Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
by Richard Wike, Senior Researcher and Kathleen Holzwart, Research Analyst, Pew Global Attitudes Project Until recently, Kenya was considered something of a success story in a troubled region; now, however, it is consumed by political and ethnic violence following last week’s disputed reelection of President Mwai Kibaki. The unrest has shocked many both inside and […]
Prior to the Bhutto Assassination, Public Opinion Was Increasingly Opposed to Terrorism
Public perceptions of the situation in Iraq have become significantly more positive over the past several months, even as opinions about the initial decision to use military force remain mostly negative and unchanged. The number of Americans who say the military effort is going very or fairly well is much higher now than a year […]
Washington, D.C. Peter Berger, an eminent sociologist of religion and a lifelong Lutheran, asked himself several years ago: “Would my moral convictions change if I woke up tomorrow as an atheist?” For Berger, this perplexing question led to a research project involving fellow Judeo-Christian religious thinkers, which will culminate in the publication of two books, […]
To what extent has public opinion risen or fallen with changes in the news? At least since June, there seems to be a connection between events on the ground, press coverage and public opinion. According to survey data from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, there has been a steady increase […]
With the exception of the war in Iraq, international affairs tend not to generate major media interest. But General Pervez Musharraf’s Nov. 3 declaration of emergency rule in Pakistan proved to be a dramatic exception to that rule—and there may be several disquieting reasons why.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project finds that most key democratic values are broadly supported throughout the 35 developing nations surveyed. In nearly all of these countries, majorities say it is important to live in a country where the six democratic principles included on the survey are respected. And in most countries majorities say these features […]
The publics of the world broadly embrace key tenets of economic globalization but fear the disruptions and downsides of participating in the global economy. In rich countries as well as poor ones, most people endorse free trade, multinational corporations and free markets. However, the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey of more than 45,000 people finds they are concerned about inequality, threats to their culture, threats to the environment and the threats posed by immigration. And there are signs that enthusiasm for economic globalization is waning in the West.