survey-based academic studies, conducted primarily before the “Orange Revolution,” concluded that mass political values in Ukraine were generally supportive of democracy, and that they did not preclude emergence of a consolidated democracy. Many previous studies presented the “Orange Revolution” as a democratic revolution that transformed Ukraine from semi-democracy or competitive authoritarianism to democracy. Democracy was often regarded as the most likely future path of political development of this post-Soviet state. The Western and Ukrainian media, the Western governments, and the Maidan government in Ukraine also generally presented the “Euromaidan” as a democratic revolution that overthrew the authoritarian government as a result of mass peaceful protests. However, there is lack of academic studies of the political system and democratic values in Ukraine since the “Euromaidan.” This paper compares political systems in Ukraine before, during and after the “Euromaidan.” It uses data from different waves of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems surveys, the Pew Global Attitudes surveys, and the World Values Surveys to examine public attitudes towards democracy in Ukraine before and after the “Euromaidan.” It also compares democratic and authoritarian preferences in Ukraine with those in Poland and Russia, two similar post-communist countries with differing political cultures and divergent trajectories of democratization. Finally, this study implements multiple regression analysis of the determinants of attitudes towards democracy. It analyzes effects of political party preferences, regional historical legacies, religion, ethnicity, and other factors on pro-democracy views. The study also discusses implications of its findings for the prospects for liberal democracy in Ukraine and for the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

Soft Power, Religion, and Anti-Americanism in the Middle East

This study presents the first systematic analysis of the public opinion dimension of soft power competition in the contemporary Middle East. Building on the scholarship on perceptions of foreign states and Arab public opinion, it proposes a series of hypotheses about sectarian identity, religious worldviews, and anti-Americanism as determinants of attitudes toward Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in the context of regional rivalry. It then presents multivariate probit estimations utilizing Pew Global Attitudes Survey to test these hypotheses. The findings suggest that religious identity and worldviews directly affect favorability ratings of these three powers in the Arab Middle East. While Sunnis favor Saudi Arabia and Turkey over Iran, religious individuals demanding Islamic law favor the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, anti-Americanism translates into lower support for Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but greater support for Iran. Democratic attitudes have no influence over perceptions of these three powers indicating the limits of democracy promotion as a foreign policy tool.

Globalization, Contact, and Religious Identity: A Cross‐National Analysis of Interreligious Favorability*

ObjectivesThis article examines cross‐national variation in interreligious favorability across the globe. We develop and test several hypotheses linking globalization to attitudes toward the religious other through mechanisms of religious belonging and contact.MethodsUtilizing cross‐national data in 20 countries from the Pew Global Attitudes Surveys (2011), we run a series of multilevel and logistic regression estimations to test our hypotheses about global contact, religious identity, and interreligious favorability.ResultsWe find that global contact has a positive effect on interreligious favorability, whereas holding religious identity increases negative sentiments toward religious outgroups. We also find that increased levels of globalization inhibit the negative impact of religious belonging and threat perceptions on favorable views of the religious other.ConclusionAlthough globalization increases the salience of religion as an exclusive identity category at the expense of decreased interreligious favorability, individuals become more conducive to interreligious tolerance thanks to frequent social contact at higher levels of globalization.

Who is Afraid of Globalization? Turkish Attitudes toward Trade and Globalization

The Turkish economy has gradually liberalized and has become integrated into the regional and global economies since the 1980s. This article analyzes how the Turkish public evaluates the integration of the Turkish economy into the global economy, in particular, increasing trade ties, globalization, greater availability of foreign products and travel opportunities, the impact of multinational companies and international financial institutions. The evidence from Pew Global Attitudes Surveys shows that the Turkish public is overwhelmingly positive about certain changes such as increasing trade and availability of foreign products, whereas they are overwhelmingly negative about others such as the impact of multinationals and of immigration. Regression analyses demonstrate that these attitudes are shaped by individuals' perceptions of whether they have benefited from the liberalization of the economy.

What Affects China's National Image? A cross-national study of public opinion

This paper investigates macro-level sources of variations across countries regrading China's national image, as measured by the proportion of the public in each of 35 countries that expressed a favorable view of China in the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Survey. It turns out that several expected factors have no significant measurable impact on China's image: not the extent of strategic ties between China and a given country; not the political system of that country; not the extent of Chinese investment in the country; and not the number of Confucius institutes and classrooms in that country. The only macro-level factor we find to affect China's image in a country is that country's level of economic and social development, as measured by the UN Human Development Index. Controlling for the other factors, publics in poor or developing countries are much more likely to have a favorable image of China than publics in economically advanced countries. Some implications of our findings are discussed.

Psychological Factors Associated with Support for Suicide Bombing in the Muslim Diaspora

A robust literature on ingroup versus outgroup conflict suggests that perceived discrimination may be an important factor in intergroup aggression. Yet, to date, no studies have tested the hypothesis that the perception of being the victim of anti‐Muslim discrimination might be associated with support for anti‐Western political violence. We undertook an analysis of two Pew Global Attitudes Surveys: (1) a 2006 data set surveying 1,627 adult Muslim residents of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain and (2) a 2007 data surveying 1,050 adult Muslim residents of the United States. Our analyses support the conclusions that younger age and perceived discrimination are both associated with support of suicide bombing in these Muslim diaspora populations. Study 1 found that a bad experience of discrimination increased the odds of justifying suicide bombing among European Muslims by a factor of 3.4. Study 2 found that experienced discrimination was associated with justification of suicide bombing among American Muslims. If further investigations confirm that perceived discrimination is a risk factor for support for political violence, initiatives to reduce discrimination would theoretically reduce the risk of terrorism. We discuss the challenge of breaking the vicious cycle of intergroup prejudice and radicalization.

Islamophobia and Threat Perceptions: Explaining Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the West

This article investigates the determinants of anti-Muslim sentiment in the West. Starting from the premise that Islamophobic attitudes are more nuanced than a simple dislike of Muslims, I focus on specific forms of attitudes which link Muslims to violence and terrorism. Data from the Pew Global Attitudes Surveys are used to test three theories: perceived threat, social identity, and cognitive capabilities. A series of logit estimations are used for the empirical analysis of individual level data in the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain. The results show that perceived realistic and symbolic threat is the most significant source of Islamophobic attitudes in the West. While individuals cognitively differentiate between general feelings toward Muslims and their specific characteristics, higher levels of education significantly reduces negative sentiments. A good number of Westerners think of Muslims as violent individuals while some believe that they support al-Qaeda. Citizens in the West are more likely to associate Muslims with terrorism if they feel threatened by their physical and cultural existence.

Let the People Speak

Democracy and press freedom have a long, intertwined history. This article builds on previous research examining democratic consolidation by developing a theoretical model to explicate the multilevel relationships between the openness of national media systems and citizens’ perceptions about press freedom in emerging democracies. We combine individual-level public opinion data from the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Survey with institutional data from Freedom House to examine institutional and individual predictors of perceived supply and citizen demand for press freedom. The results of the analyses demonstrate a relationship between characteristics of national media systems and citizen perceptions and preferences about press freedom, although individual factors such as educational attainment, reliance on print media, evaluations of media and state performance, and regime support play a more meaningful role in shaping perceptions about press freedom. Theoretical implications for understanding citizen attitudes about press freedom and their relationship with democratization are discussed.

Updating the China Model

China's development model is undergoing dramatic change. No longer relying solely on cheap labor to manufacture exports, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is updating its approach in three distinct...

Middle Powers during Great Power Transitions

What is the fate of middle powers during the transition of great powers in the international system? In particular, what happens to middle powers that are tethered to a declining unipolar power? Virtually every close ally of the United States is asking this question today against the backdrop of a rising China. The question is particularly acute for the middle powers of Asia that are aligned with the US - especially South Korea but also the Philippines, Taiwan, and Australia.The reconfiguration of the economic and political environment resulting from the rise of China is less acute for Canada, whose external environment will continue to be shaped far more by the geographically contiguous United States than by distant China. Nonetheless, the new global context that is being created by China's rise has uncertain implications for Canada-US relations. China's rise will affect Canada-US relations and the way that Ottawa and Washington respond to China's rise will affect their foreign policies towards one another.I will make the empirical claim that Canada is more likely to reassert its traditional close ties with the US in a period of growing tensions with China than to bandwagon with China. Canada has neither the nor normative incentives to bandwagon with China. This is especially the case because a rising China will reduce Canada's international influence far more than that of the US, adding to the need for Canada to leverage its relationship with the US.The paradox that emerges, then, is that a successful integration of China into world order will likely weaken Canada-US ties by highlighting growing divergences within liberal internationalism. But this is true only in a narrow, technocratic sense. In a larger sense, such an outcome would reinforce the shared liberal commitments of both nations, commitments that ultimately underlie their strong bilateral relationship.CHINA'S RISE AND LIBERAL NORMSChina's rise can be measured using both traditional hard (material capabilities) as well as soft (human and social capabilities) data. China's share of global economic output (13 percent in 2010 using the International Monetary Fund's purchasing-power equivalent-based estimates) has closed in quickly on that of the United States (20 percent in 2010), while its military spending (US$98.8 billion in 2009 using midrange estimates), while only 15 percent of the US level, exceeds the combined spending of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. The correlates of war composite of national material capabilities, which uses economic, military, and population data, gives China a 20-percent share of international power in 2007, compared to 14 percent for the US (in part because of its somewhat archaic emphasis on steel production). RAND gave China a 14 percent share versus 20 percent for the US in 2005, but predicted that China would close that gap by around 2015.1 An Australian measure concurs that China's power will surpass that of the US by 2015.2China's soft-power capabilities lag far behind its hard-power capabilities, although this is normal for rising powers. Kim calculates that China's structural network power ranked only 24th in the world in 2000 (the US was first and Canada an impressive fifth) behind even South Africa and Poland.3 However, a common finding is that China's soft-power capabilities are improving rapidly. For instance, The Economist's index of innovation for 2009 ranked China 54th out of 82 countries, but forecast it would climb to 46th position by 2014, the fastest riser among nations. The shifting allegiance of middle powers like Canada may be one of the best indicators of a power transition in the international system.Moreover, China is today widely perceived to be a rising power. Among the 22 countries other than China and the US in the 2008 Pew global attitudes survey, the mean country score of decided respondents who believed that China had already or would eventually replace the US as the world's leading superpower was 51 percent (versus 49 percent who believed it would not). …