Political Institutions

Survey: More Than Half of Arab World’s Young Adults Want to Leave

Lack of trust in Islamist governments, spike in non-religious identity are among chief reasons, report finds The results of a recent survey in the Arab world show that more than half of the region’s young adults are considering emigrating, and an increasing number of people are identifying as “non-religious.” The Big BBC News Arabic Survey, a joint assessment by BBC…

Trust in radical Islamist movements plummets, major survey finds

Trust in radical and militant groups in the Arab world has slumped significantly, according to a major new survey. Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas have fallen in public opinion in the years since the Arab uprisings, research commissioned by BBC News Arabic found. “This pattern continues a general trend of decline in trust for Islamists in Mena, which has…

Algeria’s Second Arab Spring?

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…

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…

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…