Trends toward liberal values in Egypt and Turkiye: Findings from cross-national panel surveys

• In Event: 21003 - Constructing and Contesting Identities: Race, Representation, and Resistance in the MENA Region

Abstract

Three waves of a panel survey in Egypt and Türkiye have shown the rise of liberal values and the decline of Islamic fundamentalism. In Egypt, of the nationally representative sample of 3,496 adults interviewed in 2011, 2,424 were re-interviewed in 2016. A replenishment sample of 1,428 respondents were also interviewed, bringing the total interviewed in the second wave to 3,847. In the third wave conducted in 2020, 3,442 of the respondents from wave 2 were interviewed. Overall, 2,144 respondents participated in all the three waves. In Türkiye, of the nationally representative sample of 3,019 adults interviewed in 2013, 1,682 were interviewed in 2016. A replenishment sample of 1,077 respondents were also interviewed, bringing the total completed interviews to 2,759. The third wave, conducted in 2020, 866 of 1,682 respondents from the first wave 576 of 1077 from the second wave, and a replenishment sample of 1063 were interviewed, a total of 2,505 completed interview. A total of 866 respondents participated in all the three waves. In this paper, I assess the depth and breadth of the liberal swing among the citizens of the two countries by measuring the components of liberal values -- secular politics, gender equality, and expressive individualism -- and religious fundamentalism -- disciplinarian conception of deity, literalism, religious exclusivity, and religious intolerance -- in terms of batteries of survey questions, and by analyzing variation in cross-national patterns of people’s responses to these questions in different domains of social life. In advancing this analysis, I consider the broader historical context of cultural movements in the region in the modern period. I also use these findings to assess empirically the adequacy of the civilizational perspective spearheaded by such diverse theorists as Michel Foucault and Samuel Huntington concerning the prospect for liberal democracy in cultural traditions other than Western cultures. More broadly, I argue that the shift toward liberal values in the Middle East exposes the nationalist bias that permeated the work of some notable Western social theorists whose conception of the origins of liberal democracy rests on the belief in the uniqueness of Western cultural tradition.

Authors

• Mansoor Moaddel, University of Maryland-College Park

• Fatma El-Zenaty, Cairo University

• Caglayan Isik, Frekans Research, Istanbul, Türkiye

• Mert Teoman, Frekans Research, Istanbul, Türkiye