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Begin New Search Political Geography Middle East Content Type Special Report Publishing Institution Arab Barometer Publication Year within 5 Years

1. Democracy in the Middle East & North Africa

Author:
Michael Robbins
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Citizens across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are growing increasingly concerned about the potential problems associated with a democratic political system. Over the last decade, but particularly within the last five years, there has been a dramatic increase in the degree to which the region’s citizens believe democracies are bad for economic performance, stability, and decisiveness. In some countries, the degree to which concern about these potential problems has increased is especially dramatic. For example, Tunisians and Iraqis are now nearly 50 points more likely to say that democracy has some of these limitations than they were just a decade ago. Ultimately, citizens across MENA seek solutions to major problems in their lives. These include but are not limited to stagnant economies, high unemployment rates, rising cost of living, and, in some countries, internal instability. Until recently, many appeared to believe that democracy was a system that could solve such challenges. Over the last 75 years, democracies have tended to be wealthier, more politically stable, less corrupt, and more efficient at meeting the basic needs of citizens than authoritarian alternatives.1 In recent years, however, many non-democratic systems may appear more attractive, including the Chinese system that has led to rapid economic growth over the last 40 years. In this new global environment, many in MENA appear uncertain if democracy can effectively deliver solutions to their country’s problems.2 Moreover, looking at the experience of MENA countries over the last decade, it is perhaps not surprising that the region’s citizens have increasing doubts about the benefits of democracy. Tunisia, Lebanon, and Iraq are the countries across the region where elections have been the most meaningful over the past decade, with each having experienced a change in government based on results at the ballot box. Yet, their collective experience clearly demonstrates that democracy has not been a panacea for their respective challenges. Tunisia’s GDP per capita is now lower than it was in 2011, Lebanon has faced financial collapse, and Iraq suffered significant internal instability
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Democracy, and Bureaucracy
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, North Africa, and MENA

2. Food Insecurity and its Discontents in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Salma Al-Shami
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Food insecurity plagues majorities of citizens in six out of 10 countries surveyed as part of Arab Barometer’s seventh wave (2021-2022). Majorities from 53 percent in Libya to 68 percent in Egypt report that they ran out of food before they had money to buy more. And in nine out of 10 countries, more than half of all citizens express concern about running out of food before being able to get more. These findings reiterate a long-standing and often observed quagmire in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA): the high proportion of food insecure citizens in middle income countries with otherwise medium or high levels of human development is staggering. Beyond affirming this quagmire, Arab Barometer’s newest data show that looking at region through the lens of food insecurity and its web of discontents emphasizes seven key challenges facing MENA: “Democracy fatigue” is highest among the food insecure, though they still prefer democracy to its alternatives. Gender gaps in reports of food insecurity reiterate the consequences of extreme gender imbalances in labor force participation. Urban-rural cleavages in food insecurity are a reminder that food scarcity can be higher in rural areas on account of decreased access to credit, reliance on import substitution strategies, shrinking agricultural lands, and climate change. Despite the documented effects of the latter on food availability, food insecure citizens are less likely to want government intervention to address climate challenges. Differences between food secure and insecure citizens on evaluations of the economy are more muted than expected, perhaps because broadly defined economic challenges loom heavily on all. Still, those suffering from food insecurity express a higher desire to emigrate. And finally, food insecurity has devastating effects on present and future outlooks, with food insecure citizens—particularly youth—less likely to say both that their lives are better than their parents’ and their children’s lives will be better than their own.
Topic:
Security, Children, Food Security, and Food Safety
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, North Africa, and MENA

3. Gender Attitudes and Trends in MENA

Author:
Mary Clare Roche
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Gender equality is far from achieved in MENA. Clear majorities in most countries surveyed hold that women should not play equal roles to men in both public and private spheres. Yet, there are also signs of change. In the past decade and a half of Arab Barometer surveys, public opinion across the Middle East and North Africa has trended towards gender equality. This is not only a result of younger generations with more liberal ideas of social norms becoming older, but an actual shift in perceptions across generations. In particular, agreement with the statements that “men are better at political leadership than women” and “university education is more important for men than women” has dropped sharply across many countries Arab Barometer has surveyed. The survey always examines perceptions of violence against women. There is a widespread perception that violence against women has been increasing in the region. This is in line with the World Bank’s assessment that gender-based violence has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in MENA.1 However, the gap between men and women’s perceptions of violence is significant, with women being far more likely to say the level of violence has increased. In order to appropriately address the issue of gender-based violence, conversations need to be facilitated across genders. Another challenge for women in MENA relates to employment opportunities. Labor force participation rates for women are the lowest of any region in the world.2 However, results from Arab Barometer make it clear that most citizens perceive structural barriers to have a greater impact than cultural barriers, meaning governments could more readily develop policies to address these challenges.
Topic:
Civil Society, Culture, Public Opinion, Equality, and Gender
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, North Africa, and MENA

4. Civic Engagement in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Kathrin Thomas
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Eight years after the Arab Spring, MENA publics believe that the degree to which their freedoms are guaranteed has declined. Arab Barometer observes a drop in perceived freedom of expression, right to protest peacefully, and to join associations since 2012-14. • While electoral participation is low in many contexts, it appears that many MENA publics frequently take political issues to the streets. Youth are especially likely to protest, but few say they also used force for a political cause. • The principle of charity is core to many religions, including Islam. Even though Arab Barometer has observed declining rates of charitable giving, overall a high percentage donate to the less fortunate across most countries.
Topic:
Islam, Religion, Public Opinion, Freedom of Expression, Protests, Civil Liberties, and Civic Engagement
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

5. Sexual Harassment and Domestic Violence in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Donia Smaali Bouhlila
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Arab Barometer wave V survey aims at investigating two types of sexual harassment in public places in 12 Arab countries : verbal sexual harassment and physical sexual harassment. Public places are meant to be streets, public transportation and shopping malls. The questionnaire included a question on the frequency of the verbal sexual harassment and a question on the frequency of physical sexual harassment. The verbal sexual harassment is all the unwanted sexual remarks, whistling or gestures in public places. However, sexual harassment is the unwanted sexual advances, like being touched in public places. People were asked how often they have personally experienced this behavior in the past 12 months. Dierent responses were suggested for the respondent: never, rarely, sometimes and often. We investigate first how common is verbal and physical sexual harassment among the population surveyed. Then, we created a binary variable for sexual harassment combining both verbal and physical sexual harassment. This variable takes the value 1 if the respondent has been exposed either rarely, sometimes or often to both verbal and physical sexual harassment, and zero if not . Most of the surveyed people across the participating countries reported that they “rarely” experienced verbal and physical sexual harassment in the past 12 months. Regarding verbal sexual harassment, from 2 percent to 12 percent of the surveyed people declared being “sometimes” exposed to verbal sexual harassment. The highest proportions are observed in Egypt (10 percent), Iraq (10 percent) and Morocco (11 percent). The lowest proportion which is around 2 percent is observed in Tunisia. For the category “often”, around 2 percent of the respondents declared that they are often victims of verbal sexual harassment in Palestine against 7 percent in Morocco.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Public Opinion, Women, Gender Based Violence, Sexual Violence, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

6. Environmental Issues in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Jeremy Green
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
In Wave 5 of the Arab Barometer, individuals are asked a series of questions about their views on the environment. In particular, survey respondents are asked how seriously they view the problems of climate change, air quality, water pollution, and trash. For each of the four environmental issues, individuals state whether they view the problem as "very serious", "serious", "not serious", or "not all serious". Overall, a majority of respondents are very concerned with water pollution and trash (70 percent and 66 percent, respectively), while relatively fewer respondents are concerned with climate change and air quality (35 percent and 44 percent, respectively)
Topic:
Environment, Water, Pollution, Ecology, and Air Pollution
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

7. Politics and Social Media in the Middle East and North Africa: Trends and Trust in Online Information

Author:
Jason Wee and Sophie Li
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Political interest has decreased and plateaued post-Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa, possibly due to political fatigue. Moving from 2006-2013 to 2016-2018, citizens reporting interest in politics has decreased by 11 points. In spite of this, MENA citizens are more informed about political events in their countries relative to their interest in politics. Those with higher education were more likely to be politically informed and interested, but no consistent trend was found across age groups. • Across MENA, citizens have been consistently finding politics too complicated (74 percent in 2018). Besides highly educated Egyptians and Kuwaitis who had greater ease in navigating politics, only minor dierences were observed across years, education levels and age groups. • Almost all MENA Internet users use social media for at least 2 hours a day, with nearly half of them being heavy users. Facebook has the largest and widest spread of users, capturing 74 percent of the region’s Internet users. • Social media has captured a significant share of the political information market, with 36 percent of MENA citizens citing social media as their primary source of information for breaking news. Five-in-ten of both youth and those with higher education preferred using social media to tune into political events. Greater trust in social media over traditional media var-ied greatly across countries, potentially due to the dierences in level of statecontrol of the latter. • Overall, these findings from nationally representative public opinion surveys carried out by the Arab Barometer carry important implications for the future use of social media in mobilizing Arab citizens in political causes.
Topic:
Internet, Social Media, Arab Spring, Digital Culture, Digital Policy, and Information Technology
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

8. Social Capital in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Huseyin Emre Ceyhun
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Levels of social capital, which is often operationalized by measures of trust, have changed significantly in the Middle East and North Africa over the past 15 years. The 2011 uprisings marked a critical juncture for atrophying, status-quo statesociety relations: citizens questioned the nature of governance while governments grappled with reinvigorated demands of citizenship. These demands were not fully met, however, and peaceful transitions towards democracy did not ensue. Instead, many countries experienced significant conflict, including proxy-wars resulting from interests of regional powers and sectarian differences. As of 2019, Tunisia remained as the only country that is on a democratic but fragile path toward a democratic consolidation. In this context and over a 13 year period (2006-2019), the Arab Barometer can present an overarching picture of how political and interpersonal trust in the Middle East have changed in the years surrounding the 2011 Arab uprisings. With few exceptions, political and interpersonal trust in the Middle East has been decreasing, demonstrating the extent of anti-establishment feelings nurtured in societies. However, trust in legal systems has not decreased as much as trust in political institutions such as government and parliament. These findings suggest that despite widespread lack of confidence in governments and parliaments, ordinary citizens have not entirely given up on existing systems of governance. These patterns are clearly evident in Tunisia, the only country generally considered to have fully undertaken a democratic transition after the Arab uprisings. All measures of trust show a similar declining trend for political and interpersonal trust in Tunisia since 2011. As of 2018, only 20 percent of Tunisians trust the government, compared with 14 percent who trust parliament, and only 8 percent who have high levels of interpersonal trust. However, trust in the legal system (48 percent) is virtually unchanged between 2011 and 2018, suggesting that Tunisians might still be still committed to the system brought about by the Arab Spring.
Topic:
Governance, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Citizenship, Arab Spring, Proxy War, and Social Capital
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

9. Challenges of Health Care in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Kathrin Thomas
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
MENA publics are dissatisfied with overall government performance in their countries. In 2018-19, a quarter (21 percent) say they are completely satisfied or satisfied with their governments’ general performance. In fact, there is not a one single country where satisfaction with government performance exceeds 50 percent since Arab Barometer started surveying in 2006-07. Moreover, ratings have deteriorated over the last decade in a number of countries. For example, a steady downward trend can be observed in Jordan (-18 points) as well as Sudan (-17 points) and Tunisia (-24 points) since 2010-11.
Topic:
Government, Health, Health Care Policy, Mental Health, and Public Health
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

10. Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Kathrin Thomas
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Many MENA publics express a preference for greater female political participation, including acceptance of a female head of state and the implementation of women’s quotas for elected office. However, the belief that men are better political leaders prevails. • Views toward women in private domain reveal a somewhat different picture: Even though more and more people accept equal rights of women in making the decision to divorce or voice a preference for equal shares of inheritance, majorities still say that husbands should be the final decision maker on family issues in most countries. • Over the longer term, we may expect women’s rights to improve. Women are becoming more prominent actors in the political sphere, women’s quotas are already established in some countries, and with the chance to take on meaningful roles within the state, women are likely to enhance their visibility and competence in dealing with political issues. At the same time, economic hardship may force more women to work outside the house, which may lead to changing views about their own position in the family and could also lead to greater acceptance of women’s new social role among men.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Human Rights, Women, and Civil Rights
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

11. Youth in Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Daniella Raz
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Individuals between the ages of 15 and 29 account for roughly 30 percent of the population of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).1 The beliefs, attitudes, and preferences of this large and growing segment of the population has the potential to shape and drive the region’s future. Yet, widespread youth discontent about their economic prospects poses a significant challenge. Youth unemployment rates across the region remain high and there is broad frustration with government efforts to create employment opportunities.2 Though satisfaction with the state education system varies greatly across countries, youth are less satisfied than are older generations. Youth also question if they have the ability to voice their frustrations to the government. In nearly all countries, less than half say the right to freedom of expression is guaranteed while half or less say they have the right to demonstrate peacefully in all countries. This combination creates conditions where youth across the MENA region, far more than older age cohorts, are considering emigrating from their country, primarily to Europe, North America, or GCC countries. Unsurprisingly, many cite economic reasons as the main impetus for leaving. However, youth differ from their older counterparts not only in terms of greater frustration with the existing system. Relative to older generations youth also tend to be less religious, less interested in politics, and more likely to be engaged in social media. Generational differences are particularly stark in Morocco where youth attitudes diverge substantially and dissatisfaction with the overall state of affairs is quite salient. Meanwhile, on gender issues, most youth tend to be supportive of equal rights for women. Majorities say women have the right to be the head of government and to receive an education. Yet, the same does not hold true for equal inheritance rights with minorities saying women should receive the same as men in most countries. Additionally, this generation cites low levels of support for women playing equal roles in society, with most saying that men make better political leaders and stating that husbands should have the final say in family matters. Youth in MENA appear to be particularly inclined toward China relative to other global powers. Majorities favor closer economic relations with China in most countries surveyed, while less than half say the same about relations with the U.S. in most countries.
Topic:
Public Opinion, Employment, Youth, Economic Inequality, and Generation
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

12. The 2019 Algerian Protests

Author:
Michael Robbins
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
As a country that experienced few protests during the Arab uprisings of 2011, this year’s demonstrations in Algeria caught most observers by surprise. The massive outpouring of public opinion, which has continued for months, has toppled a long-standing leader and continues to challenge the ruling system. The 2019 Arab Barometer public opinion survey was conducted on the eve of the protests, lending unique insight into several key questions: Were these protests to be expected? What drives the protests? And, what do Algerians want for the future? The survey results demonstrate that declining conditions meant a breakdown of the social contract among all segments of society, which resulted in a high level of protest activity in recent years. However, these protests occurred largely outside the capital, leading many analysts to likely overlook them. Nevertheless, the survey suggests that while Algerians know what they do not want, they are divided on what they seek to achieve for the future, remaining skeptical of democracy and divided on the role of religion in public life. In other words, there is not a clear way forward or clear destination – instead, Algerians appear open to any system of governance that can bring improved governance and better economic outcomes.
Topic:
Religion, Social Movement, Public Opinion, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Protests, and Social Contract
Political Geography:
Middle East, Algeria, and North Africa

13. Migration in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Michael Robbins
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Barometer
Abstract:
Across the Middle East and North Africa, roughly one-in-three citizens are considering emigrating from their homeland. This level represents a dramatic increase since 2016, which ended a long-term decline in the percentage of citizens who considered migrating. For example, the percentage of Jordanians who want to migrate is 23-points higher than in 2016 while the increase among Moroccans is 17 points during the same period. Smaller but sizable increases have also taken place in other countries like Egypt (+10 points). Citizens are more likely to want to leave if they are young, well educated and male. Youth are the more likely to want to leave, with more than half of those ages 18-29 thinking about migrating in five of 11 countries surveyed. Additionally, in most countries those with a higher level of education are also more disposed to move abroad, raising the specter of brain drain in many countries. The predominate reason some Arab citizens seek to leave their homeland are economic reasons, reflecting a broader frustration of years of economic stagnation. Other commonly cited reasons include corruption, security concerns or to pursue educational opportunities. Notably, older potential migrants are more likely to cite economic factors as the primary reason behind their decision while younger potential migrants are more likely to name corruption, for example. Europe is the most commonly cited destination for potential migrants, especially among those living in the Maghrib countries of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The next most commonly favored destination are Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, particularly among migrants from Egypt, Yemen and Sudan. Meanwhile, Jordanians and Lebanese are especially likely to favor the U.S. or Canada. Although most potential migrants would only leave if they had the required papers, substantial percentages say they would consider migrating illegally, including roughly four-in-ten in six of 11 countries surveyed. Those who would consider migrating illegally are more likely to be young, male, and have lower levels of education, likely reflecting the limited opportunities these citizens perceive for a future in their homeland. These are among the key findings from 11 nationally representative public opinion surveys conducted in across the Middle East and North Africa by the Arab Barometer in September 2018-May 2019. The surveys included more than 27,000 face-to-face interviews in the respondent’s place of residence and each has a margin of error of ±2 percent.
Topic:
Migration and Public Opinion
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa