Mapping and Explaining Attitudes Toward Political Islam Among Ordinary Citizens in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper provides partial summaries of two interrelated works that use survey data to map and explain the views held by Middle Eastern publics about the role Islam should play in government and political affairs. The first part introduces and presents recent data from the Arab Barometer. It examines trends across the region, as well as in individual countries, and it both offers and invites reflection about some of the regional and country-specific dynamics that may account for observed patterns. The second part uses a more inclusive dataset and presents some of the results of regression analyses that test hypotheses in which support for political Islam is the dependent variable. Findings are mapped across both demographic categories and county-level characteristics and, again, reflection is invited about the mechanisms and pathways to which the findings may call attention. In both cases, only selected findings will be presented, the goal being not only to introduce the projects and solicit feedback and interpretative insights but also to indicate the availability of two datasets that are now in the public domain.