Washington, D.C. For much of the 20th century, social scientists and policymakers argued that democratization and modernity would render religion insignificant and irrelevant. They were wrong, says Timothy Shah, senior Pew Forum fellow in religion and world affairs, who contends religion is booming in many countries and democracy has given religious leaders a growing political […]
Summary of Findings Most Americans believe that Iran wants to possess nuclear technology in order to develop nuclear weapons, not energy. But there is broad public opposition to launching U.S. air strikes against military targets in Iran, with multilateral sanctions by far the preferred option approach for dealing with the situation. More than eight-in-ten Americans […]
Public attentiveness to major global events and issues is typically higher in major industrialized countries than in less developed countries. But awareness of news developments varies widely, by country and by issue. The German public consistently expresses broad familiarity with events and issues. While attention to reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo is […]
Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts A reviewer of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington’s first book compared him unfavorably to Mussolini. A reviewer of his 19th and latest book dubbed him “Patrick Buchanan with footnotes.” But those reactions were mild compared with the controversy over the international political paradigm advanced in Huntington’s most influential book, The Clash of […]
Summary of Findings Americans are now more positive about the way things are going in Iraq than in the past few months, following the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and President Bush’s brief visit to the country. Optimism about the U.S. achieving its goals in Iraq, which sagged in the spring, has rebounded. But this […]
Remarks of Andrew Kohut to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing
Few Signs of Backlash From Western Europeans
To explore how Westerners and Muslims see one another, we asked two batteries of questions. One is a simple favorability rating that focuses on religious and ethnic groupings; respondents were asked whether they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Muslims, Christians, Arabs and Jews. The second asked about a series of 11 character traits […]
Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in May 2006 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker Michael Cook, widely considered among the most outstanding scholars on the history of Islam, is the author of several classic works on […]
After a year marked by riots over cartoon portrayals of Muhammad, a major terrorist attack in London, and continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, most Muslims and Westerners see relations between them as generally bad.
