Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Political Issues

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    God’s Will: Iran’s Polity and the Challenges of the Future

    Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in May 2007 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Ray Takeyh, a leading expert on Iran and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, shed light on the complex and diffuse […]

  • report

    Closeness to Troops Boosts Support for War — but Not By Much

    More than a quarter of adults in America (27%) say they have a very close family member or friend who has served in the current military effort in Iraq or Afghanistan. As one might expect, those with close contacts tend to be more supportive of the Iraq war and President Bush’s policies with regard to […]

  • fact sheet

    School Graduations, Religion and the Courts

    Spring is the season for school graduations, and graduation ceremonies play a featured role in the national debate over the place of religion in public education. Is a clergyman’s benediction at a public school event a violation of the separation of church and state? Can students lead a prayer at their school commencement? In a […]

  • transcript

    International Religious Freedom: Religion and International Diplomacy

    Pew Research Center Ten years ago, the U.S. Congress launched a debate on U.S. international religious freedom policy that ultimately resulted in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Foreign policy actors continue to debate how religious freedom – and religion itself – should be factored into U.S. foreign policy. Has the State Department interpreted […]