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Pew Global Attitudes Project
Global Public Opinion in the Bush Years (2001-2008)
America's Image - Muslims and Westerners - Global Economy - Rise of China
When Barack Obama is sworn in as America's new president in January, he will inherit two wars in distant lands, one highly unpopular and the other going badly, along with a worldwide financial crisis that is being measured against the Great Depression. He will confront the prospect of destructive global climate change and the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states.
The president-elect has indicated that he will focus on international cooperation in addressing global problems, but he will have to navigate a world that has grown highly critical of the United States.
The U.S. image abroad is suffering almost everywhere. Particularly in the most economically developed countries, people blame America for the financial crisis. Opposition to key elements of American foreign policy is widespread in Western Europe, and positive views of the U.S. have declined steeply among many of America's longtime European allies. In Muslim nations, the wars in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq have driven negative ratings nearly off the charts. The United States earns positive ratings in several Asian and Latin American nations, but usually by declining margins. And while the most recent Pew Global Attitudes survey finds that favorable views of America edged up in 2008, only in sub-Saharan Africa does America score uniformly favorable marks.
America's image gap is the central, unmistakable finding from surveys conducted over the course of this decade by the Pew Research Center's Pew Global Attitudes Project. Since 2002, interviewers have polled over 175,000 people in 54 nations and the Palestinian territories to compare and contrast public opinion around the world on a large variety of subjects. These years coincide almost exactly with the presidency of George W. Bush, thus making it possible to assess his impact on matters of concern not just to the United States but to the world. Some of the other major findings include:
- Numerous tensions exist between Muslim and Western publics on values, policies, world events, and perceptions of one another. For instance, a 2006 Pew Global Attitudes survey highlighted the extent to which Muslims saw the controversy surrounding cartoons published by a Danish newspaper portraying the prophet Muhammad as an example of Western disrespect for Islam, while Westerners blamed intolerance among Muslims.
- Despite some rough edges, globalization has enjoyed widespread popularity during the Bush years. Surveys have found worldwide support for increased commerce across national borders. Still, enthusiasm is waning in Western Europe and the United States as rich countries become aware of accompanying dislocations. And many foreigners, even as they devour American movies and music, fear the crowding out of their own cultures.
- The rise of China has generated serious concerns in many countries. China's favorability ratings have fallen since 2002, particularly in Europe and its biggest neighbors - India, Japan, and Russia. China is already widely regarded as one of the world's top economic powers and is seen by many as likely to replace the United States as the world's dominant power.
- The world's agenda is evolving but not transforming. A 2007 survey found that global publics were increasingly concerned about the growing gap between the world's rich and poor. Concern about pollution had also increased. At the family level, people consistently named financial concerns as the most important problem in their own lives, but they did not want to see economic growth come at the expense of the environment.
America's Image Gap
Mounting discontent with U.S. foreign policy over the last eight years has translated into a concern about American power. In the view of much of the world, the United States has played the role of bully in the school yard, throwing its weight around with little regard for others' interests.
America won a measure of global sympathy after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but the inaugural Pew Global Attitudes survey showed that by spring 2002 favorability ratings for the U.S. had already dropped in many countries since the start of the decade. Surveys conducted after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 found further declines. Positive views of the United States declined in 26 of the 33 countries where the question was posed in both 2002 and 2007.
Respondents to the 2006 survey in 13 of 15 countries found the American presence in Iraq to be an equal or greater danger to stability in the Middle East than the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while 11 judged it a threat to Middle East stability greater than or equal to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And while the U.S.-led war on terrorism initially drew strong support among U.S. allies in Europe, in recent years world attitudes toward America's military operations in Afghanistan have turned increasingly negative. Now in recent surveys, majorities in nearly all countries think it's time for America to withdraw from both Iraq and Afghanistan.