New findings on arabs and democracy

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 23, Issue 4, 2012, Pages 89-103

  Tessler, Mark ^a   Jamal, Amaney ^b   Robbins, Michael ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^b PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c Arab Barometer Survey   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84871569656     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: 10863214     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2012.0066     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. An additional first-wave Arab Barometer survey was carried out in Bahrain in 2009.
2. Amaney Jamal and Mark Tessler, "The Democracy Barometers: Attitudes in the Arab World," Journal of Democracy 19 (January 2008): 97-110.
3. Morocco was included in both waves, but due to delays in completing the secondwave survey, the results are not available at this time.
4. Additional surveys were conducted in Lebanon and Sudan in March and April 2011.
5. Additional surveys were conducted in March and April 2011 in Saudi Arabia.
6. Ronald Inglehart, "How Solid Is Mass Support for Democracy-And How Do We Measure It?" PS: Political Science and Politics 36 (January 2003): 51-57.
7. For a comparison of the first- and second-wave results, see the Table "Support for Democracy" on the Journal of Democacy website at www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/supplemental-material. For a discussion of how support for democracy varied by country in the first wave.
8. Jamal and Tessler, "The Democracy Barometers: Attitudes in the Arab World."
9. It should be noted that Algeria was sampled after the political transitions in Egypt and Tunisia had already taken place, whereas the majority of respondents in the other cases were surveyed earlier.
10. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 5.
11. See the table "Understandings of Democracy" on the Journal's website.
12. Ellen Lust-Okar, "Elections Under Authoritarianism: Preliminary Lessons from Jordan," Democratization 13 (July 2006): 456-471.
13. Interestingly, this finding represents a reversal of a long-term trend of increasing belief that Jordan was becoming more democratic; see Center for Strategic Studies, 2010 Annual Democracy Poll, available at www.jcss.org.
14. See the table "Political and Civic Engagement" on the Journal's website.
15. In the first wave, respondents were asked if they were members of any organization and, if so, which two were most important to them. In the second wave, respondents were asked specifically if they were members of six different types of organization: political parties, charities, unions, youth clubs, tribal or village organizations, or an association for local development.
16. This item was not asked in Palestine in either wave.
17. Additional exploratory-factor analysis revealed that this item and the following item (which asks if it would be beneficial to have more religious people hold public office) are the survey's two most reliable indicators of support for political Islam.
18. Surveys conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research have shown a decline in support for Hamas since the 2007 civil conflict.
19. The figures presented in Table 3 compare, among respondents who support democracy, the views of those who agree or agree strongly and those who disagree or disagree strongly that men of religion should have influence over government decisions.
20. Respondents were asked to rank six characteristics, including personal integrity, piety, and previous political experience, and Table 3 reports the percentages selecting openness to diverse political ideas as one of the three most important.