Arab Muslim Attitudes Toward the West: Cultural, Social, and Political Explanations

We utilize pooled data from Zogby International's 2002 Arab Values Survey (carried out in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and UAE) in order to test for “cultural,” “social” and/or international “political” influences on Arab Muslim attitudes toward “Western” countries (Canada, France, Germany, UK, and USA). We find little support for “cultural” hypotheses to the effect that hostility to the West is a mark-up on Muslim and/or Arab identity.

We find only limited support for “social” hypotheses that suggest that hostility to the West is predicted by socioeconomic deprivation, youth, and/or being male. We find the strongest support for a lone “political” hypothesis: hostility toward specific Western countries is predicted by those countries' recent and visible international political actions in regard to salient international issues (e.g., Western foreign policies toward Palestine).