Religion and Ethnic Minority Attitudes in Britain toward the War in Afghanistan

Abstract

Public opinion research has demonstrated that minority religious and ethnic groups hold distinctive preferences on foreign policy issues, including military interventions in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. There has been little scholarly research in Britain into the attitudes of minority groups on foreign policy issues. This article uses a nationally-representative survey of the ethnic minority population in Britain to examine the sources of public opinion towards the war in Afghanistan. Using multivariate analysis, it finds strong effects for religious affiliation, religiosity and political alienation. There is also evidence of a “gender gap” and age-related differences. The paper contributes to the literature on the impact of religion on public opinion and foreign policy and to analysis of the political attitudes of minority groups in Britain.

Religion and foreign-policy views: Are religious people more altruistic and/or more militant?

“…Regarding MI, existing research has connected Christianity (particularly evangelical) in the US with higher support for military aid to Israel and interventions in the Middle East and Afghanistan (Baumgartner et al, 2008;Cavari, 2013). Christianity, along with Islam, has also been found to increase militant internationalist attitudes in general, but this effect was lower among religious minorities (Clements, 2013;Guth, 2009Guth, , 2013Koopmans and Statham, 2014;Tessler and Nachtwey, 1998).…”