I've just taken a quick look at the latest release from the Pew Global Attitudes Project which has examined public opinion in 47 countries with more than 45,000 interviews conducted. The Pew report will be posted at noon today.

These surveys are invaluable in getting a sense of the global temperature on such matters as globalization, immigration, democratization, and views toward religiosity, gender equity, morality, the Internet, and the like. Most importantly, it gives us insight into the divides between the developed world and developing, and between those embracing and fearful of modernity.

This huge study delivers the message that the kind of "high trust globalization" that perhaps existed before 9/11 has given way to a "higher fear globalization" in which the public wants thicker borders, more protection from inbound immigration, and in which incoming ideas and Western norms are embraced or rejected in a more ad hoc fashion. Enthusiasm for economic opportunity via global economic integration remains significant, but is waning in much of the world, according to the survey.

Here is a short clip from a Pew press release on the survey focusing on the tensions in the Middle East:

~ At least a third of all Muslims in a majority of the countries with large Muslim populations -- including more than half in Lebanon and Turkey -- sees a struggle between Islamic fundamentalists and those who want to modernize their countries.

~ While most publics agree that religion and politics do not mix, the trend is moving in opposite direction in two major Muslim countries that are key allies of the United States. Support for strict separation between religion and government is growing in Pakistan, while in Turkey support for separation has declined significantly in the past five years.

~ Majorities in every Latin American, Eastern European, and African country surveyed say women should choose their own husbands, but publics in South Asia and in most Arab countries say a woman’s family should choose whom she marries or that both should have a say.

Here is the report in pdf.

-- Steve Clemons