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…
Governance
Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy
Despite a wealth of studies examining Muslim religiosity and democracy, uncertainty regarding Islam and attitudes toward democracy remains. Although the claims concerning the incompatibility of Islam and democracy are generally discarded, public opinion scholarship has yet to build much further from this important first step or incorporate a strong theoretical framework for analysis beyond this basic foundation. This paper seeks…
Police Legitimacy and Homicide: A Macro-Comparative Analysis
“This study tests the claim that police legitimacy affects the prevalence of homicide. Using a cross-national time-series dataset of 100 countries, I conduct a statistical analysis of the association between the extent to which the public perceives the police as legitimate and the homicide rate. The analysis suggests that police legitimacy has a substantial, negative association with homicide rates, consistent…
Review: Le dinar algérien, passé et présent: aspects de la politique monétaire et financière de l’Algérie
“Bader Eddine Nouioua, who served as governor of the Central Bank of Algeria from 1985 to 1989, has written a primer to explain Algerian money and banking to the public. And there is much to explain, as banking and finance are often blamed as key impediments to Algerian development. The banking system was singled out for early reform in 1986,…
Muslim Attitudes Towards the European Union
“How do Muslim citizens across the globe perceive the European Union? And what factors influence their EU attitudes? This book offers the first systematic theoretical and empirical analysis of Muslim citizens’ EU attitudes in and outside the European Union. Using the best empirical data available, the book demonstrates that Muslim citizens’ attitudes are not shaped by their denomination and religious…
Self-expression values, loyalty generation, and support for authoritarianism: evidence from the Arab world
“This study examines the micro foundations of political support in Arab polities. Most Arab states rank highly in aggregate human development or economic wealth, but they lag behind in democracy defying the predictions of modernization theory. Modernization and human development perspective implies that increased resources and self-expression values will induce critical political outlooks toward the regime. This study questions the…
The Tunisian Revolution as a Catalyst to the Arab Spring: A Case Study of Revolution in North Africa and the Middle East
“This thesis research project is an attempt to understand the nature, sources, dynamics, and contradictions of the Tunisian Revolution of 2010-11. Contained within the thesis are seven chapters, each outlining political, economic, cultural, and social phenomena that precipitated the Revolution, as well as the dynamics following the Revolution. Chapter 1 provides a discussion of various competing theoretical perspectives on social…
Syrian Refugees in Jordan and Lebanon: Under the Shadow of Palestinian Refugees
“I examine whether a special geographical location (environments around Palestinian refugee camps) is associated with policy gaps in Jordan and Lebanon by analyzing the perceptions of Syrians and host societies. Using the Arab Barometer 2016 data, I find that environments around the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon have become places where government policies cannot reach, leading to geographical discrepancies in…
Effects of Modernization and Globalization on Values Change in the Arab World
“This paper argues that social transformation processes generate shifts in public opinion among the public. More specifically, increasing rates of modernization and globalization in the Arab world over the past half century have led to a moving away from religion, tradition, and ethnocentrism to embracing more secular, liberal, and egalitarian values. Ordinary citizens in today’s Arab world are more tolerant…