Notes on Pew’s Global Attitudes Project

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Notes on Pew’s Global Attitudes Project

I came across the 2008 version of Pew’s Global Attitudes Project. The report lays out a lot of interesting statistics, as one might hope a 150-page document would.

Before I start, I wondered if I might make one suggestion: if you’re going to make a graph depicting positive and negative attitudes, it would probably be better to use gray to stand for the latter and not the former.

But, hey, it’s your study, Pew

. You do what you want.

Global Economy

Take a look at the following three graphs:

Several things struck me here. First, obviously, malaise is the word of the day in much of the world. A majority in many countries see their economies either worsening or remaining the same, with only an astounding 5% in Japan thinking their economy will improve.

While the US respondents in the first graph show a fairly balanced view of their future – with about a third in each category – I would never have expected to find the US at the bottom of the list when it comes to positive views of international trade. As Emmanuel said at International Political Economy Zone:

So let me get this straight: US GDP in Q1 2008 would have been nearly nothing had it not been for the contributions of net exports, yet America is the least trade-friendly country in this sample? Given current trends, it's certainly plausible that the trade sceptics already outnumber the pro-trade set. Just in time for the 2008 elections, too--it will be very interesting to see how this sort of sentiment will manifest itself come election time. The world awaits what the US has in store for it..

It wasn’t just the Nervous Nellies in the US that surprised me the most in the second graph. It was the fact that, in light of the US views, the French views were so positive. I spent a lot of time* when I lived in France, and thereafter, debating the particularity of the French when it comes to their perspectives on la mondialisation.

Two studies come to mind on the subject. One international poll asked participants in several countries to say the first word that comes to mind when they heard the word globalization. While the majority of people in other countries described global trade in positive terms like, commerce, prosperity, etc., the majority of French respondents had a singularly different view: peur [fear].

The second study was a European study in which interviewees were simply asked whether or not they had a positive or negative view of international trade. While most countries managed above sixty percent positive views, France stood out in that it posed a mirror image of the countries around it, with only about 35 percent of the population viewing globalization favorably.

(I can now find neither of these studies, so take it with a grain of salt.)

Now, what we’re seeing above is twice as many French people saying that their growing economic ties in the international community are “very good” for the country, with only fifteen percent in the US agreeing.

Politics

This one shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone:

However, I do find these interesting:

Right off the bat, does it worry anyone that there are more people in Japan who claim to be following the US election “very closely/somewhat closely” than in the US? I’m assuming it has something to do with the fact that the coverage in Japan couldn’t possibly be the incessant dribble that it is in the US (pessimist? No…), so maybe they just haven’t turned off their TVs yet.

Notice, the only two countries where McCain had a lead at the time of the survey** were Jordan and the US, and it’s not much of a lead either. This caught my eye, particularly, because I’m one who thinks that right now world opinion – while certainly not the deciding factor – should be an important consideration when voting for our next president.

Moreover, it shows a considerable disconnect between the US and the outside world. This might be expected, but I wonder if other surveys in the eighties or nineties would have shown the international community leaning so far towards one candidate.

Views of China and the US

I hope a lot of Americans and Chinese will see these graphs (which they won’t) and ponder the messages therein. In both the US and China, one key idea has been lost in the translation of the news from the moment it transpires to the moment it shows up on the television: they don’t hate you.

While I feel that this misunderstanding raises its ugly head more often in China than in the US, there is certainly a common thread among many Americans in the belief that protests and attacks on American policy and practice automatically denote a consuming disdain for everything that is “America.” This belief has become particularly hard to dispel over the last eight years, as it’s been used by many of our politicians to pit us against the world. While the foundation of this claim is weakening, there are still many in the US who see criticism of US policy as criticism of what it is to be American.

This is all to say that suffocated somewhere beneath all of the media hoopla is the truism that the political entity that is “America” and the culture that is “American” are not one in the same, intertwined as they may be.

I found this particularly frustrating when listening to this interview on NPR with Johns-Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami. I agree with Dr. Ajami that anti-Americanism is not nearly as widely held a belief as many would think, but, at the same time, noting the long lines of people waiting to come to the US isn’t a sufficient refutation of that position. I was dying for someone to call up and say, “Wait, people saying their view of the US is more negative than positive doesn’t really say much about anti-Americanism. People around the world are very frustrated with many of the US’ policies, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to come to live, work, or travel. That doesn’t suggest anything about their view of Americans, or all that is America, for that matter.”

Moreover, regarding those people who really do hate Americans, it’s important to remember that minds can be changed. Some of my best friends from my time abroad are people who, at first, didn’t want to associate with me at all. I can’t begin to explain how uplifting it is to hear someone say that, just by being myself, I changed someone’s whole perspective on the US.

In China, there also seems to be this very idea that the display of disdain for the PRC’s policies is tantamount to a blanket condemnation of the Chinese people themselves (paging Jack Cafferty and all of the citizens of France). Yet, as you can see in the last graph, in all five of the countries, the Chinese people are far more popular than their government.

Lamenting the general lack of nuance in viewing world opinion is probably a waste of time, but I for one look longingly towards the day that disagreement on policy issues is taken a lot less emotionally and discussed over brimming bowl of unicorn soup, a smooth pint of ogre ale, and a nice hand-rolled WMD cigar.

* I had a lot of time on my hands, because my classmates were often busy blocking our campus in what I saw was the most backwards way to protest what you saw as someone trying to rob you of your future (that is, by depriving yourself of the one thing that might lead you to a better future: your education)

** Obama’s had a consistent lead in the polls since mid-April

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