ISLAM, THE UNITED STATES AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES

ISLAM, THE UNITED STATES AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES:

AN ANALYSIS OF DETERMINANTS OF MUSLIM PUBLIC OPINION OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

A Thesis

submitted to the Faculty of the

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

of Georgetown University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of

Master of Public Policy

By

Jessica Arin Brown, M.B.A

Washington, DC

April 15th, 2010

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ISLAM, THE UNITED STATES AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES:

AN ANALYSIS OF DETERMINANTS OF MUSLIM PUBLIC OPINION OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Jessica Arin Brown, M.B.A.

Thesis Advisor : Robert Bednarzik, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

After September 11th, 2001, much of the international relations discourse has focused on

analyses of Muslim communities. Researchers have hoped to answer Fareed Zakaria’s question “why do

they hate us?” Samuel Huntington explains this phenomenon through a “clash of civilizations” between

the West and the East. But is this focus on religion appropriate? Or are there other, more nuanced

explanations for why communities abroad might think ill of the United States? The answer to this

question has serious implications for United States public diplomacy, which aims to understand, inform,

influence and engage citizens abroad to help further U.S. foreign policy goals. Using public opinion data

from the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey the following analysis measures relationships between

religion, culture and foreign opinions of the United States. To challenge the notion that religion has

primary explanatory power over perceptions of the United States, this study will utilize three different

theories of organizing the world’s culture—namely Samuel Huntington’s, Geert Hofstede’s and Inglehart

Welzel’s—to identify other factors which help to predict foreign perceptions of the United States.

Initial findings support the notion that Muslims as a group tend to have less favorable opinions of the

United States. However, those factors which demonstrate positive and negative views towards the

United States are consistent whether the full sample or a sub-sample of Muslim respondents, indicating

religion alone cannot explain favorable opinions towards the United States. This study suggests that

public diplomacy programming should not have a singular focus on shifting positive or negative views of

the United States, but should help to promote core American values of media openness, free and fair

government, strong education, active business and entertainment communities and democracy.

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Policies should aim to create educated, informed citizens both at home and abroad who can engage

respectfully in debates which capitalize on the “multiple identities” approach theorized by Amartya Sen.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research and writing of this thesis would not have been possible without the moral support and

guidance of numerous friends and colleagues. I am forever indebted to Professor Bruce Gregory for his kindness and support in reading early drafts of this paper. Special thanks to Dr. Chris Toppe, my adopted

thesis advisor, who was always willing to lend a hand. To all of my colleagues in the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs: thank you for your patience and interest in this endeavor. Through

countless off-hand conversations you have contributed to the development of this thesis in your own way. To Aimee Fullman--thank you for your guidance and humor, from conception to birth. And finally,

to Bobby B: we made it through alive. Thank you for your enduring patience.

Extra special thanks to my parents for making this Master’s degree possible.

With the utmost of gratitude,

Jessica Arin Brown, M.B.A.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page ....................................................................................................................................................................................... i

Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................................................... iv

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................................ iv

Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................................................................... v

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................ 1

Background ................................................................................................................................................................................. 3

Muslim Communities ........................................................................................................................................................ 3

History of Public Opinion towards the U.S. .............................................................................................................. 4

History of Public Diplomacy ........................................................................................................................................... 5

Culture ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Literature Review................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Religion ................................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Media ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 12

Policy ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 13

Country-Level Control Factors .................................................................................................................................... 14

Individual-Level Control Factors................................................................................................................................ 15

Gaps in Literature ............................................................................................................................................................. 16

Hypothesis ................................................................................................................................................................................ 17

Database .................................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Analysis ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 20

Methodology ............................................................................................................................................................................. 28

Model I: Religion .............................................................................................................................................................. 37

Model II: Huntington ....................................................................................................................................................... 37

Model III: Hofstede ........................................................................................................................................................... 38

Model IV: Ingelhart/ Welzel ......................................................................................................................................... 40

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Regression Results ................................................................................................................................................................. 41

Summary .............................................................................................................................................................................. 41

Media ................................................................................................................................................................................. 41

Policy ................................................................................................................................................................................. 42

Scapegoat ........................................................................................................................................................................ 42

Culture .............................................................................................................................................................................. 43

Control .............................................................................................................................................................................. 43

Model I: Religion ............................................................................................................................................................... 44

Model II: Huntington ....................................................................................................................................................... 44

Model III: Hofstede ........................................................................................................................................................... 45

Model IV: Inglehart/ Welzel ......................................................................................................................................... 46

Regression Results: Muslim Dependent Variable ............................................................................................... 54

Media ................................................................................................................................................................................. 54

Policy ................................................................................................................................................................................. 55

Scapegoat ........................................................................................................................................................................ 55

Culture .............................................................................................................................................................................. 56

Controls ............................................................................................................................................................................ 56

Policy Implications ................................................................................................................................................................ 62

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................. 65

APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................................................. 66

References ................................................................................................................................................................................. 90

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INTRODUCTION

The events of September 11th, 2001 demonstrated that the nature of governance and warfare

are changing. Attacks, committed by a network of sub-state actors, shattered our conception of the

modern world order. In the aftermath of these attacks, fueled on by rhetoric of a “war on terrorism”

and a “war of ideas,” there has been considerable scholarship seeking to answer the question: “Why do

they hate us?” (Zakaria, 2002; Esposito & Mogadeh, 2008). Since this point and the U.S.’ subsequent

counter-attacks on nations perceived to hold these groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, there has

emerged an immense amount of scholarship tracking foreign public opinion of the United States. The

Pew Global Attitudes Project, Gallup World Poll and Zogby International have devoted millions of dollars

of research in attempts to get to the root of Anti-Americanism abroad.

In efforts to reach those groups which have a negative view of the United States, the State

Department has amplified its efforts to reach out to communities abroad through public diplomacy, or

PD, an approach which former President Bush, as numerous predecessors, called “winning hearts and

minds.” In 2008, nearly $1 billion was spent on State Department funded U.S. public diplomacy abroad

to achieve this goal (Graham, 2008). Encompassing everything from the Department of Defense’s

“strategic communication” to the more “soft power” approaches of education and cultural exchanges

lauded by the term’s theoretical father Joseph Nye, the Department of State’s public diplomacy

activities since 9/11 have been subject to extensive criticism. Independent reports ranging from

historians (Nick Cull), bloggers (John Brown), government agencies (Government Accountability Office,

Congressional Research Service) and other affiliates (the Defense Science Board, U.S. Advisory

Commission on PD, etc.) have called for greater accountability and effectiveness in program delivery.

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Hailing from a private-sector background, the newest Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public

Affairs Judith McHale has reiterated this rhetoric in her focus on accountability, benchmarking of

progress and “return on investment” for public diplomacy.

In order to answer the call of these independent reports, and to effectively reach out to those

groups with the most negative opinion of the United States, we must accurately diagnose which

elements have the greatest influence on their opinions. This, in turn, will allow us to be more strategic

and focused in our public diplomacy efforts to these communities.

Notably, the Gallup World Poll’s ground-breaking 2007 survey of Muslims in 47-countries

throughout the world show that former President Bush’s “war on terror” was really perceived as a “war

on Islam” amongst predominantly Muslim communities. Although in early policy speeches former

President Bush was careful to distinguish everyday Muslims from the Islamic radicals, Islamo-fascists and

militant Jihadists, this nuanced spectrum was lost in the “us vs. them” rhetoric of the axis of evil and the

global war on terror. (Bush, 2005) This simplified interpretation of the Bush administration’s intentions,

by both domestic and foreign audiences, only seemed to support Samuel Huntington’s 1993 “Clash of

Civilizations” article which theorized the future of modern conflict would be played out between

ambiguous, largely religion-based “cultures” throughout the world.

Polls dating back to 2002 suggest that the perception of America abroad has to do with a lot

more than just our policies. In G.F. K. Roper’s recent Nation Brand Index, which measures a country’s

global reputation, the U.S. jumped 7 places to the number one most recognized nation brand—the most

dramatic change the study has ever seen. The founder of the index, Simon Anholt commented: “The

results suggest that the new U.S. administration has been well received abroad and the American

electorate's decision to vote in President Obama has given the United States the status of the world's

most admired country." (PR Newswire, 2009) President Obama’s recent selection as a Nobel Prize

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Laureate—with arguably little peace-building work beyond multi-lateral rhetoric—further suggests

there’s more to opinion than just religion.

If that’s the case—than is the primary focus on religion appropriate? As Amartya Sen theorizes,

can we categorize populations based on polarized “singular identities” when the true nature of the

world is much more messy? (Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, 2006) Should the

United States be focusing its public diplomacy efforts on a multiplicity of factors? In essence, what

factors are at the root of negative perceptions of the United States?

This paper, building on Tuggle’s 2005 paper on the same topic, will delve into those factors

which are believed to explain public opinion towards the United States. They include media

consumption, “scapegoating” or mis-placed dissatisfaction, policy alignment with the United States,

culture, religion, and other demographic “control” variables.

BACKGROUND

MUSLIM COMMUNITIES

Given that scholarship on public opinion includes analysis of both Muslim and Arab

communities, it is worthwhile to clarify these terms for the purposes of this paper. In total, the world is

composed of roughly 1.5 billion people practitioners of Islam, spanning the globe. The majority of

these, “Muslim Communities,” or those countries which we define as having greater than 10 percent of

their populations who practice Islam, spans 58 countries in the Middle East, Africa, and South and

Central Asia. (Government Accountability Office, 2006) For a complete list of these countries, please

see Appendix A.

While Islam is a faith, “Arab” is an ethnicity, comprising those individuals who share a national

history, culture and language. As with any definition of ethnicity, these boundaries are not clear-cut.

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The most conservative definitions define Arabs as semetic-speaking (including Arabic, Amharic, Tiginrya

or Hebrew) and originating from the Arabian peninsula, between southwest Asia and Africa—although

Arabs may or may not speak Arabic, and may or may not practice Islam. (Wikipedia) This paper will

utilize religion as a variable for analysis.

HISTORY OF PUBLIC OPINION TOWARDS THE U.S.

Following September 11th, there have been numerous public opinion polls conducted on

perceptions of the United States from predominantly Muslim countries, representing a complex mix of

opinions. On both individual and country-level analyses of predominantly Muslim countries, there is

consistency amongst the major international polling companies (Zogby, Gallup and Pew) regarding the

overall negative view of the Muslim World towards the United States; however differences in opinion

arise regarding the causes of these negative perceptions. A number of the studies by Zogby’s annual

Arab Public Opinion Survey and Pew’s Global Attitudes surveys cite distinctions in Muslim public opinion

between American policies –such as support for Israel and the inability to help the Israeli/Palestinian

conflict—and American values—such as our education system, scientific achievement, form of

government and popular culture.

Tessler (2003) argued that “religion and culture are not fostering antipathy to Western norms

and institutions, and [sic] anti-Americanism is for the most part a response to perceptions and

judgments regarding U.S. foreign policy.”

Gallup’s Poll of the Islamic World cites the spread of Western values as having a predominantly

negative impact on Muslim World opinions of the United States. (Gallup Poll Editorial Staff, 2002) In

particular some of the sources of this discontent are attributed to cultural and lifestyle values, such as

sex, alcohol, vulgarity and inappropriate dress. The majority of Muslim countries polled found that

"economic, social, and cultural modernity" was “predominantly or totally in conflict with local traditional

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value systems.” Gallup’s findings reinforce the idea of an underlying culture clash between the United

States and the Muslim World.

Friedman, Zakaria, Hollander and Rubin argue that much of the discontent with America comes

from scape-goating—arguing that those with little power over their own circumstances are apt to blame

the United States because of our international visibility and economic strength. (Tuggle, 2005)

It is worthwhile noting that the validity of using public opinion as an indicator for the

effectiveness of public diplomacy has been taken into question. Holsti, 1992 and Johnson, 2006

amongst others argue that public opinion is subject to a number of different factors such as policies

between countries and the economics of the host-country. Ultimately, we cannot attribute positive

shifts in public opinion to effective public diplomacy, nor blame public diplomacy for negative trends in

opinion. Despite these limitations, public opinion polling remains one of the most widely used—and

publicly accessible—metrics available for evaluating the effectiveness of United States public diplomacy,

and will be utilized as the key metric for evaluation in this study.

HISTORY OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Alternatively described as “the promotion of national interest by informing, engaging, and

influencing people around the world,” (Djerjian, 2003) and “U.S. government attempts to influence

foreign citizen’s views of the United States towards a positive view” (Heiman, 2007), public diplomacy

(or PD) comprises a wealth of different initiatives employed by governments to communicate with

foreign publics.

The practice of public diplomacy has been around for a long time, yet has only recently existed

in its current incarnation. Radio broadcast, on some accounts the first evidence of “modern” public

diplomacy, dates back to the 1st World War. Yet the term itself was not used until 1965 to describe “the

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process by which international actors seek to accomplish the goals of their foreign policy by engaging

with foreign publics.” (Cowan & Arsenault, 2008)

Public Diplomacy’ activities range in both its format and the time-frame to reach its objective

ends. In its strictest definition, public diplomacy activities range from broadcast and media campaigns,

to op-eds, media placements and translations, and to education and cultural exchange programs. Within

the United States, the core of these activities is housed within the U.S. Department of State, and falls

within the mandate of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Below the Under-

Secretary, three bureaus--Public Affairs (PA), International Information Programs (IIP), and Education&

Cultural Affairs (ECA)--carry out the main activities of public diplomacy for audiences abroad. In

addition, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency with a separate funding mechanism and

board from the Department of State, carries out broadcast campaigns to audiences abroad. (State

Department, 2009) Modern public diplomacy definitions trend towards a “whole of government”

approach, recognizing the influence of the Department of Defense’s strategic communications activities,

USAID’s development activities, and a slew of other agencies and actors which engage in interactions

with foreign actors and audiences.

Before 1999, public diplomacy was housed in a separate agency called the United States

Information Agency (USIA), formed in the aftermath of the 2nd World War, and utilized most extensively

during the cold war with the Soviet Union. Following the fall of the Berlin wall America’s focus once

again turned inward and public diplomacy slowly began losing an urgent purpose to exist. Funding for

public diplomacy slowly began to diminish until finally in 1998, under the Foreign Affair Reform and

Restructuring Act, USIA was dismantled and folded into the State Department. (Graham, 2008)

Today, public diplomacy remains a highly relevant, if misunderstood and often criticized aspect

of the U.S. Government’s activities. Given that 2009 marks the 10 year anniversary of “consolidation”

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into the State Department, there has been a flurry of articles, reports and blogs reminiscing about the

good old days of USIA, and calling the Department to account to be more effective.

These papers, in addition to their occasional reminiscing of the good old days, have a decidedly

private-sector approach to PD. This ethic has been reiterated in requests for greater accountability,

benchmarking of progress and “return on investment” from recent Government Accountability Office

(GAO) and Defense Science Board Task Force reports tasked with oversight of public diplomacy. (GAO,

2006, 2009; Defense Science Board Task Force, 2008) The current Under Secretary of State Judith

McHale, as former CEO of Discovery International, has taken this ethic to the next level through a data

and results driven approach to public diplomacy and an ambitious global strategic framework process

for the whole of PD. (Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, 2010)

This more private-sector approach has emerged within PD as a whole. One example is Anholt-

GfK Roper’s recent “Nation Branding Index” which measures each country’s “brand” on six areas:

exports, governance, cultural heritage, people, tourism and investment & immigration. The group also

offers courses aimed at nations hoping to improve their ‘brand images’ abroad. (The Anholt-GfK Roper

Nation Brands Index, 2009). The literature on international marketing is now being extended to public

diplomacy, a sort of “international public relations.” These papers overwhelmingly argue for a greater

culturally context driven approach to public diplomacy. (Sha, 2006) (Burmann, Zeplin, & Riley, 2009)

(Yun S. H.-N., 2008) This paper aims to expand on this increasingly culture-focused approach to PD by

elaborating on pre-existing scholarship of the sources of public opinion—arguably, the “brand value” of

a nation—to reflect this push towards culturally-tailored approaches to PD.

CULTURE

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Culture is a very imprecise catch-all phrase which can be used to define nationality, ethnicity,

linguistic groups, or the “collective programming which distinguishes the members of one category of

people from another.” (Hofstede, 1998) Schneider & Barsoux, in their book Managing Across Cultures,

theorize culture as multiple, concurrent identities visualized as overlapping concentric circles including

national/ regional, industry, company, professional, or functional elements. Geert Hofstede, one of the

more prominent cultural theorists, defines culture as “the interactive aggregate of common

characteristics that influence a human group’s response to their environment.” (as cited in Yun, 2008)

There are numerous theories on culture which are used in the study of public diplomacy, public

opinion and international affairs. This paper will explore three different approaches to “mapping” the

cultures of the world, namely Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations,” Hofstede’s Cultural Indicators, and

the World Values Survey’s Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Indicators.

Samuel Huntington’s 1993 article “The Clash of Civilizations” has been one of the most cited and

often used since September 11th. Based on the fundamental idea that the world is organized into eight

distinct cultures, based loosely around religion, his original theory posited:

“The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

Although Huntington’s article sparked a lively debate when it was released in the 1990’s, the

article gained prominence yet again following September 11th when it was cited as a sort of foreboding

premonition of the conflict between Islam and the West. Criticism of Huntington’s eight theorized

cultures--including Western, Islamic, Sino-Confucian, African, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American

and Japanese--abounds. (See Appendix A for a map of the world using Huntington’s indicators).

Challengers argue that his theory is overly simplistic, static, and paints a homogenous picture of nation-

states that does not reflect the dynamic nature of modern societies under the forces of globalization.

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(Said, 2001) Sen eloquently argues that it is precisely this type of monochromatic, overly simplistic

description of individuals which provides an enabling environment for the world’s most horrific

sectarian violence. The true nature of people is based on multiple identities; when we recognize and

understand the multiplicity of human identities, we make vast inroads into preventing the types of

conflict that Huntington warns about. (Sen, 2006)

Huntington responded to these charges by updating his theory, arguing that “obviously, changes

and adaptations have occurred as a result of economic development, industrialization, the huge wave of

immigrants that have come to this country, economic crisis, depression and world wars. But the core of

American beliefs has remained the same.” (Ali & Huntington, 2007)

Regardless, Huntington’s theory remains one of the most often cited in literature on

international relations and for this reason will be utilized in this study. To serve as a challenge to the

premise that his map of cultures are largely religion-based, and to fill a hole in Tuggle’s original 2005

study, the model used in this paper will employ religion as an important explanatory variable as a

potential predictor of favorability towards the United States.

Geert Hofstede’s cultural indicators are another widely used mechanism for distinguishing

among groups. Whereas Huntington’s indicators occupy the “religious” sphere in Schneider and

Barsoux’s theory, Hofstede’s theory might occupy the “functional” sphere. In 1984 Hofstede 'mapped'

the world's cultures into discrete categories by surveying business people at IBM in multiple countries.

Hofstede categorized the world into four distinct categories, namely individualism (or the feelings of

allegiance to one’s self and one’s immediate family—opposed to collectivist cultures which are more

clan like and provides protection for permanent loyalty), power distance (or the extent to which the less

powerful accept inequality as normal), uncertainty avoidance (referring to feelings towards unclear and

undefined circumstances) and masculinity (referring to clearly defined gender roles—as opposed to

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“femininity” which allows for greater equality of roles between men and women). (Hofstede, The

Cultural Relativity of the Quality of Life Concept, 1998)

Critics of Hofstede argue that his indicators are not based on representative samples (IBM

employees are not representative of the full range of personalities in a culture) and thus are not

externally valid. (Jones, 2007; Carbaugh, 2007) Others have taken issue with the static nature of his

indicators, and his overgeneralization of regions of the world. For example, he has only one set of

indicators for the “Arab World” including the countries of Egypt, Kuwait and Lebanon, another for “East

Africa” and one more for “West Africa.” (ITIM International, 2009)

Hofstede defends his indicators by arguing that given his full sample was taken from IBM, any

effects associated with being an IBM employee are cancelled out through the cross-national survey, and

only the prominent cultural traits emerge. Hofstede also admits: “obviously, cultures do change over

time. However, although cultures change, their differences remain remarkably stable” (Hofstede, 1998,

p.154-155)

Inglehart & Welzel ‘s cultural indicators from the World Values Survey–herein I/W—and the

Cultural Cognitive Systems Analysis from Applied Futures Inc, represent two other existing approaches

to measuring culture in the public and private sphere. I/W’s cultural indicators differ in their

approach—which categorizes the world into two topics along a continuum: (1) survival versus self-

expression (which measures a shift from economic and physical security to one of subjective well-being,

self-expression and quality of life) and (2) traditional versus secular/ rational (measuring societies where

religion, family ties and deference to authority play a primary function, versus the opposite in “rational”

societies ) These two indicators have been shown to explain 70 percent of the variability in the cultures

of the world. (Inglehart, 2009)

There are numerous other theories which help “map” the cultures of the world, however due to

the lack of publicly available information on these indicators, the study at hand will utilize the three

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afore-mentioned measures of culture, namely Huntington, Hofstede and Inglehart/ Welzel.

Nevertheless, a few of these alternative theories are worthy of mention.

Edward T. Hall has been another influential player in the literature on culture and public

diplomacy alike. His three key indicators measure differences in context, time and space across cultures

of the world. Hall distinguishes between high context and low context cultures based upon the types of

norms and mores, or “rules” that govern a society. A high context culture will have many implicit rules

which are focused more on non-verbal communication and nuance—prime environments for

“relational” public diplomacy like exchanges—while low-context cultures use more explicit, verbal

cultural cues which are particularly well-attuned for information campaigns. (Zaharna, 2007) The time

variable refers to whether individuals perform one task at a time (monochronic) or are multi-taskers

(polychronic). Space refers to expectations surrounding personal space and ownership, divided into

high and low territoriality. Although Hall, like Huntington, Hofstede, and I/W does make generalizations

of cultures based on nationality, he is also quick to indicate that national-level values are

generalizations. (Straker, 2006)

The Cultural Cognitive Systems Analysis (CCAS), a private-sector initiative taken on by Applied

Futures Inc., is distinct from the aforementioned models in its individual-level approach to measuring

culture. Although still at the pilot stage of its development, the CCAS aims to delve down into “root

causes” of action, digging beyond behavior and attitudes down to motivations and intentions. While the

CCAS has multiple potential applications, it is currently being marketed for Information Operations or

Psychological Operations. (MacNulty, 2009)

LITERATURE REVIEW

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In the extensive literature on the factors which influence international public opinion a number

of key themes and potential causes emerge. They include religion, media, policy, women’s rights and

domestic conditions. The literature includes both country-level surveys and analyses geared towards

specific regions and groups.

RELIGION

A major theme which emerges in the literature is the influence of religion, and religiosity, on

opinions towards the United States. Studies have found that those individuals who are strongly

religious, whether hailing from the United States, the Middle East, or elsewhere tend to have more

stereotypical views of people from other societies. This so called “faith factor” (Baumgartner, 2008)

accounts for Evangelical Christian support of the U.S. war in Iraq, as well as negative perceptions of the

United States amongst highly-religious Muslims abroad. (Chiozza2004) Acevedo (2008) pushes deeper

into this claim through his study of intensity of religion, so-called “fatalism,” in his findings that religion

alone is not an adequate predictor of fatalism, but is filtered through a broader set of individual-level

factors such as demographics and socio-economic status.

Although the rhetoric of the Bush Administration might imply that all Muslims are against the

United States, Chiozza, 2004, and numerous studies from the Gallup Poll of the Muslim World (2006)

amongst others insist a direct relationship cannot be drawn between practitioners of Islam and negative

opinion towards the United States. These studies point to deeper factors such as policy alignment with

the United States, contentment with their own domestic conditions and socio-economic factors to have

much stronger predicative power over favorability towards the United States.

MEDIA

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The type of media used, in particular television, has often been cited as having correlations with

favorability towards the United States. One of the more famous examples of the purported impact of

opinion on Muslim Communities is the so called “Al-Jazeera Effect.” The Muslim World equivalent of the

“CNN Effect,” the so-called “nexus of media power and foreign policy where television’s instantly

transmitted images fire public opinions, demanding instant responses from government officials,

shaping and reshaping foreign policy at the whim of electrons.” (Strobel, 1996) Television is the most

widely used form of media in the Middle East— and television viewership in the Middle East has a

strong correlation with anti-American views. (Nisbet, Nisbet, & Scheufele, 2004) But it’s the format, not

the source which matters. It is only the degree, not the direction of correlation which changed when an

individual’s news source included Western news sources such as CNN. (Nisbet, 2004, p.31). In the

United States, television has a similarly strong impact on negative opinions of the Muslim World and

Islam, although prime-time television was found to improve negative perceptions of the United States

amongst Muslim respondents. (Nisbet C. , 2005)

Tuggle (2005) expands on this argument to find that Internet use has explanatory power over

negative opinions towards the United States to an even larger degree. He found this to be particularly

true in Islamic, Confucian and Western societies. Although his study does not expound on the potential

cause of this trend, one possible explanation from Chiozza (2004) is that “information from the new

media in particular helps diffuse positive views about America as a society and political system, at the

same time information, both through images and written words, leads to the formation of more

negative view about American policies.” (p. 37). In other words, the Internet allows for greater access to

information, which leads to a more nuanced perception of the United States.

POLICY

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Throughout the literature on public opinion polling, a distinction is made between favorability

towards the United States and favorability towards Americans. This distinction is meant to highlight the

difference between the American public and America’s policies. (Tessler, 2003) In particular, opinions

towards U.S. policy decisions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine have strong predicative power over

unfavorability towards the United States. (Furia & Lucas, 2006) Tuggle’s paper found that “when the

United States addresses the global issue of most concern to an individual, that individual is more likely

to have a favorable opinion of the United States.” (Tuggle, 2005, p.29) Furia & Lucas say it succinctly:

“we find no evidence that ordinary Arabs resent countries for what they ‘are,’ and considerable

evidence that they resent them for what they ‘do.’” (Furia & Lucas, 2006)

COUNTRY-LEVEL CONTROL FACTORS

Another key theme which emerges from the literature is the impact of domestic conditions on

favorability towards the United States. This concept, referred to as “scapegoating,” is based on the idea

that those countries with less than desirable domestic circumstances are more likely to have negative

perceptions towards the United States. Correlations between view of the United States and economic

variables, such as GDP/ capita and low income were found in separate studies—those with higher socio-

economic states were found to be more favorable towards the United States. (Tuggle, 2005) (Heiman,

2007) (Carlson & Nelson, 2008)

Numerous studies on public opinion attempt to identify economic or political linkages between

countries which might have an impact on public opinion. For example, trade levels, foreign aid and a

proxy for alliances have been used in multiple studies. (Carlson, 2008; Heiman, 2004) Results from

these studies have been inconclusive and varied; Heiman finds relationships between trade levels and

perceptions of the United States which are statistically significant yet substantively irrelevant, while

Carlson’s study of Asia only finds a relationship between foreign aid and trade on public opinion in the

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case of Afghanistan. Trade issues have been excluded from this study due to the lack of compelling

evidence from the literature of strong linkages between trade or economic ties and perceptions of the

United States.

INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL CONTROL FACTORS

Beyond religion and media-use, numerous studies delve into individual-level factors which have

potential explanatory power over favorability towards the United States. Studies tend to include

gender, age, education, socio-economic status, contentment with local government and individual

values.

Interestingly, women and those who support more independent women are found to be more

favorable towards the United States. (Tuggle, 2005; Carlson, 2008; Nisbet, 2004) Heiman & Ozer have

found that societies with large numbers of women in government tend to be more favorable towards

the United States. (Heiman, 2007)

Tuggle (2005) found no impact of age on opinion towards the United States, while other studies

suggest that younger respondents tend to be more favorable towards the United States. (Carlson, 2008

& Chiozza, 2004). Interestingly, and contrary to intuition, in numerous global and regional studies higher

levels of education were found to be correlated with more negative opinions of the United States. In

contrast, individuals from higher socio-economic statuses were found to have more positive views of the

United States. (Carlson, 2008; Chiozza, 2004; Tuggle, 2005)

Political factors such as higher trust or satisfaction in local government and freedom were also

found to be positively correlated with favorability towards the United States in some studies (Tuggle,

2005 & Heiman, 2007). However, this was irrelevant in a study focusing on Asia. (Carlson & Nelson,

2008) Other studies point to admiration for American democracy as a predictor of favorabilty towards

the United States. (Chiozza2004)

16

GAPS IN LITERATURE

One key area missing from the literature on public opinion and public diplomacy is a narrower

focus by country or region. Given the events of September 11th and the United States strategic focus on

the Muslim World, extensive literature exists delving into the causes of public opinion within this sub-

section of the World. There is also an expanding literature on European and Asian public opinion of the

United States. However, studies on Africa and Latin America are noticeably absent. Similarly, few

attempts have been made to identify a “profile” on the global scale of the type of individual who views

the United States unfavorably. Numerous studies identify isolated elements which contribute to

perceptions of the United States, yet few delve into interactions within countries or within regions to

create a profile of those who tend to not like the United States.

In addition, there is little research done on new models of measuring public diplomacy

effectiveness beyond public opinion polls. More should be done to identify new mechanisms for

tracking the effectiveness of specific public diplomacy initiatives to ensure that money is being spent

efficiently and programs are having their intended impacts.

Amidst recent literature of public diplomacy, there is much dicussion of a shift in communication

models from the top-down approach of elite-driven opinion trickling down to the masses, to include a

bottom-up approach defined by the opinions of the often younger, less educated and more media-

driven masses. Although methods for capturing the shifts in opinion amongst these more dispersed,

mediated models of public diplomacy are developing, there have been few studies which do so in a

concerted, strategic way. Groups like Morningside Analytics are pioneering mechanisms for tracking

topics discussed in on-line fora, and Social Network Analysis is an emerging field which aims to create

“maps” of networks of digital users. While these are both exciting advancements towards capturing the

“ground-up” element of public diplomacy; we have yet to discover a mechanism for pairing the two

theories of public diplomacy change to create a more holistic picture of effectiveness.

17

On the culture front, few studies have attempted to cross-reference Huntington’s and

Hofstede’s indicators with other cultural maps. Much more can be done to pull in other analyses and

categorizations of the world.

Also missing from the literature is any time-series, global analyses of shifts in public opinion.

Whereas such analyses have been performed successfully in specific regions or in specific target groups

(the Gallup Poll of the Muslim World pioneered in this area) there have been no studies which have

used regression analyses to analyze shifts in opinion over time. This study will attempt to make the first

step in this direction by expanding upon Tuggle’s analysis of the 2002 Pew Global Attitudes study using

updated survey data from 2007. In addition, this study will delve deeper into the Pew Global Attitudes

sample to analyze responses across three different “cultural maps” in efforts to identify which cultural

traits are correlated with favorable and unfavorable opinions towards the United States. Finally, the

study will dig deeper into the sub-sample of Muslim respondents to develop a more nuanced

understanding to Fareed Zakaria’s question “why do they hate us.”

HYPOTHESIS

This study will attempt to answer the question: does religion have predicative power over

favorable views towards the United States? If not religion, do other cultural “maps” of the world help to

explain favorable views towards the United States? In efforts to challenge the perception held by

Huntington and others that there exists a “culture clash” between the United States and Muslim

populations abroad, this study will pay particular attention to the religion of Islam, and those cultural

traits in each of the three cultural “maps” outlined above which are most commonly associated with

Muslim communities. A devil’s advocate approach will be adopted; the religion of Islam and those

cultural traits which are related to Muslim communities will be correlated with negative favorability

ratings towards the United States.

18

Religion:

Hypothesis 1 = Muslim respondents will have lower opinions of the United States.

Culture:

Hypothesis 2 = Huntington’s “Islam” indicator will have an inverse relationship with favorability towards

the United States.

Hypothesis 3 = Hofstede’s cultural indicators of Power Distance, Masculinity and Independence will have

inverse relationships with opinion of the United States.

Hypothesis 4 = Ingelhart/ Welzel’s indicators of survival tendencies and traditional values will have


DATABASE

The data for this study derive from the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes 47-nation survey. It is the

most extensive, recent and public database of public opinion that Pew has published. The survey uses

much of the 2002 Global Attitudes survey questions, providing the opportunity for comparison with

earlier results. The data include 45,239 individual observations with some over-sampling of Muslim

populations in urban areas. In Bolivia, Brazil, China, India, Ivory Coast, Pakistan, South Africa, and

Venezuela the sample was predominantly urban and not necessarily representative of the entire

population of these countries. The survey’s primary questions were measured using a step-wise scale

of opinions, known as the Likert scale, which allow for variation in intensity of perceptions. Some

questions in this survey were asked only in developing countries, in Africa, or in the Middle East. Due to

political sensitivities in China, questions regarding an individual’s perceptions of democracy or happiness

with their current situation life situation were not asked.

In addition, this study will draw on data from four national-level sources for the culture and

individual-level explanatory variables. Measures of freedom are taken from Freedom Houses’s 2007

19

“Freedom in the World” Survey and will be based on their categorization of free, partly free and not

free. See Exhibit 1 in the Appendix for a listing of countries that fit within the “Partially Free” and “Not

Free” categories.

Cultural data will be derived from various locations. (Please see Exhibit 2 in the Appendix for a

summary of the Cultural Indicators utilized in this study.) Huntington’s cultural map is derived from his

original “Clash of Civilizations” 1993 essay and from Fox’s 2002 analysis entitled “Ethnic Minorities and

the Clash of Civilizations.” Because no set list of countries fit into each of Huntington’s eight indicators,

some extrapolation of his theory is necessary. Where information was unavailable, countries were

coded according to predominant religious affiliation, based on Fox’s 2002 paper. Graph 1 represents the

distribution of countries in each of Huntington’s cultural indicators in the Pew data set. For a visual

representation of Huntington’s cultural map, see Exhibit 4 in the Appendix.

1 1 24 4

7

11

17

02468

1012141618

Number of Countries in Pew

2007 Data Set

Huntington's Cultural Categories

Graph 1: Number of Countries in Pew 2007 Data Set by Huntington's Cultural Categories

Data on Geert Hofstede’s cultural indicators were taken directly from his website

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/ The indicators are based on multiple surveys of IBM employees in

various countries from 1980-2008. His indicators are along five dimensions, weighted on a scale of 1-100

20

including: Individualism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculine/ Feminine/ and Long-Term

Orientation. The latter category, Long-Term Orientation, was only recently added to his list of

indicators, not all countries include this measurement. In addition, some indicators were provided on

the regional level, not the national level. For purposes of this study, each country in a region will have

the same score. For example, countries which Hofstede collapsed into the “Arab World”, including

Kuwait, Lebanon and Libya, will receive the same score. It is important to note that there are eight

countries in the Pew study without a Hofstede score. For this reason, in the regression analysis using

Hofstede’s indicators, the sample size will be smaller.

Finally, Inglehart/ Welzel’s (I/W) cultural indicators are drawn from the World Values Survey

website—40 of the I/W scores overlap with the Pew data-set. Inglehart & Welzel take a dynamic view of

culture and thus have collected survey data for many countries between 1981 and 2006. Based on the

assumption that this “cultural drift,” while important, is not significant, the scores for each country have

been averaged across the five years of the study where data are available. Given the broad date ranges

and changes in government over this time-period, some countries are listed both in terms of former

names (Czechoslovakia) and current names (Czech Republic and Slovakia). Where necessary, values

have been averaged across logical boundaries. For a summary of the Pew countries with missing cultural

data, please see Exhibit 3 in the Appendix.

ANALYSIS

The primary research question for this analysis is: what relationship do religion and

other “Muslim” cultural traits have with favorable opinions towards the United States? This

study will utilize a binary--or dual response--dependent variable to measure individual

respondents’ favorable or unfavorable opinions towards the United States.

21

In the original survey, favorability towards the United States was measured on a four-

level scale, ranging from Very Favorable, Somewhat Favorable, Somewhat Unfavorable to Very

Unfavorable. For ease of computation in the analysis, the primary dependent variable for this

study, favorability towards the United States, was collapsed into two categories, favorable and

unfavorable. See Exhibits 5 & 6 in the Appendix for a visual representation of this.

Through preliminary analysis of the data set used for this study, a number of interesting

trends emerge. Preliminary cross tabulations of the frequency of favorable or unfavorable

opinions by Huntington’s cultural categories demonstrates that Confucian, Islamic and

Slavic/Orthodox cultures have high percentages of individuals responding unfavorably towards

the United States. In contrast, Huntington’s “Africa” culture demonstrated the highest

percentage of favorable responses towards the United States. Graph 2 represents the full set of

trends.

22

If we turn to one of Hofstede’s five cultural indicators, power distance, we see less of an

obvious trend. Power distance, which measures the extent to which the less powerful accept

inequality as normal, is measured on a scale from 1-100. For ease of analysis, the power

distance value has been separated into three categories—high, medium and low, based on the

frequency distribution in the sample.1 As we can see in Graph 3, across all countries in the

sample, there is not a dramatic distinction in opinions towards the United States whether the

acceptance of inequality is low, medium or high. Although there does not appear to be much

variation amongst the categories presented here, it may be interesting to look for any trends

when these categories are further disaggregated by country.

1 In other words—each category has 1/3 of the sample scores. Due to the distribution of scores in the sample on the power distance scale, “low” scores range from 1-55, “medium” scores range from 56-70, and “high” scores range from 71-104.

23

Turning to the final cultural category under analysis for this study, Inglehart Welzel,

similar results to Hofstede’s appear. Graph 4 measures favorability towards the United States

by Ingelhart Welzel’s “traditional/rational” value, which measures a development shift from

economic and physical security to one of subjective well-being, self-expression and quality of

life. Like the power distance variable, for ease of analysis the traditional/rational variable has

separated into low, medium and high values based on the distribution of scores within the

sample. Similar to Hofstede’s indicator, there does not appear to be much of a relationship

between traditional/rational values and favorability towards the United States.

24

Finally, an examination of religion illustrates an interesting set of trends with favorability

towards the United States. Due to coding challenges inherent in the survey design2, the religion

variable was collapsed into eight categories based on the largest groups of religions in the

world.3 Graph 5 represents these trends graphically. It is important to note, as previously

mentioned, that the Pew Global Attitudes 2007 study represents an over-sampling of Muslims

in major western cities.4 In addition, the religion question was not asked in China. In order to

account for opinions towards the United States in that country, every respondent in China was

coded into a “Chinese” religion category.

With these limitations in mind, we notice a trend of unfavorable opinion towards the

United States amongst those respondents belonging to the Muslim faith, those respondents

from China, and those who claim no religion. Although this rudimentary analysis may support

the idea that individuals of the Muslim faith have more negative perceptions of the United

States, the literature demonstrates that this fact is more nuanced when we account for other

important factors such as education, frequency of prayer and type of media exposure. (Chiozza,

2004)

One variable present in the Pew data set which measures this nuanced “intensity” of

religion is frequency of prayer. Table 6 represents the percentage of individual respondents, by

2 In the Pew Global Attitudes 2007 study, the question pertaining to the respondent’s religion was coded differently for every country in the sample. For a complete list of how religion categories were collapsed, see Exhibit 7 in the Appendix. 3 Most numerous religions in the world from the CIA World Factbook. 4 This over-sampling is remedied by a “weight” variable which is included in the regression models, and re-sets samples to reflect and accurate sample of Muslims based on the country’s broader population.

25

religion, who pray more than once per day.5 Although at first glance it appears that Muslims

and Hindus experience the greatest “intensity” of religion with majorities of each group praying

at least once per day, the reader is reminded that in many faiths praying multiple times per day

is part of their cultural expression. In Islam, prayer—or salat—is one of the five pillars of faith;

in which prayer five times daily at sunrise, mid-day, afternoon, sunset and evening is thought to

have been mandated by God and is an essential part of the practice for those hoping to live a

“good and responsible life according to Islam.” (Religion Facts, 2009) Moreover, in many

predominantly Muslim countries, prayer is very much a public practice where “the public call to

prayer from the mosques sets the rhythm of the day for the entire population.” (BBC Religion,

2009) For these reasons, even those who might consider themselves less religious would rank

high on Pew’s measure of religiosity. Similarly, for strict adherents of Hinduism, ritual prayers

to deieties are performed three times daily. (BBC Religion, 2005) For these reasons, this metric

for “intensity” of religion is imperfect at best, and unfairly biased towards those of Hindu and

Muslim faiths at worst. The reader is cautioned to treat these results as preliminary.

5 Possible responses for this question ranged from multiple times per day to never pray. The variable was coded into a binary response based upon the frequency distribution of responses; 44 percent of total respondents reported praying more than once/day.

26

Moving on to the control variables for use in this analysis—the literature points to

media use as a common source of explanatory power over opinions towards the United States.

Initial cross-tabulations between opinion of the United States and primary news source

27

demonstrate that respondents who cite radio as their primary news source in the Pew data set

tend to have more favorable perceptions of the United States. However, although not as

obvious, together radio, magazines and T.V. are the primary sources of information for those

with moderate views of the United States. Please see Graph 7 for further elaboration.

Recall that scapegoating in this context is defined as blaming an outsider for your own

negative domestic situation. Surprisingly, the share of favorable and unfavorable responses

were roughly the same for those individuals claiming to be “satisfied” or “dissatisfied” with

their government. (See Graph 8) In contrast, Tuggle (2005) found that dissatisfaction with one’s

government was statistically correlated with negative perceptions of the United States. It will

be interesting to see whether Tuggle’s finding will be replicated in the regression analysis for

this study.

28

METHODOLOGY

This analysis will build on Tuggle’s (2005) research practicum entitled “Responsive

Diplomacy.” In addition to using updated 2007 Pew Global Attitude’s 47-nation data, the study

will also expand upon Tuggle’s cultural indicators to include two additional measures, namely

Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Indicators and Inglehart/ Welzel’s (I/W) cultural map from the World

Values Survey. Both have been used as bases for other regression analyses.

A logit regression model will be used as the dependent variable of interest has two

responses: favorable versus unfavorable views of the United States.

The total sample size for the study is 45,239 people across the world, with the number

of respondents per country varying from 500 to over 3,000 with the largest samples from

countries with larger populations. See Graph 9 for a representation of individual respondents

29

per country.

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

Nu

mb

er

of

Re

spo

nd

en

ts p

er

Co

un

try

Selection of Countries from Pew Data Set

Graph 9: Number of Respondents per Country Pew Global Attitudes Data Set 2007

Although all of the variables in the Pew data set are captured at the individual level, the culture

and Freedom House variables are captured at the country level. In order to not bias regression

results due to the unequal sample of certain country-level variables, a weight will be utilized to

equalize the responses from each country. In other words, the weight will serve to put greater

emphasis on those countries with fewer responses (like Bulgaria), and less emphasis on those

countries with greater responses (like China) so that all countries are analyzed as if the number

of responses per country were equal.

This study will examine the relationship between opinion of the United States and four

key independent variables —religion and three cultural indicators (Huntington, Hofstede and

30

Inglehart/Welzel). The study will distinguish between those reporting favorable views from

those reporting unfavorable views.

Given that the cultural variables under analysis are assigned loosely based on nationality

or religion, and thus are perfectly collinear, each model will have four separate specifications

utilizing religion or one of the three cultural variables. The dependent variable and “categories”

of independent variables are further described in Exhibit 4 below. The model will also utilize

the main categories of control variables, namely scapegoat, policy disagreement, media and

individual-level variables, to control for any additional explanations for opinion of the United

States.

Exhibit 4: Matrix of Expected Relationships:

Type Variable Definition Measurement

Level

Sign Justification

Dependent favUSdummy Individuals with

favorable and

unfavorable

perceptions of the

United States

Individual N/A Tuggle (2005)

Culture Cult_likeamscitech like/ dislike American

science & tech Individual +/- Tuggle (2005)

Culture cult_likeampopcltr like/ dislike American

music movies tv Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Culture cult_amricnztngd

spread of American ideas/ customs good/

bad

Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Culture cult_likedemcrcy like/dislike American

democracy Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Culture cult_likeambiz like/dislike American

business Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Culture Cult_womenpol Women make better

political leaders Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Culture cult_menpol Men make better Individual - Heiman & Ozer

31

political leaders (2005)

Culture cult_women_menpol

Women and men make equally good

political leaders

Individual + Heiman & Ozer

(2005)

Culture Cult_wommarr

The woman should choose who she

marries


Culture cult_fammarr

The family should choose who a

woman marries

Individual - Tuggle (2005)

Culture cult_bothmarr

Both a woman and her family should choose who she

marries


Culture succoutcntrl

success circumstances outside of our

control


Huntington Hunt_afr

Huntington’s Cultural Indicator—Non-Muslim African

countries

Country + Tuggle (2005)

Huntington

Hunt_hindu

Huntington’s Cultural Indicator—Hindu countries (India,

Bangladesh)

Country +/- * Hindu left out of

Tuggle’s 2005

study

Huntington

Hunt_islam

Huntingtons’ cultural indicator—Muslim countries (Middle East, Central Asia,

North Africa)

Country - Tuggle, 2005,

Huntington

Hunt_japan Huntingtons’ cultural

indicator—Japan

Country + * Japan left out of

Tuggle’s 2005

study

Huntington

Hunt_latin

Huntingtons’ cultural indicator—Latin

American countries

Country +/- Tuggle (2005); Fox

(2002)

Huntington

Hunt_sinic

Huntingtons’ cultural indicator—

Sino/Confucian countries

(South Korea, China, Taiwan)

Country +/- Tuggle (2005); Fox

(2002)

Huntington Hunt_slavic

Huntington’s cultural indicator—

Country + Tuggle (2005); Fox

32

Slavic/Orthodox (Former Soviet Bloc)

(2002)

Huntington

Hunt_western

Huntington’s cultural indicator—Western

(U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, West.

Europe)

Country + Tuggle (2005); Fox

(2002)

Inglehart/Welzel Iw_tradrat

Ingelhart/ Welzel Traditional/ Rational:

measures a shift from economic and physical security to one of subjective well-being, self-expression and quality of life

Country + Welzel & Inglehart

(2002)

Inglehart/Welzel Iw_survself

Ingelhart/ Welzel Survival/ Self:

those countries where religion plays

a primary importance

Country - Welzel & Inglehart

(2002)

Hofstede Hof_Pdi

Hofstede: Power Distance

the extent to which the less powerful

accept inequality as normal

Country + Heiman & Ozer

(2004)

Hofstede

Hof_Lto

Hofstede: Long-Term Orientation

Country - Heiman & Ozer

(2004)

Hofstede

Hof_mas

Hofstede: Masculinity Index referring to clearly

defined gender roles—as opposed to

“femininity” which allows for greater equality of roles

between men and women


(2004)

Hofstede

Hof_Idv

Hofstede: Individualism

feelings of allegiance to one’s self and one’s immediate

Country + Heiman & Ozer

(2004)

33

family—opposed to collectivist cultures

which are more clan like and provides

protection for permanent loyalty

Hofstede

Hof_uai

Hofstede: Uncertainty Avoidance

referring to feelings towards unclear and

undefined circumstances


(2004)

Media Med_news1tv

TV primary media used

Individual +/ Tuggle (2005)

Media med_news1paper

Newspaper primary media used


Media med_news1radio

Radio primary media used


Media med_news1mag

Magazine primary media used


Media med_news1internet

Internet primary media used


Media med_news1other primary media used:

other Individual +/- Tuggle (2005)

Policy Disagreements Pol_prowarterror

favor or oppose US led fight against

terror


Policy Disagreements Pol_staycourseiraq

keep military troops in Iraq


Policy Disagreements Pol_staycourseafg

keep military troops in Afghanistan


Policy Disagreements Pol_nuclear

Nuclear issues greatest threat to the

world

Individual +/- Tuggle (2005)

Policy Disagreements Pol_enviro

Environmental issues greatest threat to the

world


Scapegoating Sg_satisinc satisfaction with

household income Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Scapegoating Sg_Satisfam satisfaction with

family life Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Scapegoating Sg_Satisjob satisfaction with job Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Scapegoating sg_succoutcntrl Success is outside of

our control Individual + Tuggle (2005)

34

Scapegoating Sg_satiscountry satisfaction with

country Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Scapegoating sg_discontent

Index of perception of relative situation compared to 5 yrs

ago


Scapegoating Sg_Not_free Freedom house score Country - Tuggle (2005)

Control Indv_age Numerical age value Individual +/- Tuggle (2005)

Control Indv_Age2 Age squared Individual +/- Tuggle (2005)

Control Indv_female Gender Individual + Tuggle (2005)

Control Indv_travelus visited US: Have visted the U.S.

at least once


Control Indv_friendsus friends in US: There are people in

the U.S. the responded is in

contact with frequently


Control indv_univeduc Received some college education


Control indv_poverty Respondent does not have enough money for food, clothes or housing in past year


Control Country List of 47 countries in data set


Control Weight Variable used to compensate for over-sampling of Muslims

and urban areas

Individual n/a Pew 2007 Data

Guidelines

Religion relig_norelig No religion reported Individual - Baumgartner

(2008), Chiozza

(2004)

Religion relig_Christian Christian, protestant, catholic, or other

derivative of Christianity

Individual + Baumgartner

(2008), Chiozza

(2004)

Religion relig_Buddhism Buddhist Individual + Baumgartner

(2008), Chiozza

(2004)

35

Religion relig_Other Religion not included on list

Individual + Baumgartner

(2008), Chiozza

(2004)

Religion Relig_Muslim Muslim Individual - Baumgartner

(2008), Chiozza

(2004)

Religion relig_Hindu Hindu Individual + Baumgartner

(2008), Chiozza

(2004)

Religion Indvi_religiosity_dummy Prays More than once/day

Individual - Baumgartner

(2008), Chiozza

(2004)

In total, this analysis employs four key hypotheses measuring the effect of different cultural

indicators on favorability towards the United States. Each of the four hypotheses utilize the same

dependent variable of favorability towards the United States, and the same core groups of independent

variables including media, policy, scapegoat, culture (broadly defined) and individual-level controls such

as age and gender. Correlation matrices for each of the hypotheses are included in Exhibit 8 in the

Appendix. It is important to note that in initial regressions, there were a large number of variables with

missing observations. For example, the “friends in the U.S.” variable has 30,020 observations missing

out of 45,239 responses. In order to ensure these smaller sample sizes were representative of the larger

45,000 observations across all regressions, a simple frequency analysis was conducted to identify

percentages of certain key independent variables. They were similar across each of the Models. See

Exhibit 6 for a full list of these variables.

Exhibit 6: Ensuring Consistency in Frequencies of Key Independent Variables between Full Sample and Smaller Samples

Key Variables Full Pew

2007 Observations

Hypothesis I:

Religion

Hypothesis II:

Huntington

Hypothesis III:

Hofstede

Hypothesis IV:

I/W

# 45,239 6,808 7,121 7260 4,756

36

Observations MEDIA: Internet

Primary News Source

4% 4% 3% 2% 3%

POLICY: Favor US Anti-

Terrorism 44% 46% 46% 52% 45%

CULTURE: Likes

American Democracy

45% 51% 52% 55% 51%

CULTURE: Satisfied with

Country 38% 31% 31% 39% 34%

CONTROL: In Poverty

20% 20% 20% 25% 20%

CONTROL: Some

University Education

26% 31% 31% 23% 29%

CONTROL: Female

51% 45% 45% 47% 47%

RELIGION: Muslim

31% 48% 48% 27% 46%

HUNTINGTON: Muslim

35% n/a 62% n/a n/a

HOFSTEDE: Individualism

Mean: 41.9 n/a n/a Mean:31.6 n/a

I/W: Survival/ Self

Mean: -1.66 n/a n/a n/a Mean: -.368

The smaller sample sizes for each hypothesis did not vary significantly from the larger sample.

The instances where the frequencies of key independent variables in the smaller sample did vary more

than 10 percentage points from the larger sample are highlighted in yellow in the above table. Notably,

the frequency of Muslim respondents in Models I, II and IV are significantly greater than in the larger

sample. This fact might be explained by the oversampling of Muslim respondents in the Pew Global

Attitudes 2007 study, as previously mentioned. In order to counteract this fact, the corrective “weight”

variable was utilized in each regression in order to normalize the frequencies of Muslim respondents

from each country.

37

MODEL I: RELIGION6

Specification 1: Muslim respondents will have lower opinions of the United States

Specification 2: Results of key Independent Variables on Individual-Level Muslim Religion will be no

different on the Muslim sub-sample

Specification 1: Dependent Variable: Favorability Towards the US Indicator: dep_favusdummy =

Media = med_news1paper med_news1radio med_news1mag med_news1internet med_news1other Policy = pol_nuclear pol_enviro pol_staycourseiraq pol_staycourseafg pol_prowarterror Scapegoat = sg_not_free sg_satiscountry sg_employ sg_discontent Culture = cult_amricnztngd cult_likedemcrcy cult_likeambiz cult_likeampopcltr cult_likeamscitech cult_menpol cult_women_menpol cult_fammarr cult_bothmarr Control = indv_female indv_age indv_travelus indv_friendsus indv_poverty indv_univeduc weight Religion = relig_norelig relig_Christian relig_Buddhism relig_Hindu relig_Other

Specification 2: Dependent Variable: Favorability Towards the US Indicator:

*Run on sub-sample where relig_Islam = 1*

dep_favusdummy =

Media = med_news1paper med_news1radio med_news1mag med_news1internet med_news1other Policy = pol_nuclear pol_enviro pol_staycourseiraq pol_staycourseafg pol_prowarterror Scapegoat = sg_not_free sg_satiscountry sg_employ sg_discontent Culture = cult_amricnztngd cult_likedemcrcy cult_likeambiz cult_likeampopcltr cult_likeamscitech cult_menpol cult_women_menpol cult_fammarr cult_bothmarr Control = indv_female indv_age indv_travelus indv_friendsus indv_poverty indv_univeduc weight

MODEL II: HUNTINGTON

Specification I: Huntington’s “Islam” indicator will have an inverse relationship with favorability towards

the United States

6 Models 1 & 2 were also run on the Muslim sub-samples, to dig deeper into individual-level and country-level Muslim views of the United States.

38

Specification II: Results of Key Independent Variables on Country-Level Muslim Religion Sub-sample

(Huntington) will be no different than larger population

Specification 1: Dependent Variable: Favorability Towards the US Indicator dep_favusdummy =

Media = med_news1paper med_news1radio med_news1mag med_news1internet

med_news1other Policy = pol_nuclear pol_enviro pol_staycourseiraq pol_staycourseafg

pol_prowarterror

Scapegoat = sg_satiscountry sg_employ sg_discontent

Culture = cult_amricnztngd cult_likedemcrcy cult_likeambiz cult_likeampopcltr

cult_likeamscitech cult_menpol cult_women_menpol cult_fammarr cult_bothmarr

Control = indv_female indv_age indv_travelus indv_friendsus indv_poverty indv_univeduc

weight

Huntingon = hunt_western hunt_slavic hunt_sinic hunt_latin hunt_japan hunt_hindu hunt_afr

*The “Not Free” Variable was excluded from this model due to Collinearity*

Specification 2: Dependent Variable: Favorability Towards the US Indicator

*Run on sub-sample where hunt_Muslim = 1*

dep_favusdummy =



pol_prowarterror

Scapegoat = sg_not_free sg_satiscountry sg_employ sg_discontent



Control = indv_female indv_age indv_travelus indv_friendsus indv_poverty indv_univeduc

weight

MODEL III: HOFSTEDE7

7 Initial regressions on Model III demonstrated poor model diagnostics. Upon analysis, few respondents with data available on Hofstede’s indicators provided an answer to the “friends in the US” variable and the variable

39

Model III: Hofstede’s cultural indicators of Power Distance, Masculinity and Independence will have


Dependent Variable: Favorability Towards the US Indicator

dep_favusdummy =



pol_prowarterror

Scapegoat = sg_not_free sg_satiscountry sg_employ sg_discontent



Control = indv_female indv_age indv_travelus (indv_friendsus) indv_poverty indv_age2

indv_univeduc weight

Hofstede = hof_pdi hof_idv hof_mas hof_uai hof_lto

was removed. The removal of this variable does pose questions of bias as having friends in the United States would logically improve an individual’s perception of the country.

40

MODEL IV: INGELHART/ WELZEL

MODEL IV: Ingelhart/ Welzel's Cultural Variable on Favorability Towards the United States

Dependent Variable: Favorability Towards the US Indicator

dep_favusdummy =

Media = med_news1paper med_news1radio med_news1mag med_news1internet med_news1other Policy = pol_nuclear pol_enviro pol_staycourseiraq pol_staycourseafg pol_prowarterror Scapegoat = sg_not_free sg_satiscountry sg_employ sg_discontent Culture = cult_amricnztngd cult_likedemcrcy cult_likeambiz cult_likeampopcltr cult_likeamscitech cult_menpol cult_women_menpol cult_fammarr cult_bothmarr Control = indv_female indv_age indv_travelus indv_friendsus indv_poverty indv_univeduc weight Ingelhart/Welzel= iw_tradrat_values iw_survself_values

41

REGRESSION RESULTS

As a reminder to the reader, the following four hypotheses were outlined at the beginning of this paper:

Religion: Hypothesis I Muslim respondents will have lower opinions of the United States.

Culture: Hypothesis II Huntington’s “Islam” indicator will have an inverse relationship with favorability

towards the United States.

Culture: Hypothesis III Hofstede’s cultural indicators of Power Distance, Masculinity and Independence will

have inverse relationships with opinion of the United States.

Culture: Hypothesis IV Ingelhart/ Welzel’s indicators of survival tendencies and traditional values will have


SUMMARY

Generally speaking, the results of the regression analyses support the above hypotheses and

existing literature on factors which predict positive perceptions of the United States.8 In particular, those

whose characteristics most closely align with “American” values or traits tend to have more favorable

views of the United States. For example, overall Model I predicted that 61 percent of respondents had

favorable opinions towards the U.S. while those with the same policy views as the United States neared

70 percent favorability.9

MEDIA

8 Models on Hypotheses I, II and III were correctly specified and all models demonstrated strong “goodness of fit.” Tests on model IV imply possible misspecification. Full model diagnostics are included in Table 1 and test of Collinearity are included in Exhibit 8 in the Appendix. Regressions were run utilizing the “religiosity” proxy variable of frequency of prayer. Due to questions surrounding the validity of this variable (correlations between frequency of prayer and the Muslim and Buddhist faiths) it was not included in the body of the paper. See Graph 6 for an illustration of this correlation using the Pew 2007 dataset. See Exhibit 11 in the appendix for the full set of regression results utilizing the “religiosity” variable. 9 See Exhibit 10 in the Appendix for a full list of predicted probabilities.

42

The media variables were significant across the board, save for Model III with Hofstede’s cultural

indicators. Newspapers, television and the internet consistently showed the most significant explanatory

power over favorability towards the United States. Surprisingly, all of the media variables listed as

significant (newspapers, tv, magazines and the internet) were associated with more negative opinions

towards the United States. Those who listed newspapers and the internet as primary news sources had

the strongest predicative power over negative opinions towards the United States; and those who utilize

the internet as their primary news source were five percentage points less likely to have favorable

opinions towards the United States than their newspaper-reading counterparts. This supports both

Chiozza’s and Tuggle’s earlier findings.

POLICY

All of the policy variables showed significance across the board, save for those who listed nuclear non-

proliferation and the environment as policy priorities. The significance of these latter two categories

varied from model to model. As with Tuggle’s study, those respondents who indicated the environment

is a policy priority tended to be less favorable towards the United States, perhaps reflecting the United

State’s reluctance to sign-on to agreements which set international emission standards like the Kyoto

Protocol. There was a strong positive relationship between those who agreed with the U.S. war on

terror and those with positive perceptions of the United States— 70 percent of those agreeing with

counter-terrorism efforts demonstrated positive perceptions of the United States, compared to 52% of

those who indicated the environment as a policy priority.

SCAPEGOAT

Freedom Houses’ “not free” indicator was found to be a significant determinant of negative opinions

towards the United States across the board. Slightly less than half of those respondents from “not free”

43

countries had a positive view of the United States. These findings support Tuggle’s hypothesis of mis-

placed ill-will towards the United States due to domestic dissatisfaction. In the only model without the

“not free” variable—Hofstede’s—the satisfaction with one’s country variable becomes significant and

positive. This is a departure from Tuggle’s findings where all of the “scapegoating” set of variables were

found to be significant.

CULTURE

Not surprisingly, those who like various aspects of American culture are found to have positive and

significant predicative power over favorability towards the United States. This does not come as much

of a surprise; it logically follows that those who like American movies, democracy, or science and

technology would also have favorable views of the U.S. Amongst those who feel globalization is having

a positive impact on the world, 64 percent cite favorable opinions towards the United States. In another

departure from the literature (Tuggle, Carlson & Nisbet), the majority of the variables which pertain to

the role of women in society were found to be insignificant. However, those who feel it is both the

woman and her family’s role to choose whom a woman marries were found to have more negative

opinions towards the U.S.

CONTROL

The individual “control” variables which demonstrated the most significance included women, those

with friends in the United States and those with a University education. As in Chiozza, 2004, women and

those with friends in the U.S. are found to have more positive views of the United States; as

respondents increase in age and have “university –level education” they tend to have more negative

views of the United States. Although initially contrary to logic, Chiozza argued the University

conundrum might be explained by the fact that University-education leads to greater access to

44

information and depth of thought, leading to more nuanced perceptions of the United States. The age

variable supports Chiozza’s and Carlson’s results, however in order to fully understand the “age effect”

on favorable opinions towards the United States, categories of age ranges would need to be included in

the model. The next section will delve into the variables of interest in each separate model.

MODEL I: RELIGION

Each of the religion variables in the model demonstrated explanatory power over favorable

opinions towards the United States. Moreover, each religion reported more favorable opinions towards

the United States than those who self-identified as Muslims. The predicted probability a Muslim

respondent favored the United States was only 45 percent, compared to an average of 61 percent for

the full model. This mirrors the results presented in the literature. In the model, Buddhist, Christian and

Hindu respondents demonstrated the highest predicted probability of favorability towards the United

States.10

MODEL II: HUNTINGTON

As with Model I, all of Huntington’s cultural variables demonstrate explanatory power over

favorable opinions towards the United States.11 Reflecting the literature and the initial hypothesis,

respondents who belong to Huntington’s Muslim “culture” demonstrate less favorable views of the

United States compared to other “cultures” in the sample. As with Hypothesis I, the Hindu “culture”

demonstrated the strongest predicative power over favorability towards the United States; the model

predicts 73 percent of Hindu respondents will have favorable opinions towards the United States,

holding all else constant. This differs dramatically from the 61 percent average for the model.

10 The Jewish religion and respondents from China were dropped from the model due to collinearity. 11Both the Japanese and “Sinic” (Chinese) cultures were dropped from the model due to collinearity.

45

The reader is reminded that Huntington’s cultural values are assigned on a country-level basis

and are largely religion based; thus this model contains an inherent control for variations in religion by

country.

MODEL III: HOFSTEDE12

As the previous two models, the full set of Hofstede variables were found to have some

predicative power over favorable opinions towards the United States. Those cultural traits found to be

most consistent with “Arab” cultures in Hofstede’s theory have more negative views of the United

States. Specifically, those countries with a tendency to accept inequality as normal had 54 percent

favorable opinions of the United States and those who dislike uncertainty tended to have less favorable

views towards the United States; only 44 percent of the sample had favorable opinions. Interestingly, as

can be seen from Chart 10 below, on Hofstede’s cultural indicators high scores on indicators in “Arab”

cultures tend to be low scores in the United States. Those indicators where the polarity between the

U.S. and “Arab” countries is most extreme (power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism)

are also those indicators which are correlated with negative perceptions of the United States. The

cultural trait with the closest scores between the United States and the “Arab World” –Masculinity—is

also the trait which is associated with positive opinions towards the United States. As many as 93

12 The Hofstede regression resulted in a dramatic decrease in observations from roughly 7,000 for Hypothesis I to roughly 2,000 for Hypothesis III. Moreover, the full set of media variables, scapegoat variables and nearly all of the individual-level variables become insignificant in the model, demonstrating potential model misspecification. In an analysis of potential causes for this dramatic discrepancy, the variable “friends in the US” was identified as having a significant number of missing observations. A similar regression was run without the “friends in the US” variable and the model diagnostics improved significantly. Both of the Hofstede regressions with and without the “friends in the US” variable are presented in Exhibit 9 in the Appendix. When the “friends in the US” variable is removed from Hypothesis III, the sample size increases to nearly 6,000 and the coefficients on independent variables much more closely mirror that of the previous two regressions. The absence of this variable may present issues of omitted variable bias, in particular as having friends in the United States would understandably have some predicative power over favorable opinions of the United States. However, when this variable is dropped from the model all of Hofstede’s variables become statistically significant and model diagnostics remain at relatively the same level.

46

percent of those respondents who support equity in gender roles have favorable opinions towards the

United States.

Although we cannot make any suppositions regarding causality, this finding demonstrates that

those countries with cultural values more similar to the United States tend to be more favorable to the

United States.

A final element of interest is that the full set of media variables become insignificant in

Hofstede’s model, save for the “internet as primary news source” variable. This phenomenon might be

explained if Hofstede’s indicators account for some other hidden element—such as social class or

physical location in an urban/rural setting—which has some correlation to media consumption.

MODEL IV: INGLEHART/ WELZEL

Both of Ingelhart & Welzel’s indicators of Survival/Self and Traditional/Rational demonstrate

explanatory power over favorability towards the United States in the model. Both indicators vary on a

47

scale from -2 to 2; as numbers increase from a negative to positive sign, this reflects a more “self-

oriented” subjective quality -of-life-oriented existence, and a greater acceptance of secular/rational

values which break from tradition on family roles, deference to authority and perceptions of divorce,

abortion, euthanasia and suicide. Graph 11 below compares the values on each scale between

predominantly Muslim countries and the United States.

Given the findings in the other models, one would expect that those countries with scores which

mimic those of the United States (in this case traditional/rational) would hold more positive views

towards the United States; and those countries with scores which diverge from the United States (in this

case survival/self) would be associated with a negative view towards the United States.

Surprisingly, the regression results suggest that countries which score higher on both the

survival/self values and the traditional/rational variables are more likely to have favorable opinions of

the United States. This final point diverges from the trend and creates an interesting point for analysis.

According to I/W’s categorization, as groups move more towards a “rational” “self-orientation” and

48

away from a focus on immediate survival needs of economic and physical security and traditional roles

of family, marriage and the parent/ child relationship, they will tend to have more favorable opinions

towards the United States. Although American culture is found to be “traditional” on the

Ingelhart/Welzel scale, it is clear that the value of “rationality” or others perceptions of American values

of “rationality” are associated with positive opinions towards the United States.

49

Table 1: Regression Results of Four Hypotheses on Favorability Towards the United States

Variable Type Variable List (1) (2) (3) (4) Religion Huntington Hofstede Ingelhart/Welzel

Dependent Favorability

Towards U.S.

Media med_news1pape

r 0.653*** 0.650*** 0.902 0.645**

(0.083) (0.080) (0.117) (0.094)

Media med_news1tv 0.634*** 0.652*** 0.867 0.685*** (0.055) (0.057) (0.078) (0.073)

Media med_news1mag 0.356* 0.342* 1.366 0.363* (0.146) (0.153) (0.680) (0.157)

Media med_news1inter

net 0.496*** 0.507*** 0.569* 0.515**

(0.082) (0.084) (0.137) (0.112)

Media med_news1other 0.349* 0.404 1.464 0.740 (0.172) (0.188) (0.832) (0.399)

Policy pol_enviro 0.912 0.771*** 0.992 0.833* (0.059) (0.053) (0.073) (0.066)

Policy pol_staycourseir

aq 0.749*** 1.720*** 1.253** 1.973***

(0.052) (0.207) (0.097) (0.290)

Policy pol_staycourseaf

g 1.716*** 1.411** 1.533*** 1.457**

(0.206) (0.162) (0.189) (0.200)

Policy pol_prowarterror 1.450** 3.003*** 1.306* 2.945*** (0.167) (0.198) (0.152) (0.234)

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Policy pol_nuclear 2.785*** 0.904 2.114*** 0.855* (0.190) (0.057) (0.156) (0.067)

Scapegoat sg_not_free 0.659*** 0.707*** 0.416*** (0.062) (0.067) (0.056)

Scapegoat sg_satiscountry 1.114 1.040 1.517*** 1.005 (0.075) (0.068) (0.111) (0.078)

Scapegoat sg_employ 1.025 1.064 1.026 1.185* (0.072) (0.073) (0.074) (0.097)

Scapegoat sg_discontent 0.964 1.009 1.019 1.007 (0.060) (0.061) (0.067) (0.073)

Culture cult_likedemcrcy 2.576*** 1.823*** 1.875*** 1.835*** (0.198) (0.123) (0.160) (0.152)

Culture cult_likeambiz 1.842*** 1.527*** 1.739*** 1.769*** (0.126) (0.104) (0.138) (0.149)

Culture cult_likeampopcl

tr 1.523*** 1.261*** 1.465*** 0.984

(0.106) (0.082) (0.114) (0.079)

Culture cult_likeamscitec

h 1.160* 1.490*** 1.763*** 1.417***

(0.078) (0.127) (0.145) (0.141)

Culture cult_amricnztngd 1.444*** 2.925*** 1.518*** 2.359*** (0.125) (0.221) (0.128) (0.221)

Culture cult_menpol 0.975 0.912 0.971 1.359* (0.108) (0.099) (0.116) (0.197)

Culture cult_women_me

npol 0.940 0.998 1.117 1.197

51

(0.100) (0.104) (0.123) (0.164)

Culture cult_fammarr 0.938 0.825 0.801* 1.010 (0.093) (0.081) (0.089) (0.125)

Culture cult_bothmarr 0.904 0.818** 0.766** 0.925 (0.067) (0.059) (0.065) (0.084)

Control indv_female 1.221** 1.265*** 1.344*** 1.376*** (0.081) (0.082) (0.096) (0.109)

Control indv_age 0.983 0.986 0.984 0.994 (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) (0.012)

Control indv_travelus 1.149 1.208 1.243 1.268 (0.129) (0.131) (0.287) (0.176)

Control indv_friendsus 1.391*** 1.424*** 1.547*** (0.088) (0.088) (0.119)

Control indv_poverty 0.879 0.903 1.193* 1.041 (0.071) (0.070) (0.092) (0.102)

Control indv_age2 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Control indv_univeduc 0.815** 0.842** 1.088 0.981 (0.056) (0.056) (0.094) (0.081)

Control weight 0.894 0.877* 1.449** 0.995 (0.052) (0.051) (0.189) (0.141) 0.902

Religion relig_norelig 1.761** (0.328)

Religion relig_Christian 2.244*** (0.159)

52

Religion relig_Buddhism 3.650*

(1.891)

Religion relig_Hindu 2.128*** (0.474)

Religion relig_Other 1.329 (0.282)

Huntington hunt_western 1.815** (0.386)

Huntington hunt_slavic 1.873* (0.512)

Huntington hunt_latin 1.251* (0.110)

Huntington hunt_hindu 2.037** (0.443)

Huntington hunt_afr 1.640*** (0.206)

Hofstede hof_pdi 0.917*** (0.014)

Hofstede hof_idv 0.971*** (0.008)

Hofstede hof_mas 1.116*** (0.021)

Hofstede hof_uai 0.968*** (0.004)

53

Hofstede hof_lto 0.991** (0.003)

Ingelhart/Welzel iw_tradrat_value

s 1.325***

(0.097)

Ingelhart/Welzel iw_survself_valu

es 1.631***

(0.151)

Model Diagnostics

Number of Observations

7746 7121 5930 4756

Pseudo R2 0.3469 0.2790 0.2237 0.2857

Chi2 1807.409 1733.977 1225.54 1152.472

P (Chi2) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

Degrees of Freedom

28.000 36.000 34.000 33.000

Link Test: p(_hat) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

Link Test: p(_hat

2)

0.167 0.606 0.134 0.033

Pearson’s Chi2 6920 7154 5764 4782

P (Pearson’s Chi2) 0.055 0.175 0.832 0.227

Despite significant reductions in the sample sizes, each of the hypotheses represented good model specification. (Probabilities of p(_hat2) are insignificant for Hypotheses I-III;

Hosmer & Lemeshow’s P (Pearson’s Chi2) > .5, demonstrating good model specification).

54

REGRESSION RESULTS: MUSLIM DEPENDENT VARIABLE

The earlier results confirmed the existing literature on the relationship between religion and

favorability towards the United States; individuals of the Muslim faith tend to have more negative views

towards the United States than other religious groups. To dig deeper into this finding, two additional

regressions were run using solely the “Muslim” sub-population utilizing alternatively the self-reported

religion category, and Huntington’s country-level “Islam” category. This analysis hopes to question

whether among Muslim communities, there are definitive characteristics or behaviors that can shed

light on the sources of negative opinions towards the United States.

The results for the sub-sample of Muslim respondents largely mirrored the results from the full

sample from the survey. However, regressions run on the sub-sample demonstrated more pronounced

results across the variables of interest. For example, while in the full sample, those who support the war

on terror are 13 percentage points more likely than the average to have positive views of the United

States, in the self-reported Muslim sub-sample, those who favor the war on terror are 35 percent points

more likely than the average respondent to have favorable views of the United States.13 One might

conclude that it is not the Muslim religion itself which is the root of negative perceptions of the United

States, but a multitude of other factors.

MEDIA

Those respondents who indicated television, magazines or the internet as a primary news

source were found to have statistically different and negative opinions towards the United States. TV

viewers had the strongest relationship with negative perceptions of the United States, a finding which

supports the pre-existing literature on media consumption in Muslim communities. (Nisbet, Nisbet, &

13 See Exhibit 10 in the appendix for a full list of predicted probabilities.

55

Scheufele, 2004) Interestingly, only 13 percent of those self-reported Muslims who rely on magazines as

their primary source of information had positive perceptions of the United States, compared to 40

percent in the full-sample.

POLICY

In the analysis utilizing only Muslims, nearly all of the policy variables were found to have strong

explanatory power over favorability towards the United States. As before, those who agree with the

general war on terror and wars in Iraq/ Afghanistan are found to have more positive views of the U.S.

and those who felt the environment is a policy priority were associated with more negative views of the

United States. Only 25 percent of those who feel the environment is the most important policy issue

have favorable views of the United States. In contrast to the broader group, the nuclear non-

proliferation variable becomes insignificant suggesting no relationship between those who think nuclear

disarmament is a priority and those who have positive views towards the United States.

SCAPEGOAT

As with the full sample, those countries listed as “not free” on Freedom House’s scale again are

associated with negative opinions towards the United States; supporting Tuggle’s hypothesis of

misplaced dissatisfaction. Only 22 percent of Muslim respondents in the sample from countries listed as

“not free” have favorable perceptions of the United States. As with the full-sample, those who are

employed, and those discontent with their present situation were not found to have any relationship

with opinions towards the United States.

56

CULTURE

Again, those Muslim respondents who like various aspects of American culture were found to have more

positive perceptions of the United States. Those who felt it was good that American ideas and culture

are spreading to their country had the strongest predicative power over favorable opinions towards the

United States. Although the variables pertaining to women’s role in society were again insignificant, it’s

worthwhile noting that those who felt women make better political leaders and those who feel the

woman should choose whom she marries was found to have a positive relationship with favorable views

of the United States.

CONTROLS

As with the full sample, women and those with friends in the United States were found to have more

positive views of the United States, and those with university education were found to have negative

opinions of the U.S. Only 26 percent of Muslim respondents with University education in the sample had

positive views of the United States. As people increase with age, they tend to have more negative views

towards the United States.

57

Table 2: Regression Results of Four Hypotheses on Favorability Towards the United States Utilizing Muslim Sub-Sample (1) (2) Variable Type Variable Name Model I: Religion Model II: Huntington

Dependent Favorability Towards the US Indicator Muslim (Individual Level)

Muslim (Country-Level)

Media Primary News Source Newspaper 0.839 0.719* (-0.96) (-2.01) Media Primary News Source TV 0.618*** 0.646*** (-4.07) (-3.99) Media Primary News Source Magazines 0.179* 0.240** (-2.34) (-2.80) Media Primary News Source Internet 0.403*** 0.503** (-3.45) (-3.05) Media Primary News Source Other 0.179 0.328 (-1.93) (-1.79) Policy Nuclear Weapons Policy Priority 0.960 0.941 (-0.43) (-0.74) Policy Environment Policy Priority 0.636*** 0.613*** (-4.18) (-5.11) Policy Keep Troops in Iraq 1.651** 1.606** (3.11) (3.14) Policy Keep Troops in Afghanistan 1.721*** 1.564** (3.41) (3.05) Policy Favor US-led efforts to fight terrorism 3.629*** 3.860*** (12.93) (15.08) Scapegoat Not Free Freedom House Scale 0.542*** 0.642*** (-4.55) (-4.18)

58

Scapegoat Satisified with Country 1.346** 1.174 (3.16) (1.84) Scapegoat Employed Indicator 0.945 1.043 (-0.58) (0.49) Scapegoat Discontent Indicator 0.868 0.929 (-1.61) (-0.91) Culture It's Good that American Ideas &

Culture Spread Here 2.921*** 3.543***

(9.33) (12.99) Culture I like American Democracy 1.702*** 1.671*** (5.50) (5.93) Culture I like American way of Business 1.258* 1.417*** (2.40) (3.96) Culture I like American Movies Music and TV 1.164 1.419*** (1.61) (4.15) Culture I like American Science & Technology 1.620*** 1.526*** (3.74) (3.48) Culture Men Better Political Leaders 0.855 0.780 (-0.99) (-1.79) Culture Women & Men are Equal Political

Leaders 0.886 0.920

(-0.75) (-0.61) Culture Family Should Choose Who a Woman

Marries 0.910 0.874

(-0.76) (-1.19)

59

Culture Both Women & Family Should Choose Who Marry

0.813* 0.857

(-2.07) (-1.75) Control Female Dummy Variable 1.172 1.258** (1.64) (2.70) Control Age 0.990** 0.993* (-3.06) (-2.18) Control Have Travelled to the US 0.997 0.986 (-0.02) (-0.09) Control Have Friends in the US 1.693*** 1.498*** (5.82) (4.99) Control No Money for Food, Health, Clothes 1.022 1.008 (0.18) (0.07) Control Some Univ Education 0.745** 0.794* (-2.81) (-2.57) Control weighting factor 0.979 0.871* (-0.29) (-2.08) Model Diagnostics Number of Observations 3306 4470 Pseudo R

2 0.2680 0.3205

P (Chi2) 0.000 0.000

Chi2 792.209 1173.248

Degrees of Freedom 30.000 30.000 Link Test: p(_hat) 0.000 0.000 Link Test: p(_hat

2) 0.214 0.643

P (Pearson’s Chi2) .1685 .035

F-Test: Religiosity Variables n/a n/a

Exponentiated coefficients; z statistics in parentheses; * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

60

Table 3: Summary of Findings from Regression Analyses

Variable Type Variable Name

Affect on Perceptions of

the United States

Strength of Finding*

Affect on Perceptions of the United States

(Muslim Communities)

Strength of Finding*

Media Newspapers

Primary Media Source

Negative Low n/a Low

Media T.V. Primary

Media Source Negative Medium Negative Low

Media Internet Primary

Media Source Negative Low Negative Low

Media Magazines

Primary News Source

Negative Low Negative Low

Policy Keep Troops in

Iraq Positive Low Positive Low

Policy Keep Troops in

Afghanistan Positive Low Positive Low

Policy Support War on

Terror Positive Very High Positive Very High

Policy Environment is Policy Priority

Negative Low Negative Low

Scapegoat “Not Free” Negative Low Negative Low

Culture

Spread of American Ideas and Culture is

Good

Positive Very High Positive Very High

Culture Like American

Democracy Positive High Positive Low

Culture Like American

Business Positive Medium Positive Low

Culture Like American TV/ Movies

Positive Low Positive Low

Culture Like American S&T

Positive Low Positive Low

Control Women Positive Low Positive Low

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Control Have Friends in

the U.S. Positive Medium Positive Medium

Control Age Negative Low Negative Low

Control Some University Negative Low Negative Low

Religion Muslim Negative n/a

Huntington Muslim Negative n/a

Hofstede Power Distance

(Inequity) Negative Medium

Hofstede Individualism

(Self-or Family Oriented)

Negative Low

Hofstede Masculinity

(Equal Gender Roles)

Positive Medium

Hofstede Uncertainty Avoidance

Negative Medium

Hofstede Long-Term Orientation

Negative Low

Ingelhart/Welzel Move towards “rationality”

Positive Low

Ingelhart/Welzel Move towards

“self-orientation” Positive Medium

*Strength of finding is based on the size of the t-value.

62

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The core results from this study support pre-existing literature that Muslim respondents tend to

have more negative perceptions of the United States. The results also support Tuggle’s prior analysis

that the form of media consumption, policy preferences, domestic conditions and other individual-level

factors have predicative power over favorability towards the United States. Finally, this study expanded

upon Tuggle’s analysis and found that cultural factors thought to be associated with Muslim

communities are associated with negative perceptions of the United States. Additionally, those

individuals with cultural values most similar to the United States tended to have the most favorable

opinions towards the U.S.

There are a few key take-aways which emerge from the previous analysis. First and foremost,

the reader is reminded that all definitions of culture, including those described in this study, are

inherently subjective. Definitions of culture provide useful simplifications of reality for analysis yet are

inherently faulty. The cultural factors utilized in this study were designated at the macro, national-level

and fail to represent the multitude of layers of variation and difference which constitute any nationality.

Defining a group by one indicator alone is an inherently dangerous prospect. For the reader and policy-

maker alike, it is important to play close attention to how culture is defined, and recognize these

limitations in any findings.

Secondly, although Muslims as a group, whether defined by religion or culture, tend to have

more negative perceptions of the United States, other factors which explain favorability towards the

United States are consistent from the full-sample to the sub-sample. This fact suggests that the profile

of those who are discontent with the United States is the same across the board, despite religion.

This finding suggests that our public diplomacy programming should not be altered in any way for

Muslim communities.

63

The above analysis provided a profile of those who tend to have more negative perceptions of

the United States, and those who tend to have more positive perceptions. The impact of these findings

on public diplomacy programming depends greatly on the “theory of change” in public diplomacy.

If the approach is to target those populations with pre-existing negative perceptions of the

United States, to attempt to shift their perceptions towards a positive view, then public diplomacy

programming should target Muslims and those with “Muslim” cultural traits as defined by the various

theorists in this study. In other words, programming should target those who believe in segregated

gender roles, those with a community-orientation, those who fear uncertainty and those with a long-

term orientation. Programming might also target those who use T.V., the internet and magazines as

primary news sources, those who care about the environment, and older, university-level education

professionals.

If the approach is instead to capitalize on those individuals with pre-existing positive

perceptions of the United States, in hopes these groups will have important ripple effects on other

communities, PD programming should focus on non-Muslims and those with priorities and cultural

values similar to the United States. Specifically, this would include those who align with the U.S. on

policy decisions, those who are pro-free-market and globalization, those who like American democracy,

business, popular culture and technology, women and those who support gender equity, secular

individuals and those who are more individualistic.

A third approach is not to hone in singularly on perceptions of the United States, but instead to

approach our interaction with foreign citizens with a more values-orientation. In other words, public

diplomacy programming should aim to promote American values abroad, regardless of the impact on

public opinion polls. Values such as access to free and fair media, dissent, good education, gainful

employment, democracy and free trade are envied abroad. These values should form the fulcrum of our

public diplomacy programming independent of whether developing those values leads to negative or

64

positive perceptions of the United States. The goal of public diplomacy should then be to foster

environments and agency to develop informed, intelligent citizens abroad, who can engage in reasoned,

rational debates on those points of dissention. It is precisely this type of exercise which may prevent the

types of “clashes of civilizations” which Huntington prophesized.

Secretary Clinton’s recent visit to Pakistan in October 2009 demonstrates the power of this sort

of open, values-based approach to public diplomacy. During a “townterview” 14 with local Pakistani

journalists in which Secretary Clinton fielded questions directly from the audience, media outlets

demonstrated more positive commentary after the Secretary allowed herself to be publicly criticized,

demonstrating the American value of dissent. Public diplomacy programming should mirror the best-

practices of this experience, and aim to forfeit some of the control of opinion in order to gain respect

and trust abroad.

To this end, much more emphasis should be placed on finding appropriate measures, outside

of public opinion polls, to quantify the effectiveness of public diplomacy programs. The deficit of other

measures for tracking public diplomacy effectiveness only perpetuates the mind-set that our goal should

be to make foreign audiences improve their perceptions of the United States.

14 A townhall/ interview style conversation favored by the Obama Administration.

65

CONCLUSION

In the previous analysis, Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” approach towards Muslim

communities in international politics was challenged, as well as the notion of singular identities that his

theory perpetuates. Through a logit regression analysis utilizing the Pew 2007 Global Attitudes Project,

the impact of the media, domestic conditions, policy preferences, culture, religion and various cultural

attributes were analyzed. To put it simply, those who are “most like us” also “like us most.” The results

generally supported pre-existing literature that Muslim communities tend to have less favorable views

towards the United States; the analyses utilizing cultural attributes also supported the notion that those

countries with “Muslim” cultural traits tend to be less favorable towards the United States. But these

cultural traits are inherently faulty top-down constructs, which fail to capture the extensive variability

from individual to individual within a country. Religion alone is not a sufficient determinant of negative

opinions towards the United States; a host of other factors including type of media consumed, whether

the environment is a policy priority, the level of domestic “freedom,” age and education level all were

associated with negative perceptions of the United States.

Given these results, United States public diplomacy programs should not target Muslim

communities, but should aim to foster those values which America heralds, including media openness,

free and fair government, strong education, active business and entertainment communities and

democracy. Policies should aim to create educated, informed citizens both at home and abroad who

can engage respectfully in debates which capitalize on the “multiple identities” approach theorized by

Amartya Sen.

66

APPENDIX

Exhibit 1: List of Pew 2007 Countries by Freedom House Rating

Partially Free (n= 15) Kenya Tanzania Bangladesh Ethiopia Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Malaysia Morocco Nigeria Palestine Turkey Uganda Bolivia Venezuela

Not Free (N=5) Egypt Ivory Coast Pakistan China Russia

67

Exhibit 2: “Summary of Cultural Indicators”

Measure of Culture

Type of Measurement

# of Observations Overlap w/

Pew

Culture is Static or

Dynamic?

Year Surveyed

Key Indicators

Huntington Nominal 47 Static 1993 African, Islamic, Hindu, Japanese, Sino/Confucian, Slavic/Orthodox and Western

Hofstede Scale

39 Static 1980, 1983,

Individualism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculine/ Feminine/ Long-Term Orientation

Inglehart/Welzel Nominal & Scale

40 Dynamic 1981, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2006

Traditional, Rational, Survival, Self-Expression

68

EXHIBIT 3: “Pew Countries without Cultural Indicators”

Country Ingelhart/ Welzel Label Missing

Hofstede Label Missing

Bolivia x X

Ivory Coast x X

Jordan X

Kenya x

Lebanon x

Mali X

Palestine x X

Senegal x X

Uganda X

Ukraine X

TOTAL MISSING: 10

6 8

69

EXHIBIT 4

A map of civilizations, based on Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations".

Bright red = Japanese, dark red = Sinic, orange = Hindu, green = Islamic, medium-light blue =

Orthodox, dark blue = Western, purple = Latin American, brown = African.

70

Exhibit 6: New Favorability Variable FavUSDummy Using Collapsed Categories

71

Exhibit 7: Religion Variables Re-coded

Christianity:

Jehovah’s Witness

Protestant

Catholic

Adventist

Orthodox

Mormon

Pentecostal

Presbyterian

Czech Unity of Brethren

Chinese:

All respondents from China

Other:

Afro-Brazilian

Sikh

Hindu

Wiccan

Scientologist

Animist

Shinto

Zionist

72

Exhibit 8: Regression Model Diagnostics; Hypothesis I-IV

I. Hypothesis I: Religion

Variable VIF Square

Root VIF Tolerance

R-Squared

med_news1paper 1.46 1.21 0.6846 0.3154

med_news1tv 1.66 1.29 0.6027 0.3973

med_news1mag 1.03 1.01 0.9745 0.0255

med_news1internet 1.26 1.12 0.7949 0.2051

med_news1other 1.03 1.01 0.9742 0.0258

pol_nuclear 1.08 1.04 0.923 0.077

pol_enviro 1.13 1.06 0.8863 0.1137

pol_staycourseiraq 2.7 1.64 0.3704 0.6296

pol_staycourseafg 2.7 1.64 0.37 0.63

pol_prowarterror 1.45 1.21 0.6877 0.3123

sg_not_free 1.07 1.04 0.9329 0.0671

sg_satiscountry 1.04 1.02 0.9619 0.0381

sg_employ 1.17 1.08 0.8511 0.1489

sg_discontent 1.04 1.02 0.9637 0.0363

cult_amricnztngd 1.43 1.2 0.6993 0.3007

cult_likedemcrcy 1.55 1.24 0.6456 0.3544

cult_likeambiz 1.45 1.2 0.6917 0.3083

cult_likeampopcltr 1.34 1.16 0.7462 0.2538

cult_likeamscitech 1.23 1.11 0.8145 0.1855

cult_menpol 3.11 1.76 0.3218 0.6782

cult_women_menpol 3.03 1.74 0.3303 0.6697

cult_fammarr 1.19 1.09 0.842 0.158

cult_bothmarr 1.15 1.07 0.8706 0.1294

indv_female 1.17 1.08 0.8513 0.1487

indv_age 1.1 1.05 0.9065 0.0935

indv_travelus 1.1 1.05 0.9104 0.0896

indv_friendsus 1.1 1.05 0.9099 0.0901

indv_poverty 1.06 1.03 0.943 0.057

indv_univeduc 1.14 1.07 0.8773 0.1227

weight 1.04 1.02 0.9644 0.0356

relig_norelig 1.1 1.05 0.9106 0.0894

relig_Christian 1.46 1.21 0.6846 0.3154

relig_Buddhism 1.02 1.01 0.9852 0.0148

relig_Hindu 1.1 1.05 0.9126 0.0874

relig_Other 1.05 1.03 0.9514 0.0486

Mean VIF 1.39

74

Hypothesis II: Huntington

Variable VIF Square Root VIF

Tolerance R-Squared

med_news1paper 1.5 1.22 0.6675 0.3325

med_news1tv 1.76 1.33 0.569 0.431

med_news1mag 1.03 1.01 0.975 0.025


med_news1other 1.03 1.01 0.9735 0.0265

pol_nuclear 1.09 1.05 0.9137 0.0863

pol_enviro 1.18 1.09 0.8493 0.1507




sg_not_free 1.15 1.07 0.8705 0.1295

sg_satiscountry 1.05 1.02 0.9554 0.0446

sg_employ 1.16 1.08 0.8588 0.1412

sg_discontent 1.04 1.02 0.9588 0.0412



cult_likeambiz 1.48 1.21 0.6777 0.3223



cult_menpol 3.11 1.76 0.3211 0.6789


cult_fammarr 1.18 1.08 0.8497 0.1503

cult_bothmarr 1.15 1.07 0.8675 0.1325

indv_female 1.18 1.09 0.8477 0.1523

75

indv_age 1.12 1.06 0.8938 0.1062

indv_travelus 1.11 1.05 0.8999 0.1001

indv_friendsus 1.12 1.06 0.8942 0.1058

indv_poverty 1.07 1.03 0.9368 0.0632

indv_univeduc 1.15 1.07 0.8714 0.1286

weight 1.03 1.02 0.9672 0.0328

hunt_western 1.08 1.04 0.9269 0.0731

hunt_slavic 1.08 1.04 0.9302 0.0698

hunt_latin 1.49 1.22 0.6708 0.3292

hunt_hindu 1.1 1.05 0.9125 0.0875

hunt_afr 1.19 1.09 0.8371 0.1629

Mean VIF 1.41

76

II. Hypothesis III: Hofstede


Tolerance R-Squared

dep_favusdummy 1.42 1.19 0.7066 0.2934

med_news1paper 1.57 1.25 0.6378 0.3622

med_news1tv 1.82 1.35 0.5482 0.4518

med_news1mag 1.04 1.02 0.9578 0.0422


pol_nuclear 1.13 1.06 0.8826 0.1174

pol_enviro 1.26 1.12 0.7908 0.2092




sg_satiscountry 1.21 1.1 0.8247 0.1753

sg_employ 1.17 1.08 0.8564 0.1436

sg_discontent 1.06 1.03 0.9429 0.0571



cult_likeambiz 1.66 1.29 0.6038 0.3962



cult_menpol 3.06 1.75 0.3268 0.6732


cult_fammarr 1.4 1.18 0.7157 0.2843

cult_bothmarr 1.37 1.17 0.73 0.27

indv_female 1.21 1.1 0.8286 0.1714

indv_age 1.19 1.09 0.8389 0.1611

indv_travelus 1.06 1.03 0.9418 0.0582

indv_poverty 1.07 1.03 0.9366 0.0634

indv_univeduc 1.25 1.12 0.7997 0.2003

indv_friendsus 1.13 1.06 0.8866 0.1134

weight 1.18 1.08 0.8496 0.1504

hof_pdi 8.94 2.99 0.1119 0.8881

hof_idv 9.3 3.05 0.1075 0.8925

hof_mas 14.59 3.82 0.0686 0.9314

hof_uai 2.93 1.71 0.3413 0.6587

hof_lto 2.39 1.54 0.4191 0.5809

Mean VIF 2.46

77

III. Hypothesis IV: Ingelhart/ Welzel


Tolerance R-

Squared

med_news1paper 1.55 1.25 0.6446 0.3554

med_news1tv 1.76 1.33 0.5691 0.4309

med_news1mag 1.04 1.02 0.9649 0.0351


med_news1other 1.02 1.01 0.9783 0.0217

pol_nuclear 1.08 1.04 0.9244 0.0756

pol_enviro 1.13 1.06 0.8834 0.1166




sg_not_free 1.25 1.12 0.7991 0.2009

sg_satiscountry 1.07 1.03 0.9366 0.0634

sg_employ 1.17 1.08 0.8517 0.1483

sg_discontent 1.03 1.02 0.9678 0.0322



cult_likeambiz 1.49 1.22 0.6695 0.3305



cult_menpol 3.48 1.86 0.2877 0.7123


cult_fammarr 1.28 1.13 0.7816 0.2184

cult_bothmarr 1.15 1.07 0.8661 0.1339

indv_female 1.2 1.09 0.8355 0.1645

indv_age 1.12 1.06 0.8925 0.1075

indv_travelus 1.13 1.06 0.8831 0.1169

indv_friendsus 1.18 1.09 0.8492 0.1508

indv_poverty 1.06 1.03 0.9434 0.0566

indv_univeduc 1.11 1.05 0.8991 0.1009

weight 1.03 1.01 0.9747 0.0253

iw_tradrat_values 1.29 1.14 0.7728 0.2272

iw_survself_values 1.51 1.23 0.6631 0.3369

Mean VIF 1.48

78

Exhibit 9: Model III Regressions: Hofstede With and Without Friends in the U.S. Variable Type Variable List (3a) (3b)

Hofstede Hofstede w/o Friends

U.S.

Dependent Favorability

Towards U.S.

Media med_news1pape

r 0.639 0.902

(0.165) (0.117)

Media med_news1tv 0.642* 0.867 (0.117) (0.078)

Media med_news1mag 0.412 1.366 (0.401) (0.680)

Media med_news1inter

net 0.511 0.569*

(0.189) (0.137)

Media med_news1other 1.464 (0.832)

Policy pol_enviro 1.226 0.992 (0.203) (0.073)

Policy pol_staycourseir

aq 2.446*** 1.253**

(0.661) (0.097)

Policy pol_staycourseaf

g 1.322 1.533***

(0.321) (0.189)

Policy pol_prowarterror 2.208*** 1.306* (0.328) (0.152)

Policy pol_nuclear 1.138 2.114*** (0.167) (0.156)

Scapegoat sg_not_free

Scapegoat sg_satiscountry 1.249 1.517*** (0.190) (0.111)

Scapegoat sg_employ 1.075 1.026 (0.160) (0.074)

Scapegoat sg_discontent 1.048 1.019

79

(0.138) (0.067)

Culture cult_likedemcrcy 2.346*** 1.875*** (0.366) (0.160)

Culture cult_likeambiz 1.517** 1.739*** (0.237) (0.138)

Culture cult_likeampopcl

tr 1.348 1.465***

(0.214) (0.114)

Culture cult_likeamscitec

h 1.179 1.763***

(0.221) (0.145)

Culture cult_amricnztngd 1.805*** 1.518*** (0.303) (0.128)

Culture cult_menpol 0.961 0.971 (0.233) (0.116)

Culture cult_women_me

npol 1.052 1.117

(0.240) (0.123)

Culture cult_fammarr 0.649 0.801* (0.152) (0.089)

Culture cult_bothmarr 0.725 0.766** (0.119) (0.065)

Control indv_female 1.223 1.344*** (0.173) (0.096)

Control indv_age 0.999 0.984 (0.019) (0.010)

Control indv_travelus 1.252 1.243 (0.364) (0.287)

Control indv_friendsus 0.993 (0.137)

Control indv_poverty 1.300 1.193* (0.229) (0.092)

Control indv_age2 1.000 1.000 (0.000) (0.000)

Control indv_univeduc 0.920 1.088 (0.139) (0.094)

80

Control weight 0.989 1.449**

(0.231) (0.189) 0.902

Hofstede hof_pdi 0.991 0.917*** (0.032) (0.014)

Hofstede hof_idv 0.993 0.971*** (0.017) (0.008)

Hofstede hof_mas 1.048 1.116*** (0.040) (0.021)

Hofstede hof_uai 0.984 0.968*** (0.009) (0.004)

Hofstede hof_lto 0.986** 0.991** (0.005) (0.003)

Model Diagnostics

Number of Observations

1732 5930

Pseudo R2 0.2706 0.2237

Chi2 408.458 1225.54

P (Chi2) 0.000 0.000

Degrees of Freedom

34.000 34.000

Link Test: p(_hat) 0.000 0.000

Link Test: p(_hat

2)

0.184 0.134

Pearson’s Chi2 1639 5764

P (Pearson’s Chi2) 0.789 0.832

Exhibit 10: Tables of Predicted Probabilities Hypothesis I: Religion

Variable Predicted Probability

Favorable: Full Model

Percent Change from Full Model

Entire Model 61% n/a

Religion

- Muslim 45% -26%

- Christian 65% 7%

- Buddhist 74% 21%

- Hindu 64% 5%

- Other 52% -15%

- No Religion 59% -3%

Media

- Newspaper 56% -8%

81

- Television 55% -10%

- Magazines 41% -33%

- Internet 49% -20%

- Radio 66% 8%

- Other 41% -33%

Policy Priority

- Nuclear Non-Prolif 55% -10%

- Environment 52% -15%

- Pro War Iraq 66% 8%

- Pro War Afghanistan 63% 3%

- Pro War Terror 69% 13%

Scapegoat

- “Not Free” 48% -21%

- Satisfied w/ Country 58% -5%

- Employed 56% -8%

- Discontent w/ present situation

56% -8%

Culture

- Globalization Good 64% 5%

- Like American Democracy

56% -8%

- Like American Business

53% -13%

- Like American TV/Movies

49% -20%

- Like American S & T 50% -18%

- Women Good Political Leaders

57% -7%

- Men Good Political Leaders

56% -8%

- Women & Men Good Leaders

55% -10%

- Woman Should Choose who Marries

57% -7%

- Family Should Choose who Marries

55% -10%

- Both Woman & Family Should Choose who Marries

54% -11%

Control

- In Poverty 53% -13%

- Traveled to the US 59% -3%

- Female 50% -18%

- Age 56% -8%

- Friends in US 52% -15%

82

- Some University 44%

Hypothesis II: Huntington

Variable Predicted Probability

Entire Model 61.0%

Huntington

- Muslim 57.7%

- Western 71.1%

- Slavic/Orthodox 71.7%

- Latin American 63.1%

- Hindu 73.5%

- African 68.9%

Control

- Female 61.3%

- Woman Chooses Who she Marries

60.4%

- Family Chooses 55.6%

- Both Choose 55.5%

Hypothesis III: Hofstede

Variable Mean Low High

Entire Model 72.6%

Hofstede

- Power Distance 84.4% 57.4%

- Individualism 78.8% 53.6%

- Masculinity 52.6% 93.0%

- Uncertainty Avoidance

81.5% 43.5%

- Long-Term Orientation

76.4% 67.2%

Hypothesis IV: Ingelhart/ Welzel

Variable Predicted Probability Low High

Entire Model 59.0%

Ingelhart/ Welzel

- Traditional/Rational 53.6% 73.2%

- Survival/Self 43.8% 67.6%

83

Predicted Probabilities: Muslim Religion & Culture Sub-Sample

Variable

Predicted Probability Favorable:

Self-Reported Muslims

Percent Point Change from

Full Model

Predicted Probability Favorable:

Huntington’s Muslims

Percent Point Change from

Full Model

Muslim Sub-Sample 40% 58%

Media

- Newspaper 37% 8% 48% -17%

- Television 30% -25% 46% -21%

- Magazines 13% -68% 25% -57%

- Internet 22% -45% 40% -31%

- Radio 41% 2% 57% -2%

- Other 14% -65% 32% -45%

Policy Priority

- Nuclear Non-Prolif 31% -23% 47% -19%

- Environment 25% -38% 39% -33%

- Pro War Iraq 41% 2% 57% -2%

- Pro War Afghanistan

42% 5% 56% -3%

- Pro War Terror 54% 35% 68% 17%

Scapegoat

- “Not Free” 22% -45% 39% -33%

- Satisfied w/ Country

35% -13% 50% -14%

- Employed 31% -23% 48% -17%

- Discontent w/ present situation

30% -25% 47% -19%

Culture

- Globalization Good

51% 28% 69% 19%

- Like American Democracy

38% -5% 54% -7%

- Like American Business

33% -18% 51% -12%

- Like American TV/Movies

32% -20% 52% -10%

- Like American S & T

33% -18% 49% -16%

- Women Good Political Leaders

30% -25% 51% -12%

- Men Good Political Leaders

30% -25% 44% -24%

- Women & Men Good Leaders

30% -25% 49% -16%

84

- Woman Should Choose who Marries

32% -20% 49% -16%

- Family Should Choose who Marries

30% -25% 45% -22%

- Both Woman & Family Should Choose who Marries

28% -30% 45% -22%

Control

- In Poverty 31% -23% 47% -19%

- Traveled to the US 30% -25% 47% -19%

- Female 32% -20% 50% -14%

- Age 38% -5% 52% -10%

- Friends in US 37% -8% 52% -10%

- Some University 26% -35% 42% -28%

85

Exhibit 11: Regression Results of Four Hypotheses on Favorability Towards the United States Utilizing “Religiosity” Variable

Variable Type Variable LIst (1) (2) (3) (4) Religion Huntington Hofstede Ingelhart/Welzel

Dependent Favorability Towards the US Indicator

Media Primary News Source Newspaper

0.554*** 0.601** 0.767 0.571**

(-3.36) (-3.00) (-1.68) (-2.90)

Media Primary News Source TV 0.704** 0.811 0.888 0.799 (-2.69) (-1.59) (-0.95) (-1.45)

Media Primary News Source Magazines

0.917 0.867 1.151 0.758

(-0.12) (-0.18) (0.26) (-0.35)

Media Primary News Source Internet

0.578* 0.620* 0.537* 0.553*

(-2.46) (-2.18) (-2.45) (-2.37)

Media Primary News Source Other 1.061 1.750 1.735 1.604 (0.10) (0.98) (0.51) (0.77)

Policy Nuclear Weapons Policy Priority

0.890 0.889 1.007 0.828

(-1.25) (-1.31) (0.08) (-1.81)

Policy Environment Policy Priority 0.888 0.928 1.293** 0.983 (-1.24) (-0.80) (2.80) (-0.16)

Policy Keep Troops in Iraq 1.763** 1.767** 1.246 1.954** (3.08) (3.09) (1.64) (3.14)

Policy Keep Troops in Afghanistan 1.237 1.115 1.221 1.168

86

(1.25) (0.64) (1.55) (0.79)

Policy Favor US-led efforts to fight terrorism

2.101*** 2.203*** 1.788*** 2.208***

(7.66) (8.51) (6.74) (7.30)

Scapegoat Not Free Freedom House Scale

0.920 0.710 0.281***

(-0.53) (-1.92) (-3.81)

Scapegoat Satisified with Country 0.936 0.920 1.427*** 0.922 (-0.67) (-0.89) (4.07) (-0.74)

Scapegoat Employed Indicator 1.162 1.145 1.008 1.274* (1.59) (1.49) (0.09) (2.32)

Scapegoat Discontent Indicator 1.070 1.135 1.122 1.089 (0.75) (1.47) (1.43) (0.86)

Culture It's Good that American Ideas & Culture Spread Here

2.034*** 1.983*** 1.593*** 1.960***

(6.63) (6.50) (4.64) (5.33)

Culture I like American Democracy 2.064*** 1.968*** 1.850*** 2.091*** (6.93) (6.69) (6.37) (6.29)

Culture I like American way of Business

1.951*** 1.868*** 1.422*** 1.800***

(6.41) (6.20) (3.64) (5.05)

Culture I like American Movies Music and TV

1.101 1.142 1.565*** 1.094

(0.96) (1.35) (4.65) (0.80)

Culture I like American Science & Technology

1.363** 1.426** 1.556*** 1.404**

(2.59) (3.07) (4.37) (2.68)

87

Culture Men Better Political Leaders 1.090 1.070 1.151 1.630*

(0.52) (0.42) (0.98) (2.53)

Culture Women & Men are Equal Political Leaders

0.940 1.012 1.092 1.303

(-0.43) (0.09) (0.73) (1.57)

Culture Family Should Choose Who a Woman Marries

1.018 0.896 1.294 0.724

(0.09) (-0.56) (1.61) (-1.42)

Culture Both Women & Family Should Choose Who Marry

1.112 0.998 1.084 0.855

(0.89) (-0.02) (0.73) (-1.14)

Control Female Dummy Variable 1.186 1.248* 1.307** 1.416** (1.81) (2.41) (3.01) (3.22)

Control Age 0.991** 0.992** 0.990*** 0.994 (-2.88) (-2.75) (-3.39) (-1.71)

Control Have Travelled to the US 1.423* 1.538** 1.238 1.649** (2.18) (2.82) (0.80) (2.93)

Control Have Friends in the US 1.133 1.215* 1.189 (1.38) (2.20) (1.66)

Control No Money for Food, Health, Clothes

0.797* 0.806* 1.322** 0.818

(-2.12) (-2.12) (2.77) (-1.66)

Control Some Univ Education 0.877 0.892 1.155 0.921 (-1.36) (-1.23) (1.44) (-0.75)

Control weighting factor 0.696** 0.732* 1.216 0.944 (-2.68) (-2.21) (1.37) (-0.35)

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Religiosity Prays At Least Once/ Day 1.320** 1.356*** 1.370*** 1.149

(3.03) (3.40) (3.34) (1.35)

Religion No Religion 1.591 (1.51)

Religion Christian 1.801* (2.31)

Religion Buddhist 2.989 (1.87)

Religion Hindu 1.531 (1.29)

Religion Other 1.078 (0.23)

Huntington Western 0.919 (-0.35)

Huntington Slavic/Orthodox 0.785 (-0.87)

Huntington Latin American 0.564*** (-4.07)

Huntington Hindu 0.772 (-1.09)

Huntington African 0.810 (-1.27)

Hofstede Power Distance 0.999 (-0.04)

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Hofstede Individualism 1.017 (0.90)

Hofstede Masculinity 0.995 (-0.13)

Hofstede Uncertainty Avoidance 0.988* (-1.98)

Hofstede Long Term Orientation 0.973*** (-6.54)

I/W Trad/Rat_Values 0.775* (-2.33)

I/W Surv/Self_Values 0.642* (-2.56)

Model Diagnostics Observations 3539 3849 4392 2746 r2_p 0.2393 0.2545 0.2267 0.2606 Likelihood Ratio Chi2 1033.45 1207.68 1177.62 917.61 P(chi2) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 df_m 36.000 36.000 34.000 33.000 Link test p(_hat) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 Link test p(_hat2) 0.590 0.857 0.003 0.802 P(Pearson’s chi2) .4239 .4498 .9465 .2348 F-Test Religiosity variables .0024 .0007 .0008 0.1773

90

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ISLAM, THE UNITED STATES AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES

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