An Empirical Analysis of the Social Contract in the Middle East and North Africa : Regionand the Role of Digitalization in Its Transformation

This paper presents an empirical application and analysis of the social contract in countriesin the Middle East and North Africa. The paper suggests a simple operational model that synthesizes a socialcontract’s three main characteristics: participation, protection, and provision, between a government and itscitizens. This empirical “3-P” framework allows investigating the role that government provision andprotection may have on citizen participation, which is particularly pertinent given the political and economicdevelopment of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The paper compares the evaluation of the health ofthe social contract in countries in the Middle East and North Africa region to that of countries in the Organisationfor Economic Co-operation and Development. The empirical evidence shows that the social benefits provided to citizensthrough improved delivery of basic services have come at the cost of impaired political participation. This feature ofthe social contract in the Middle East and North Africa may be considered one of the root causes of the social turmoilsome countries have been struggling with in recent decades. Digital transformation is a potentially powerful channelthrough which the relationship between government and citizens can improve, and the paper finds that it has athree-year lagged positive effect on the quality of the social contract in the Middle East and North Africa and theeffect is inversely U-shaped. This suggests that structural and institutional improvements are needed in countries inthe Middle East and North Africa for the quality of their social contract to reach levels comparable to those ofcountries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.