Drivers of migration include conflicts and instability, but are mostly economic. Over half of migrants and displaced persons originating from MENA stay within the region. Most likely to emigrate are young educated men seeking temporary stays to find work. EU public debate focuses on potential security threats from population inflows, but ignore economic benefits both to host countries and to…
Arab Barometer
Historical Legacies and Gender Attitudes in the Middle East
This paper focuses on transformations of gender attitudes in a set of Arab societies covered by the Arab Barometer. We analyze age and cohort differences in thirteen countries using generalized additive modeling (GAM). We argue that stagnation or even retrogression of gender attitudes in some societies may be caused in part by an ideological shift of the 1970s–1980s, from largely…
Building Decent Societies? Economic Situation and Political Cohesion after the Arab Uprisings
The focus of this paper is the main drivers of the 2010-11 Arab Uprisings across the Arab and draws on data from the ArabTrans public opinion survey, as well as the Arab Barometer, the Gallup World Poll and World Development Indicators. It asks to what extent people think that things are getting better, whether post-2011 regimes are addressing the concerns…
Do Migrants Transfer Political and Culture Norms to Their Origin Country? Some Evidence from Some Arab Countries
This paper explores some political and social consequences of international migration experience and remittance receipt in the case of Arab countries using Arab Barometer survey dataset. The main idea is to address whether persons who receive international remittances or have lived in the past in democratic host countries, namely U.S (or Canada) and Europe, can act as agents of changes….
Beyond the Arab Spring: Will economic and security challenges further test Tunisia’s democracy?
This paper examines Afrobarometer public opinion data to assess the extent to which citizens have embraced political challenges since 2011. Do Tunisians perceive an improvement of the country and the North Africa region since the events of the Arab Spring? Are they supportive of democracy and the way it is being implemented? What role do they think religion should play…
A Broken Social Contract, Not High Inequality, Led to the Arab Spring
During the 2000s, expenditure inequality in Arab countries was low or moderate and, in many cases, declining. Different measures of wealth inequality were also lower than elsewhere. Yet, there were revolutions in four countries and protests in several others. We explain this so‐called “inequality puzzle” by first noting that, despite favorable income inequality measures, subjective well‐being measures in Arab countries…
Fostering support for non-democratic rule? Controlled political liberalization and popular support for non-democratic regimes
When the Cold War ended, many non-democratic regimes across the globe embarked on a course of controlled political liberalization, hoping to stabilize their autocratic rule by mitigating popular demands for democratization and increasing regime legitimacy. But does this strategy actually work? This article uses multi-level analyses to examine how the degree of political liberalization affects regime support in non-democratic political…
Handbook of Empirical Research on Islam and Economic Life
Islamic economics and finance (IEF) has recently enjoyed a spike in interest and a rise in status from theology-tinged discussion fodder for Muslim intellectuals to a fully fledged academic discipline knocking on the doors of university social science departments. The Handbook of Empirical Research on Islam and Economic Life provides a solid background and overview of current empirical research, evaluating…
MENA Populations’ Perceptions of Key Challenges, International Context and Role of the European Union
Survey data from the ArabTrans 2014 survey contains a unique battery of questions pertaining to the perception of the European Union. This report builds on those questions to analyse perceptions of the EU, its development cooperation programmes, its promotion of democracy, the appropriateness of its response to the Arab Uprisings, and the perception of the EU as an international actor….
Gender Equality and MENA Women’s Empowerment in the Aftermath of the 2011 Uprisings
This paper examines gender equality and women’s empowerment in the MENA following the 2011 Arab Uprisings. The paper reports findings from the ArabTrans survey, a comparative public opinion survey carried out in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia in 2014. Around 1,500 respondents were interviewed in each country on a range of questions including a module on gender attitudes….
Trust and Tolerance across the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Perspective on the Arab Uprisings
The protests that swept the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are expected to have influenced two key civic atti-tudes fundamental to well-functioning democracies: trust and tolerance. However, systematic comparative assessmentsof the general patterns and particularities in this region are rare. This contribution theorizes the uprisings’ impact andpresents new society-level measurements of trust and tolerance for the MENA, synchronizing…
Youth, Religion and Democracy After the Arab Uprisings: Evidence from the Arab Barometer
This article compares the changes over time in attitudes of youth in Egypt and Tunisia, two countries that experienced dramatic political changes in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings. The primary comparison is the change in attitudes over time within each country; views of youths just after the respective revolutions are compared with views of a similar cohort two years…
Social Distance in Iraq and Lebanon
Research has found that tensions, conflicts, and wars worsen the views groups hold towards each other and, plausibly, increase social distance (Parks 1924; Bogardus 1925; Owen et al. 1981; Siber 1997; Parrillo and Donoghue 2005; Oswald 2005; Strabac 2016). Since the twentieth century the Middle East is caught up in interlocking pattern of crises, conflicts, wars, and terrorism. Almost every…
Measuring Public Support for Democracy: A Resource Guide
Individual attitudes to democracy are important for its functioning and survival. Positive attitudes to, and perceptions of, democracy can support collective resistance to state abuse and help prevent modern democratic backsliding. In contrast, negative attitudes to democracy can drive or signal democratic backsliding and even the deconsolidation of democracy. Scholars assume that high levels of public satisfaction with, trust in,…
Gender Ideals in Turbulent Times: An Examination of Insecurity, Islam, and Muslim Men’s Gender Attitudes during the Arab Spring
Using Arab Barometer data (2011), the authors examine Muslim men’s gender attitudes in four predominantly Muslim Middle Eastern and North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen) during the Arab Spring. They examine if living in insecurity – which may threaten men’s ability to attain masculine ideals – is related to male overcompensation, evident in strong support for patriarchal gender…