Filter content by

Lebanon’s atheists rejecting their religion

In Lebanon, the sectarian identity you inherit from your father is written on the civil registry. From birth people are defined by their religion and atheism or ‘no religion’ are not included in 18 options available. A survey for BBC News Arabic by Arab Barometer suggests that people across the region are growing less religious….

Poverty, inequality and the structural threat to the Arab region

…… Jordanians who see no justice in their lives increased from 40 to 46 percent in just the four months between June and September 2018, two-thirds of citizens feel the country is moving in the wrong direction, 72 percent of households said they could not meet their basic expenses (compared to 42 percent in mid-2011), and two-thirds of households reported…

Algeria’s Second Arab Spring?

In retrospect, it now seems clear that the regime’s dithering in the face of unsustainable macroeconomic imbalances was a mistake. Judging from the most recent Arab Barometer survey(conducted in 2016), Algerians were not duped by the government’s Potemkin reforms. On the contrary, the regime’s costly efforts to enforce an artificial stability appear to have backfired. Between 2013 and 2016, while the…

The road ahead for Arab women

On top of social and economic progress, Arab women are making important strides in changing societal attitudes on gender equality but more work is needed to ensure women are granted the same rights and opportunities as their male counterparts in the Arab region. In a report titled “Women in the Middle East and North Africa: A Divide between Rights and…

Are Bouteflika’s Shake-Ups a Sign of Shifting Civil-Military Ties in Algeria?

… The army has now firmly entrenched itself as an integral feature of the political system—a system in which the legitimacy of the military’s political influence is hardly questioned by Algerians. It goes beyond popular acquiescence about the generals’ role in politics. In Algeria, the military constitutes the most trusted state institution, and by a wide margin. According to a 2017…

Maghreb Report

News article cites survey stating 83 percent of Algerians said they are either not interested or not at all interested in politics due to their expectation that the army will select the winner. Read full article at Morocco on the Move.