Class Grievances: The Arab Uprisings and Beyond

To date analysis of the role of entrepreneurs in the Arab uprisings has been limited. We use micro level data highlighting entrepreneur grievances as one proxy for the role that class might have played in the Arab uprisings as well as examining entrepreneur opinions after the Arab uprisings. We find evidence that dissatisfaction with levels of corruption was particularly high in among entrepreneurs in Egypt, Syria and Yemen on the eve of the Arab uprisings, but we also find that Arab entrepreneurs throughout the region share concerns when it comes to macroeconomic stability, infrastructural short-comings and worker training, all of which are key to successful development. We also explore more recent data that indicate that entrepreneurs in a number of countries (some of which had regime changes, while others did not) remain concerned about corruption and various bureaucratic obstacles. However, we also notice that entrepreneurs had a wide range of often divergent views that varied according to size and country; these views were sometimes surprising and went against pre-conceptions of capitalists in the Middle East. Given the complexity of the grievances that triggered the Arab Uprisings, the data suggest no clear trend that could be said to forecast the uprisings, although the diversity of views of entrepreneurs presage to some extent the tensions surrounding post-uprising policy priorities, which in turn has contributed to the on-going policy impasse and instability in the region.