Many around the globe say it’s important their leader stands up for people’s religious beliefs

This Pew Research Center analysis explores public attitudes about the religious qualities of national leaders in 35 countries in North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa region, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Among the main findings are that, when asked about the leader of their country, people around the world are generally much more likely to say it is important to have someone who stands up for people with their religious beliefs than to say the leader needs to have strong religious beliefs of their own or to have the same beliefs as they do. The Center conducted nationally representative surveys of 40,494 adults in 34 countries from Jan. 5 to May 22, 2024. All surveys were conducted over the phone in Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Surveys were conducted face-to-face in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Turkey. In Australia, we used a mixed-mode probability-based online panel. In the U.S., the analysis was drawn from an online survey of 12,693 adults conducted from Feb. 13 to 25, 2024. The survey used Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), as well as the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, the NORC Amerispeak Panel and the SSRS Opinion Panel. All four panels are national survey panels recruited through random sampling (not “opt-in” polls). This analysis was produced by Pew Research Center as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation (grant 63095). This publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.