Factoid: Russian Favorability Ratings Have Fallen in the Past Year

Pew Research's Global Attitudes Project released a report entitled Russia’s Global Image Negative amid Crisis in Ukraine. The general finding is that, in 20 of the 44 countries surveyed by Pew in this past April and May, people have a significantly more unfavorable view of Russia in 2014 than they did in 2013. The increase in unfavorable attitudes towards Russia is most profound in Europe and the US, as you can see in the graph below.

However, looking at regions obscures what is going on in individual countries. Therefore, it is important to look at country level data as shown in the next chart from Pew:

Note that the only countries in which a majority of respondents had a favorable view of Russia were China (66%, up 16 points from 2013), Bangladesh (60%), Greece (61%, down 2 points),  Vietnam (75%), and Russia itself (92%, up 8 points).

While these figures are undoubtedly affected by the Ukrainian crisis, we should remember that, among other things, Russia also hosted the winter Olympics in Socchi and has taken a pro-Assad stance in Syria in the 2013-2014 period. The latter may explain the improvement in Russia's favorability rating in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

If one looks closely at the nations in which a smaller percentage of respondents had an unfavorable view of Russia (i.e., those with negative numbers in the shaded column on the right), one can see that several of those countries have a smaller percentage of respondents choosing to take either a favorable or unfavorable view at all. For instance, 7% less respondents in India had an unfavorable view of Russia in 2014 than in 2013, but only 55% of respondents expressed a favorable or unfavorable view in 2014, as opposed to 68% in 2013 (a 13% drop). In Pakistan, 51% of respondents expressed a favorable or unfavorable view of Russia other in 2013, but only 40% did in 2014 (an 11% drop). This is also true, to a lesser extent, in South Africa. This suggests a growing uncertainty about Russia in these countries

Indeed, the only countries that had an unambiguous increase in favorability towards Russia (beside Israel and the Palestinian territories) were China, the Philippines, and Russia itself.

In contrast,  global attitudes towards the US remain very favorable. In 34 of the 44 countries surveyed, a majority of respondents had a favorable view of the US (with Germany and China coming in at the bottom of the favorable pack with a 51% and 50% favorability respectively). As has been the case for years, the countries with less than 50% of respondents having a favorable view were mainly from the Middle East (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestinian Territory, Tunisia, Turkey) with Russia, Greece and Argentina in the mix (the latter two's population possibly driven by disdain for US dominated financial markets and IGO's).

If one looks at the nations with the most favorable views of the US (i.e., those with 75% or more of the respondents reporting a favorable view of the US), the list includes some interesting nations. The Philippines had the most respondents with a favorable view (92%, 10% more than the US itself), and Vietnam and Bangladesh came in at 76% (about the same percentage the view Russia favorably).  It is also interesting to note that France makes this list at 75% of respondents having a favorable view of the US (which has been about the case since 2009 but  is a big improvement over the 37-43% ratings in France from 2003-2008).