Jordan Times
Friday, January 23, 2009
Jordanians have favourable
view of Kingdom’s foreign policy - poll
By Taylor Luck
AMMAN - Jordanians have a predominately positive view of their country’s foreign
policy, according to a survey on attitudes about the morality of countries’
foreign policies released on Thursday.
According to the WorldPublicOpinion.org poll, around 44 per cent of Jordanian
respondents said they believe the morality of their country’s foreign policy to
be “above average” compared to other nations, the highest of the 21 nations
polled.
Meanwhile, 26 per cent said the Kingdom’s foreign policy is “average”, while 8
per cent said it was “ below average”, making it one of two countries where a
plurality believe their foreign policy was superior, according to the study,
carried out in cooperation with the Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the
University of Jordan.
The high number is due to several factors including Jordan’s activity in the
peace process, according to Fares Breizat, CSS political analyst and deputy
director.
“The fact that Jordan has never initiated war with another country and the fact
that it has placed itself at the moderate centre of the Arab world are the most
likely driving factors behind Jordanians rating the morality behind foreign
policy so high,” Breizat told The Jordan Times.
In comparison, 35 per cent of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, 32
per cent of Egyptians and 28 per cent of Turks found the morality of their
foreign policy to be superior to other countries.
Jordanians predominately view American foreign policy as “below average” in this
regard, with 42 per cent ascribing to the view, compared to 19 per cent saying
average, the second lowest of nations polled.
In comparison, 61 per cent of Palestinians gave a negative rating for US foreign
policy, the highest of any country, followed by Germany (55 per cent) Egypt and
Turkey (40 per cent).
Approximately 36 per cent of Jordanians found British foreign policy to be
“below average”, according to the study. Only residents in the West Bank and
Gaza had a less favourable view, some 56 per cent.
China received the most negative views of its foreign policy with a majority in
five countries believing it was “below average”.
Jordan, however, had a slightly more favourable view of China’s foreign policy,
with 19 per cent believing it was “below average” compared to 31 per cent
reporting “around average”.
Russia was the second-most criticised country in the poll, with five countries
predominately giving it a negative rating.
Approximately 27 per cent of Jordanians gave Russia a below average rating,
compared to 28 per cent calling it “average”.
The poll of 21,618 respondents was conducted between July 15 and October 18,
2008 with a +/- 4-2 per cent margin of error, according to
WorldPublicOpinnion.org.