This paper explores the question of what explains public opinion of women empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa. Muslim societies have often been accused of conservatism toward empowerment, stripping women of equal access to education and opportunities. However, many predominantly Muslim societies in the MENA region seem to be on the way to implement change to provide women…
The Mounting Wave: Protest Participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2019
This article analyzes the evolution of protest participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2018 using the data provided by the Arab Barometer Surveys. It finds that participation evolved substantially in both size and demographic determinants, reflecting the strong deterioration of the population’s socio-economic conditions over the last decade. The Arab Barometer surveys are the only cross-country source of data available…
Arab Barometer Wave V
(2)The Mounting Wave: Protest Participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2019
This article analyzes the evolution of protest participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2018 using the data provided by the Arab Barometer Surveys. It finds that participation evolved substantially in both size and demographic determinants, reflecting the strong deterioration of the population’s socio-economic conditions over the last decade. The Arab Barometer surveys are the only cross-country source of data available…
Determinants of Public Attitudes Towards Immigrants: Evidence from Arab Barometer
What factors determine public opinion towards immigrants? This inquiry is especially crucial in the context of developing countries since they hold 80 per cent of global refugee populations. Lebanon, with the burden on its shoulders due to hosting about one million Syrians, offers a unique case to study the mechanisms driving the formation of attitudes towards immigrants. In this article,…
Can Morocco Effectively Handle the COVID-19 Crisis?
In Morocco, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased public trust in government, but people still have doubts about the effectiveness of the healthcare system. According to a recent study conducted by the Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis (MIPA), the majority of Moroccans surveyed are generally satisfied with the measures taken by the government to battle the coronavirus. However, the same survey…
Arab Barometer Wave IV
(5)The Mounting Wave: Protest Participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2019
This article analyzes the evolution of protest participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2018 using the data provided by the Arab Barometer Surveys. It finds that participation evolved substantially in both size and demographic determinants, reflecting the strong deterioration of the population’s socio-economic conditions over the last decade. The Arab Barometer surveys are the only cross-country source of data available…
From virtual space to public space: The role of online political activism in protest participation during the Arab Spring
This study examines the relationship between online social media use and protest participation during the Arab Spring, pro-democracy movements that swept across vast parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). What role did online communication media play in individual decisions to participate in these high-risk political activities? We address this question by drawing on microdata from the Arab…
Political Division and Social Destruction: Generalized Trust in Palestine
This article discusses the effect of the political division between Fatah and Hamas on the level of generalized trust in Palestine. It argues that the level of trust in Palestinian society has been shaped and influenced by the ongoing political division since 2007. As the level of trust has been declining since 2007, this research suggests that distrust in the…
Arab Barometer Wave III
(4)The Mounting Wave: Protest Participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2019
This article analyzes the evolution of protest participation in Sudan from 2011 to 2018 using the data provided by the Arab Barometer Surveys. It finds that participation evolved substantially in both size and demographic determinants, reflecting the strong deterioration of the population’s socio-economic conditions over the last decade. The Arab Barometer surveys are the only cross-country source of data available…
Political Division and Social Destruction: Generalized Trust in Palestine
This article discusses the effect of the political division between Fatah and Hamas on the level of generalized trust in Palestine. It argues that the level of trust in Palestinian society has been shaped and influenced by the ongoing political division since 2007. As the level of trust has been declining since 2007, this research suggests that distrust in the…
Arab Barometer Wave II
(2)Political Division and Social Destruction: Generalized Trust in Palestine
This article discusses the effect of the political division between Fatah and Hamas on the level of generalized trust in Palestine. It argues that the level of trust in Palestinian society has been shaped and influenced by the ongoing political division since 2007. As the level of trust has been declining since 2007, this research suggests that distrust in the…
Arab Barometer Wave I
(1)Envy and the Islamic revival: Experimental evidence from Tunisia
“I design and conduct a survey with an embedded lab-in-the-field experiment to test whether envy triggers popular support for the Islamic revival using a nationally representative sample of 600 Tunisians. Individuals exposed to high inequality may feel envious if they perceive that the success of others is granted rather than earned. Thus, envious individuals may be motivated to engage in…
Turnout in Transitional Elections: Who votes in Iraq?
“Electoral turnout in Iraq is a puzzling phenomenon. Despite the country’s lack of a democratic past, undeveloped party system, volatile political alliances, inexperienced voters, ethnic politics, sectarian violence, and terrorism, Iraqis’ electoral engagement has reached impressive levels. Given the importance of political participation at the foundational stages of democracy, this article places the individual within a broad context to draw…
Affinity, arming, consequences, and perceptions: an introduction
This article provides an introduction to the special issue on Political violence: affinity, arming, consequences, and perceptions. The issue contains panel analyses, theoretical investigations, and a quantification study. With respect to terrorism, four of the articles study perceptions regarding democratic skepticism, security effectiveness, refugee hosting risks, and financial well-being. Although much of the special issue addresses aspects of terrorism, some…
Science and Innovation Policies in North African Countries: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities
“Effective science, technology and innovation (STI) policies and strategies reflect a country’s successful contribution to scientific advancement. While the economic and geopolitical framework of many North African Countries (NACs) transformed enormously during the past decades, their relevant policies and performance were not responsive enough in adapting to these dynamics. This review is meant to highlight the current development and evolution…
Talking with the Muslim World
“The struggle against terrorism in the Middle East has led to a quest to find ways to counter the appeal of violent extremists. Thus far, US counter-messaging has failed to articulate a normative position that is responsive to the deeply-held beliefs of the majority of the world’s Muslims. To form a sounder approach, one must acknowledge that there are two…
Tunisia: Changing Patterns of Women’s Representation
“Benstead traces women’s descriptive political representation in Tunisia from the first woman elected to parliament in 1959 to the introduction of the law of parity following the Arab spring, which commits the state to ensuring equal representation in elected institutions. Under Ben Ali’s state feminism, the Constitutional Rally for Democracy (RCD) implemented a 20% party quota in 1999, which it…
The Arab Uprisings in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. Social, Political and Economic Transformations
“The Arab Uprisings were unexpected events of rare intensity in Middle Eastern history – mass, popular and largely non-violent revolts which threatened and in some cases toppled apparently stable autocracies. This volume provides in-depth analyses of how people perceived the socio-economic and political transformations in three case studies epitomising different post-Uprising trajectories – Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt – and drawing…
Popular Support for Democracy in Autocratic Regimes: A Micro-Level Analysis of Preferences
“Scholarly opinions diverge as to which citizens in autocratic regimes actually prefer democracy to the status quo. While some argue that citizens with higher levels of socioeconomic status are more likely to prefer democracy because they desire political equality, others argue that the poor should prefer democracy most because they will have more relative power to affect redistributive policies. Analyzing…
Conceptions of Sharia and Support for Militancy and Democratic Values: Evidence From Pakistan
“Numerous empirical studies of the relationship between popular support for Islamism and support for democracy and violence have yielded inconclusive results. We suspect that this is largely because scholars have not operationalized support for Shari`a in ways that capture the concept’s multi-dimensionality. In this paper, we employ data derived from a carefully designed survey instrument that casts unique insights into…
Rethinking the Tunisian miracle: a party politics view
“Five years on from the Tunisian revolution, Tunisia stands as the sole success story of the Arab Spring. The country since then has managed to adopt a pluralist and democratic constitution, and held three free and fair elections. Accordingly, in the eyes of several observers, Tunisia is now in the process of consolidating its new democracy. However, the reality on…
Arab Public Opinion: Between Attachment to Islam and Commitment to Democracy
“International surveys of personal values have existed for almost 40 years (since 1981) in most European countries (the European Values Study or EVS) and in many countries of the world (the World Values Survey), enabling us to observe the evolution of the values of the citizenry in many areas (religion, family, politics, trust, tolerance etc.). Only in much more recent…
The Arab Spring, Support for Democracy, and Political Action: Seeking an Explanation for the Authoritarian Paradox in the Middle East
“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…