Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Pope Francis, leader of the world’s nearly 1.1 billion Catholics, enjoys broad support across much of the world: a median of 60% across 43 nations have a favorable view of him. Only 11% see the pope unfavorably, and 28% give no rating.
Publics across the globe see the threat of religious and ethnic violence as a growing threat to the world’s future, with concern especially strong in the Middle East.
With parliamentary elections approaching later this month, Tunisian support for democracy has declined steeply since the early days of the Arab Spring. Just 48% of Tunisians now say democracy is preferable to other kinds of government, down from 63% in a 2012 poll conducted only months after a popular uprising removed longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from office.
Crime and corruption, common scourges of modern societies, top the list of problems cited by publics in emerging and developing nations.
Kurds are playing a major role in the current conflict in Iraq, and are often mentioned alongside Iraq’s Sunni and Shia Muslim populations. But Kurds are an ethnic group, not a distinct religious sect within Islam; nearly all Iraqi Kurds consider themselves Sunni Muslims.
As Turkey prepares to vote for its first ever directly elected president, a new Pew Research Center survey finds the Turkish public is divided over the main contender for the office, current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Washington, July 16, 2014 — Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are all viewed warmly by the American public, according to a new national Pew Research Center survey. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – where 0 reflects the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the […]
When asked to rate religious groups on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100, Americans rate Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians warmly and atheists and Muslims more coldly.
Nearly three-quarters of Americans now think religion is losing influence in American life, and most who say this also see it as a bad thing. Perhaps as a consequence, a growing share of the public wants religion to play a role in U.S. politics.
Religion in Politics The public is now evenly divided on the question of whether churches and other houses of worship should express their views on day-to-day social and political questions: 49% say they should do this, while 48% say churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters. During the last midterm […]