Insights from Original Survey Research in the Middle East and North Africa

Session Submission Type: Full Submitted Panel

Session Description

Despite governmental restrictions on the collection of survey data in the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and societal conservatism that discourages discussion of sensitive topics (Anderson 1999; Harik 1987; Tessler 2011), many scholars in recent years have successfully carried out surveys in the region to explore mass attitudes about politics and society (e.g., Benstead et al. 2015; Corstange 2012, 2013; Jamal 2012; Jamal and Tessler 2008; Jones 2013; Krane 2014; Telhami 2013; Tessler 2015; Tessler and Gao 2008). These efforts have included expanding cross-national survey initiatives such as the World Values Survey and the Arab Democracy Barometer to all countries in the region as well as original nationally-representative surveys and population-based survey experiments.

This panel showcases new, original work of four sets of scholars working on survey research in the MENA region with three main objectives. First, the collected papers advance polling research in the region by including a diverse set of perspectives, new sources of data, and original methodological approaches. Second, the papers emphasize contextual and comparative knowledge by using a variety of cases from all major sub-regions of MENA, including two in-depth case studies, one six-country study, and one cross-regional analysis of 17 countries. Third, by offering new avenues for understanding (a) public support for nuclear proliferation, (b) diffusion of protest and quiescence in authoritarian regimes, (c) gender effects on perceptions of media quality and credibility, and (d) determinants of attitudes toward gender equality, this panel’s papers show how survey research from the MENA generates evidence that can contribute to topics of theoretical importance to the discipline of political science, more generally.

The four papers in this panel each deal with a broad and important area of political science research. Each of these papers presents survey data that are methodologically rigorous and analysis that is theoretically substantive. One paper, building on the dilemma of dual-use technologies in nuclear security studies, explores the conditions under which citizens express support for the weaponization of nuclear technology, using an original, nationally-representative population-based survey experiment in Morocco (n=2000 total respondents). A second paper draws from the literature on cognition and behavioral economics to investigate the conditions under which citizens decide to join in or refrain from protesting in authoritarian regimes, testing the theory with an original survey experiment of Egyptian college students (n=500). A third paper tests competing theories of patriarchy, gender power relations, and gender role congruity to determine how gender affects perceptions of media quality and credibility in the MENA region, using an original, six-country, nationally-representative survey experiment in Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates (n=6000). The final paper uses data from 54 surveys conducted in 17 MENA countries to test hypotheses about determinants of attitudes toward gender equality, including personal religiosity, views about political Islam, inter-personal trust, political trust, and individual economic circumstance. The panel’s discussant and chair are established scholars of survey research in the region, and bring their own insights and expertise to further engage in the conversation. It is our goal that our survey data and analysis from the MENA region will go beyond regionally-bounded questions to inform and advance topics of larger theoretical importance in political science as a whole.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 12: COMPARATIVE POLITICS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Individual Presentations

• Sparks and Firewalls: Diffusion of Protest and Quiescence Post-Arab Spring - Steven Brooke, University of Louisville; Mazen Hassan, Cairo University

• Threat Perceptions and Public Support for Nuclear Proliferation: Experimental Evidence from the Middle East - Matt J. Buehler, University of Tennessee; Curtis Bell, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

• Gender and Media: A Nationally-Representative Six-Country Survey Experiment - Calvert W. Jones, University of Maryland, College Park; Jocelyn Sage Mitchell, Northwestern University in Qatar; Justin D. Martin, Northwestern University in Qatar

• Determinants of Muslim Attitudes toward Gender Equality - Mark Tessler, University of Michigan

Chair

• Amaney Jamal Princeton University

Discussant

• Sabri Ciftci Kansas State University