Verified by 
Public opinion research as a formalized, quantitative exercise in understanding the public’s views of politics, government, and issues originated in the United States in the early 20th century. Much of this blog for that reason and matters of personal interest focuses on opinions in the United States. But recent protests across the world in response to an anti-Islamic internet video make clear that everyone around the world has opinions and those opinions matter – not just in their home country but everyone on earth. There is considerable worry about the polarized climate in contemporary American politics, but the polarization of global opinions is a far greater concern.
If the opinions of those residing in the United States are deeply divided, our political processes can mete out those differences through elections, legislative behavior, and judicial processes. Within other democratic countries, analogous institutions resolves public disputes. But when the opinions of all the world are weighed as a whole, there are no institutions that can resolve debates of opinion. When polarized views of contemporary events lead the public of one part of the world to think and behavior in a fashion far different from that of the public elsewhere, those differences of opinions can never take on the form of a deliberative democratic process.
Indeed, while many in the West expressed perhaps disappointment or disinterest in the recent anti-Islamic film, many Muslims in the world appear to have been deeply offended. Their differences of opinion are not apparently slightly different perspectives on a common world event, but radically different – indeed, fundamentally polarized – views of freedom of expression and religious liberty. The degree to which non-Muslims, especially in the global West, and Muslims, especially in the global East, disagree reflects a global polarization of views far larger and far more entrenched than anything we might observe within the seemingly divided American electorate. And yet, how much do opinions of Muslims and non-Muslims, of West and of East, differ on the fundamental political issues of the day?
My interest in public attitudes is much less in what people think than in the strength of peoples’ convictions and the passions they feel for particular aspects of politics. Mass political actions, like the protests currently sweeping across the world, are therefore intriguing because they represent incredible passion on the part of the protestors and reflect a sufficiently broad base of public support to attract the participation of countless individuals across Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. But the protests also reveal about the Muslim world a commonality with American politics – those with the strongest views on a matter are most apt to take action about it; the voices of those less impassioned are rarely heard.
The geographic scope and sheer scale of these protests have seemed to evoke images of what political scientist Samuel Huntington termed “The Clash of Civilizations,” where East meets West and Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism meet in a violent breakdown of global society. Yet scientific data suggests that the world’s Muslims are far more politically diverse than the ongoing protests would suggest. While there seem to be clear differences between the opinions of those protesting and the opinions of many in Western countries seemingly befuddled by the protestors (at times violent) responses, examining the world’s opinions as a whole offers a radically different perspective on contemporary relations between East and West and Christianity and Islam.
In August, the Pew Global Attitudes project released perhaps the most comprehensive report to date on Muslims’ attitudes. What is most surprising is not that majority-Muslim countries show strong commitments to the Islamic faith, but that there is considerable diversity of views among different “Muslim” countries and within those countries. While Huntington’s East-West dichotomy of the world may be a convenient political narrative for both advocates of greater ties between the United States and the Middle East, who seek to bridge that divide, and those who view the divide as one of right and wrong, who wish to fight across it, opinions of Muslims across the globe reveal anything but consensus on much other than monotheism.
Though there is not global opinion data – that is, public opinion data which might speak to what the whole world’s public thinks of any issue – these cross-national surveys of Muslim-majority countries suggest that such data might be worth collecting. Rather than frame portions of the world in terms of the policies and positions taken by their leaders or by the passionate expression of relatively small numbers of protestors, direct measurement of the global public’s views could reveal – as the Pew report does – that the public cannot be easily summarized by a single viewpoint.
Indeed, even within the United States, there is not clear polarization between American Muslims and Americans of other faiths. Another Pew report, released last year, examined opinions of American Muslims. The report reaches two main conclusions. First, American Muslims show little support for the types of Islamist extremism that fills news reports out of the Middle East. Second, in terms of their religiosity (commitment to their faith, regular religious attendance, etc.), American Muslims are almost indistinguishable from American Christians. While their religious beliefs differ, American Muslims are similarly passionate about their religion as American Christians are about theirs. In one particularly telling question, the nearly two-thirds of American Muslims report seeing no conflict between being a devout Muslim and “living in a modern society,” a pattern of beliefs identical to those held by American Christians.
It is easy, when religiously motivated protests fill news headlines, to view the world as a polarized place, with East and West, Muslim and Christian, religious and secular, as intractable divides that push segments of the global public to extremes. Further, it is convenient to think that the passionate expression of protestors, especially when acting violently, reflect the views of countries, religious or other groups, or the whole of the public. Yet, what evidence we do have about the divides between Muslims and Christians and between Muslim countries and the rest of suggests that there is no consensus within groups. And when there is disagreement among Muslims and among others, it is impossible for Muslims and others to truly be polarized.
