IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v5y2017i2p4-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trust and Tolerance across the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Perspective on the Impact of the Arab Uprisings

Author

Listed:
  • Niels Spierings

    (Department of Sociology, Radboud Social Cultural Research, Radboud University, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The protests that swept the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are expected to have influenced two key civic attitudes fundamental to well-functioning democracies: trust and tolerance. However, systematic comparative assessments of the general patterns and particularities in this region are rare. This contribution theorizes the uprisings’ impact and presents new society-level measurements of trust and tolerance for the MENA, synchronizing over 40 Arab Barometer and World Values Survey surveys on Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen, from before and after the uprisings. The analyses firstly show political-institutional trust falling in the uprisings’ aftermath in countries that went through democratic reform or regime change. It appears that politicians misbehaving and reforms not resolving social problems hurt people’s trust in politics. Secondly, in democratic transition countries Egypt and Tunisia, a decrease in social trust reflected the pattern of political-institutional trust indicating a spill-over effect. Thirdly, ethno-religious tolerance dropped region-wide after the uprisings, indicating that the aftermath of religious conflict impacted the entire Arab region. These results support rational-choice institutionalist theories, while at the same time refining them for the MENA context.

Suggested Citation

  • Niels Spierings, 2017. "Trust and Tolerance across the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Perspective on the Impact of the Arab Uprisings," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(2), pages 4-15.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:5:y:2017:i:2:p:4-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/750
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murray, Catherine, 2008. "Social Capital and Cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe – A Framework for Research on Governance," Journal of Rural Cooperation, Hebrew University, Center for Agricultural Economic Research, vol. 36(1), pages 1-18.
    2. Darren W. Davis & Brian D. Silver, 2004. "Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 28-46, January.
    3. Katarzyna Growiec & Jakub Growiec, 2014. "Trusting Only Whom You Know, Knowing Only Whom You Trust: The Joint Impact of Social Capital and Trust on Happiness in CEE Countries," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(5), pages 1015-1040, October.
    4. Easton, David, 1975. "A Re-assessment of the Concept of Political Support," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 435-457, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kamal Kasmaoui & Mazhar Mughal & Jamal Bouoiyour, 2018. "Does Trust Influence Economic Growth? Evidence from the Arab World," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 880-891.
    2. Badaoui, Eliane, 2023. "Which dimensions of religiosity matter for trust? New insights from the MENA region," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    3. Shah, Syed Faisal & Albaity, Mohamed, 2022. "The role of trust, investor sentiment, and uncertainty on bank stock return performance: Evidence from the MENA region," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katarzyna Growiec & Jakub Growiec, 2016. "Bridging Social Capital and Individual Earnings: Evidence for an Inverted U," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 601-631, June.
    2. Julian Aichholzer & Sylvia Kritzinger & Carolina Plescia, 2021. "National identity profiles and support for the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(2), pages 293-315, June.
    3. Lourdes ROJAS RUBIO, 2022. "Inequality, Corruption and Support for Democracy," THEMA Working Papers 2022-20, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    4. Kenneth D. Nguyen & Heather Rosoff & Richard S. John, 2017. "Valuing Equal Protection in Aviation Security Screening," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(12), pages 2405-2419, December.
    5. Joseph A Hamm & Corwin Smidt & Roger C Mayer, 2019. "Understanding the psychological nature and mechanisms of political trust," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-20, May.
    6. Katarzyna Growiec & Jakub Growiec & Bogumil Kaminski, 2017. "Social Network Structure and The Trade-Off Between Social Utility and Economic Performance," KAE Working Papers 2017-026, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    7. Soetkin Verhaegen & Marc Hooghe & Ellen Quintelier, 2014. "European Identity and Support for European Integration: A Matter of Perceived Economic Benefits?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 295-314, May.
    8. Ekkart Zimmermann, 2009. "Formen des politischen Terrorismus: ein Plädoyer für eine Differentialdiagnose," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 78(4), pages 11-28.
    9. Theesfeld, Insa & Schleyer, Christian & Callois, Jean-Marc & Aznar, Olivier, 2008. "Ex-ante Policy Assessment from an Institutional Perspective. A Procedure for Institutional Compatibility Assessment (PICA)," Institutional Change in Agriculture and Natural Resources Discussion Papers 6112, Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    10. Arjan H Schakel & A J Brown, 2022. "Dissecting Public Opinion on Regional Authority: Four Types of Regionalists Based on Citizens’ Preferences for Self-Rule and Shared Rule," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 310-328.
    11. repec:gig:joupla:v:3:y:2011:i:1:p:29-64 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. April K. Clark & Michael Clark & Marie A. Eisenstein, 2014. "Stability and Change," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(1), pages 21582440145, March.
    13. Delhey, Jan, 2002. "Korruption in Bewerberländern zur Europäischen Union: Institutionenqualität und Korruption in vergleichender Perspektive," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Social Structure and Social Reporting FS III 02-401, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    14. Sambuddha Ghatak & Aaron Gold & Brandon C. Prins, 2019. "Domestic Terrorism in Democratic States: Understanding and Addressing Minority Grievances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(2), pages 439-467, February.
    15. Daicia Price & Tore Bonsaksen & Mary Ruffolo & Janni Leung & Vivian Chiu & Hilde Thygesen & Mariyana Schoultz & Amy Ostertun Geirdal, 2021. "Perceived Trust in Public Authorities Nine Months after the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Cross-National Study," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-14, September.
    16. Henning Finseraas & Ola Listhaug, 2013. "It can happen here: the impact of the Mumbai terror attacks on public opinion in Western Europe," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 213-228, July.
    17. Fuchs, Dieter, 1998. "The political culture of unified Germany," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions and Social Change FS III 98-204, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    18. Biegoń, Dominika & Gronau, Jennifer & Schmidtke, Henning, 2013. "Magic mirror on the wall, who in the world is legitimate after all? Legitimacy claims of international institutions," TranState Working Papers 169, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    19. Luís Aguiar-Conraria & Pedro C. Magalhães, 2018. "Procedural Fairness, the Economy, and Support for Political Authorities (Forthcoming at Political Psychology (submitted pre-print version))," NIPE Working Papers 05/2018, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    20. Erhan Örselli & Esra Banu Sipahi, 2014. "Trust towards Administrative Institutions among Youth in Turkey: the Case of Konya," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 0201765, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    21. Alexander F. Wagner & Friedrich Schneider, 2006. "Satisfaction with Democracy and the Environment in Western Europe – a Panel Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 1660, CESifo.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:5:y:2017:i:2:p:4-15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.