The Global Credibility Gap
It doesn’t compare to the normal domestic polling that campaigns live by, yet U.S. presidential candidates are likely to closely pick through the findings of the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey. This one, involving forty-five thousand interviews in forty-seven countries, is the biggest yet and comes up with the not-unexpected finding that the United States remains deeply unpopular, especially in the Muslim world.
But the poll shows growing unease about China’s rise, as well as concerns over the intentions of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and mistrust of Venezuela’s increasingly assertive president, Hugo Chavez. Pew provides an interesting graphic showing a twin decline in approval among citizens of leading NATO states for Presidents Bush and Putin, who will meet to discuss missiles, Iran, and Kosovo at Kennebunkport this weekend.
It also finds strong support for the United States in Africa, Japan, India, and most of the former Eastern bloc.
For the presidential candidates, Democrats’ positions on global warming seem to be most in touch with prevailing concerns. But all should take note of declining support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. And they might want to polish their democracy promotion positions based on this finding from the survey:
Public rejection of American democracy in most countries may in part reflect opinions about the way in which the United States has implemented its pro-democracy agenda, as well as America’s democratic values. Majorities in 43 of 47 countries surveyed – including 63% in the United States – say that the U.S. promotes democracy mostly where it serves its interests, rather than promoting it wherever it can.
