…Arab leaders themselves, including the region’s many autocratic rulers, have also come to better appreciate survey research. Whereas a decade ago Arab governments tended to view opinion surveys as posing needlessly provocative questions to citizens, particularly since the Arab uprisings of 2011 officials have been more inclined to permit surveys even on sensitive topics, partly to remain informed about shifting public opinion.
And so, even as political and methodological barriers to opinion research in the Middle East persist, the number, scope and sophistication of scientific surveys being conducted has burgeoned. Some sense of this can be gleaned from Arab nations’ participation in prominent cross-national survey projects. The widely utilized World Values Survey, for instance, which has surveyed citizens in almost 100 countries since 1981, included more Arab states (12) in its most recent wave, conducted during 2010-2014, than in all previous five waves combined.
New regionally focused projects have also been initiated. The Arab Barometer survey has studied the attitudes of almost 50,000 men and women in 15 Arab countries since 2006, using questions developed by a team of experts based mostly in the region. A spinoff from the Arab Barometer, the Arab Opinion Index conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Qatar, interviewed over 18,000 Arab citizens in 12 countries in its most recent 2016 survey alone. In these and many other social scientific surveys, researchers work hard to use best practices in survey research. Researchers also work to ensure that surveys interview large and nationally representative samples, usually at respondents’ residences….
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