Exploring individual and contextual factors influencing philanthropy in Arab states

• In Event: Generosity and Civic engagement across the Life-course

Abstract

Philanthropy, or giving voluntarily, both in time and money, helps build a resilient community. It provides for necessary means and services that may otherwise not be provided by existing social institutions. In Arab countries, where the foundation of the broader society is built on Islamic tradition, monetary donations have been a fundamental pillar to the redistribution of resources (Siddiqui, 2022). Meanwhile, since the early 2000s, many Arab states have proceeded to encourage and also provide opportunities for citizens to volunteer, as a strategy to reinforce good citizenship to the benefit of the whole society. However this policy has failed to actualize great returns in terms of increased civic engagement and democratization of society (Haddad, 2015), just as there is still poverty in the countries regardless of the strong custom of donating money.
Existing theoretical models of philanthropy, with its aspirations and aims, as well as its sources of motivations are based on the Western Christian-secular experience (Wiepking, 2021). Hence it cannot be entirely applied to a fundamentally different societal system, such as that of the Arab Islamic-majority nations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Their political and economic climates, as well as their understanding of benevolence is not fully compatible with the dominant understanding presented in scholarly works.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to outline values that foster voluntarily giving time and money in dimensions relevant to the context of Arab societies. A number of aspects must be taken into consideration to achieve this, such as the perception of the conditions of their civil society, the predominance of Islam in the culture, and the conditions of the economy and labor market.
Previous studies on giving money and volunteering in Arab countries predominantly use qualitative methods, or original datasets that focus on one particular nation. Thus, in effort to create a more cohesive, or Arab model of charitable giving, this study aims to use a large scale, cross-national dataset. Comparisons will be made of the countries, searching for differences and similarities across the group of states. Many other seminal works on this theme have also made cross-national comparisons but they tend to focus largely on European and American nations, leaving many other cultures unexplored, in particular that of the Arab world (Dekker & Halman, 2003; Haski-Leventhal et al., 2010; Hustinx et al., 2015). For this reason, this study will take the opportunity to conduct cross-national comparisons on Arab nations using the Arab Barometer (Wave 5, 2018-2019) dataset. It includes large samples across 12 states in the MENA region (n=26,780), and it has collected data using questions specifically tailored to the context of the Arab world. A multilevel logistic regression analysis will be modeled with the dataset.
The study aspires to test the classical indicators influencing chance to volunteer and donate, respectively. It will also statistically apply and test the aspects that scholars of charitable giving in the Arab world have theorized. Doing so will test their conclusions and, if significant, make their theories more robust.

References

Dekker, P., & Halman, L. (Eds.). (2003). The Values of Volunteering: Cross-cultural Perspectives. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers.
Haddad, T. (2015). Volunteering in the Arab World: Bringing Back People into Politics? Democracy and Security, 11(2), 145–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/17419166.2015.1043079
Haski-Leventhal, D., Meijs, L. C. P. M., & Hustinx, L. (2010). The Third-party Model: Enhancing Volunteering through Governments, Corporations and Educational Institutes. Journal of Social Policy, 39(1), 139–158. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279409990377
Hustinx, L., von Essen, J., & Haers, J. (Eds.). (2015). Religion and Volunteering: Complex, contested and ambigious relationships. Springer International Publishing.
Siddiqui, S. (2022). Muslim philanthropy: Living beyond a Western definition. Voluntary Sector Review, 13(3), 338–354. https://doi.org/10.1332/204080521X16366613535698
Wiepking, P. (2021). The Global Study of Philanthropic Behavior. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 32(2), 194–203. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-020-00279-6

Authors

• Yasmien Khaled, Ghent University

• Lesley Hustinx, Ghent University

• John Lievens, Ghent University