“This paper investigates the relationship between support for democracy and willingness to take political action in the Middle East before and after the Arab Spring. Despite general support for democracy in many Arab nations, as evidenced by open popular protests, most of the region remains under authoritarian rule. To explain this, I analyzed survey data from the World Values Survey that asked citizens in Jordan, Morocco, and Egypt whether they favored a democratic system of government and what types of political action, such as demonstrating, they had taken or would be willing to take. I found that the majority of respondents in each of these nations favored democratic rule, at least in an abstract sense, but most of them were unwilling to take actions that challenged authoritarian regimes. This revealed a disconnect between citizens’ wish for a new government and their desire to strive to bring about change. Willingness to take political action actually declined after the Arab Spring, although there were exceptions in each nation. This decreasing willingness to take political action, whether it is caused by apathy towards unsuccessful protests or by increased government crackdown, has made achieving democracy even more difficult in the Arab world…”
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