Two decades after the end of communist rule, Eastern Europeans have largely embraced democratic values. Most want civil liberties, competitive elections and other tenets of democracy. However, throughout the region there is a significant gap between what people want and what they have, as relatively few believe the elements of democracy that they prize actually […]
Most of the publics in the 14 nations included in the survey are dissatisfied – some by overwhelming margins – with the way things are going in their countries, and majorities in all see their economies as struggling. In most of the Eastern European and former Soviet countries surveyed, people see their nations plagued by […]
The current survey was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 24, 2009 among 14,760 respondents in Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine and the United States. In each country, interviews were conducted in local languages with representative samples of the adult population (for details see Methods in […]
Americans and Western Europeans agree on the extremist threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but divisions remain over the Afghan war
Majorities of the public and Council on Foreign Relations members say Islamic extremist groups, Iran’s nuclear program and international financial instability represent major threats to the well-being of the United States. However, the public is much more likely than CFR members to view the Taliban’s growing strength in Afghanistan, North Korea’s nuclear program, and China’s […]
The Government Restrictions Index is based on 20 questions used by the Pew Forum to assess whether governments – including at the local or provincial level – restrict religious practices or beliefs. The questions are intended to gauge the extent to which governments try to control religious groups or individuals, prohibit conversions from one faith […]
Many of the European Union member states surveyed believe that their country’s membership in the institution is a good thing. Still, there is widespread concern that their national economies have been weakened as a result of the economic integration of Europe. Notably, attitudes toward the EU are most negative in Britain and Hungary. Looking to […]
One of the major findings from the 1991 Times Mirror Center study was the high level of antipathy toward ethnic and religious minorities in Eastern Europe. With communist rule over in most of the region, and in its final stages in the Soviet Union, long-simmering conflicts among groups within these societies were reemerging. Today, in […]
Publics in most former communist countries generally express low levels of religious commitment. Majorities in the Czech Republic, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria and the former East Germany say they seldom or never attend religious services, and few say religion is very important in their lives or that they pray at least once a day. Poles are […]
Europe, which includes 50 countries and territories, has about 38 million Muslims, constituting about 5% of its population. European Muslims make up slightly more than 2% of the world’s Muslim population. Readers should bear in mind that estimates of the numbers of Muslims in Europe vary widely because of the difficulty of counting new immigrants. Nevertheless, […]