- University of Gothenburg, Program on Governance and Development, Department MemberRice University, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Department Member, and 2 moreadd
- Berber studies, North Africa, Political Science, Women and Politics, Gender and Politics, North Africa Studies, and 25 moreMiddle East Politics, Clientelism, Religion and Politics, Public Opinion, Experimental Methodology, Survey Methods, Tribes, Consumer Boycott Behavior, Boycotting, Anti-Americanism, Youth, Morocco, Western Sahara, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Parliamentary Studies, Authoritarianism, Elections, Public Opinion (Political Science), and Democratizationedit
- Lindsay J. Benstead is Professor of Politics and Global Affairs and Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC... moreLindsay J. Benstead is Professor of Politics and Global Affairs and Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) at Portland State University. From 2018-2019 she served as a fellow in the Middle East Program and the Global Women's Leadership Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, where she also served as a Public Policy Fellow in 2022. She is an Affiliated Scholar in the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD) at the University of Gothenburg and Yale University and served as Kuwait Visiting Professor at SciencesPo in Paris (fall 2016). Benstead has conducted surveys in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Jordan and contributes to the Transitional Governance Project. Her research has appeared in Perspectives on Politics, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Governance, and Foreign Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and served as a doctoral fellow at Yale University and a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University.edit
- Mark Tessler and Susan Waltz (Dissertation Advisers)edit
Open Access: https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/doi/10.1177/00104140241237462 Abstract Despite growing evidence of pro-female bias in the electorate elsewhere, conventional wisdom holds that voters in the Middle East and... more
Open Access: https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/doi/10.1177/00104140241237462
Abstract
Despite growing evidence of pro-female bias in the electorate elsewhere, conventional wisdom holds that voters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) prefer male candidates, presumably due to sexism. We test this conventional wisdom using a conjoint experiment administered to over 30,000 respondents in six MENA countries. We find both male and female respondents are more likely to express support for female candidates and see them as more capable than their male counterparts, even in stereotypically male domains. We argue the increasing demand for political outsiders explains these results. In highlighting the importance of such changes, our study expands the application of gender congruity theory in the MENA and beyond by offering evidence that both changes in gender stereotypes (i.e., gender roles) and in what citizens desire in leaders (i.e., leader roles) reduce anti-female bias at the polls.
Abstract
Despite growing evidence of pro-female bias in the electorate elsewhere, conventional wisdom holds that voters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) prefer male candidates, presumably due to sexism. We test this conventional wisdom using a conjoint experiment administered to over 30,000 respondents in six MENA countries. We find both male and female respondents are more likely to express support for female candidates and see them as more capable than their male counterparts, even in stereotypically male domains. We argue the increasing demand for political outsiders explains these results. In highlighting the importance of such changes, our study expands the application of gender congruity theory in the MENA and beyond by offering evidence that both changes in gender stereotypes (i.e., gender roles) and in what citizens desire in leaders (i.e., leader roles) reduce anti-female bias at the polls.
Research Interests: Public Opinion, Women's Studies, Middle East Studies, Women's Rights, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, and 15 morePublic Opinion (Political Science), Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Gender and Politics, Middle East Politics, Elections and Voting Behavior, Women's Human Rights, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Electoral politics, General Elections and Women, Voter Behavior, and Women and Elections
What explains electoral support for Islamist parties? Existing literature assesses the role of programmatic appeals, in the form of religious ideology and economic programs, but lacks the data needed to test the role of particularistic... more
What explains electoral support for Islamist parties? Existing literature assesses the role of programmatic appeals, in the form of religious ideology and economic programs, but lacks the data needed to test the role of particularistic benefits. Drawing on an original survey of 1,202 Tunisians conducted in 2012, I test the role of programmatic and particularistic benefits in explaining voter choice in Tunisia’s 2011 Constituent Assembly and 2014 parliamentary elections. I argue that, due to its greater party organizational capacity, Ennahda provided more constituency service than other parties and was more successful in attracting new supporters by 2012 as a result. In 2011, Ennahda voters were more religious and more economically marginalized than non-Islamist voters. Yet by 2012, Ennahda developed a voter base drawn both from those who are ideologically committed to its religious program as well as those who requested constituency service from an Ennahda member. By showing that programmatic and particularistic appeals explain voter support for Islamist parties, this research extends the literature on Islam and politics and illustrates the importance of party capacity for developing a voter base in transitional contexts.
Research Interests: Political Behavior, Voting Behavior, Middle East & North Africa, Democratization, Middle East Politics, and 15 morePolitical Representation, Islam and women, Tunisia, Responsiveness, Middle East and North Africa, Clientelism, Political Clientelism, Islamist movements, Electoral politics, North African History and Politics, Islamist Political Parties, Women in Tunisian politics, Ennahda Movement, Casework, and Tunisian politics
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (western donors) messengers... more
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (western donors) messengers cause resistance across public rights (quotas) and private rights (land reform). Using a framing experiment implemented among 1,704 Malawians, we find that females’ attitudes are unaffected by campaigns, while backlash occurs among patrilineal and matrilineal males. Backlash among men is more common for sensitive private rights (land reform) than public rights (quotas) and western donors than women’s organizations, suggesting complex effects generally more consistent with the intrusiveness hypothesis.
Research Interests: African Studies, Gender Studies, International Relations, Social Policy, Sex and Gender, and 54 morePublic Opinion, Women's Studies, International Relations Theory, International Studies, International Development, Africa, Women's Rights, Gender and Sexuality, Governance, United Nations, Gender, Gender Equality, Women, Survey Methodology, Land Reforms, Public Opinion (Political Science), Public Opinion Research, Gender and Development, African Politics, Survey Research, Women's Empowerment, Gender and education, Experimental Design, Surveying, Women and Culture, Women's Human Rights, Africana Studies, Malawi, Women and Gender Studies, Women's Entrepreneurship, Land reform, Survey, Gender Quotas, Quota System, Human Security, Women's Rights, Gender Equality, Quotas, Quota Within Quota, International Aid and Development, International Aid, Policy Advocacy, Human Rights,Women's Rights, Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Land Policy, Gender and politics, Gender Quotas, Empowerment, Goverance, Malawian Politics, Why Malawi is still a third world country, Land reform, food security and poverty in Africa, Land and Agrarian Reform, Equality and quotas, Good Goernance, Electoral Quotas, Women's Land Rights, Representation and Quotas, and Public Policy
Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent a significant rapprochement between the governments of Israel and several Arab countries, the... more
Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent a significant rapprochement between the governments of Israel and several Arab countries, the region is marked by the conditions of violence and insecurity that harm social trust and reduce the likelihood of conciliatory views. Using Arab Barometer data from twelve countries (2012-2014), I explore the factors that lead Arab citizens to be more supportive of normalization with Israel. I argue that while instability undermines the demand for peace, civil society engagement develops bonding and bridging social capital that supports conciliatory views. I find that perceived insecurity is negatively related to support for Arab-Israeli peace, yet greater social capital, in the form of tolerance, associational membership, and social media use, produced demand for peace. The largest predictors of attitudes toward Israel are country of residence and religious identity, with Sunni and Shi’a Muslims being less conciliatory toward Israel than Christians. Additionally, contrary to assumptions underlying US foreign policy, participating in politics by voting in democratic or authoritarian elections or protesting were related to lower demand for peace. Demographic change, including younger, more educated populations, was unrelated to attitudes toward Israel, but the data largely supported modernization theory as a predictor of conciliatory views. By illustrating the role that civil society and perceived security play in improving the conditions for peace, the results have implications for scholars of security studies and policymakers working to support democracy and peacemaking in the region.
Research Interests:
Incumbency advantage and corruption are persistent features of Malawi politics, yet the incumbent Joyce Banda lost the 2014 elections. Drawing on national public opinion surveys and focus groups, we explore why incumbency advantage did... more
Incumbency advantage and corruption are persistent features of Malawi politics, yet the incumbent Joyce Banda lost the 2014 elections. Drawing on national public opinion surveys and focus groups, we explore why incumbency advantage did not accrue to Banda. We argue that faced with a major corruption scandal, “Cashgate,” Banda paid a heavier price than male incumbents facing corruption scandals before and after her. Her electoral fate is consistent with studies demonstrating that women holding political offices are scrutinized more heavily than men, and when they transgress female gender stereotypes of incorruptibility, they are judged using a higher standard.
Research Interests:
Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes more instrumental forms? We propose a formal model of clientelism that addresses these questions... more
Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes more instrumental forms? We propose a formal model of clientelism that addresses these questions focusing primarily on the citizen’s perspective. Citizens choose between supporting broad-based redistribution or engaging in clientelism. Introducing insights from social psychology, we study the interactions between citizen beliefs and values, and their political choices. Clientelism, political inefficacy, and inequality legitimation beliefs reinforce each other leading to multiple equilibria. One of these resembles traditional clientelism, with disempowered clients that legitimize social inequalities. Community connectivity breaks this reinforcement mechanism and leads to another equilibrium where clientelism takes a modern, instrumental, form. The model delivers insights on the role of citizen beliefs for their bargaining power as well as for the persistence and transformation of clientelism. We illustrate the key mechanisms with ethnographic literature on the topic.
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Poverty, Democratization, Elections, and 15 moreElections and Voting Behavior, Authoritarianism, Self-Esteem, Social Inequality, Arab world, Democracy and democratization, Poverty and Inequality, Clientelism, Political patronage, Patronage, Political Clientelism, Electoral politics, Patrimonialism, electoral politics in Africa, and Patronage and Clientelism
‘Patriarchy’ is increasingly part of the political science lexicon, especially in relation to the Middle East and North Africa. Yet political scientists often under-conceptualize patriarchy and fail to draw on existing feminist theory,... more
‘Patriarchy’ is increasingly part of the political science lexicon, especially in relation to the Middle East and North Africa. Yet political scientists often under-conceptualize patriarchy and fail to draw on existing feminist theory, hindering explanation of the mechanisms sustaining gender inequality. By engaging with Kandiyoti’s ‘patriarchal bargain,’ which sees gender relations as the outcome of negotiation, and Sadiqi’s ‘private’ and ‘public’ patriarchy, political scientists can capture the multi-dimensional and intersectional nature of patriarchy and better integrate their work within institutional approaches to political science. I illustrate the multi-dimensionality of patriarchy using survey questions from the Arab Barometer.
Research Interests: Women's Studies, Egalitarianism, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Morocco, Survey Research, and 11 moreMiddle East Politics, Survey Research (Research Methodology), Arab world, Women and Gender Studies, Patriarchy, Measurement, Gender and Women's Studies, Women´s Rights, Public Patriarchy, Private Patriarchy, and arab barometer
Tunisia’s 2018 municipal elections, in which a legislated quota was implemented and women won 47 percent of seats, raises questions about whether electing female councilors improves women’s representation in clientelistic settings. Using... more
Tunisia’s 2018 municipal elections, in which a legislated quota was implemented and women won 47 percent of seats, raises questions about whether electing female councilors improves women’s representation in clientelistic settings. Using data from the Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), an original survey of 3,600 Tunisians conducted in 2015 by the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD), this paper investigates the relationship between local councilors’ gender and women’s access to help with personal or community issues. Three findings emerge. First, male citizens are thirteen percentage points more likely to know a local councilor and six percentage points more likely to have contacted a councilor for help. Second, citizens of both genders are twice as likely to contact a councilor of the same gender when asking for help with community problems. Finally, electing females increases women’s access to councilors, due to network homosociality—that is, denser personal networks with others of the same gender—but has a limited impact on men’s access because female councilors have more hetersocial networks. By showing that electing and appointing women improves service and allocation responsiveness to females, the results call attention to the need to address gender equity issues when drafting electoral laws and implementing decentralization laws.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Local Government, Gender Equality, and 14 moreLocal Government and Local Development, Women, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Women and Politics, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Equity, Women and Gender Studies, Tunisia, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, Local Councils, Local Councillors, and Basic Service Provision
Drawing on Arab Barometer data, this article provides the backdrop for understanding continuity and change since the Arab Spring in national-level public opinion attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues in North... more
Drawing on Arab Barometer data, this article provides the backdrop for understanding continuity and change since the Arab Spring in national-level public opinion attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues in North Africa, inclusive of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The article leverages the concepts of differentiation and diffusion to understand how international affairs shape public opinion in North Africa since the Arab Spring. Three findings emerge. First, public opinion about domestic and international issues are linked in the minds of North African citizens and foreign policy issues are more important factors underlying pre- and post-Arab Spring politics than are often recognized. Especially in the post-Arab Spring era, Arab citizens widely see external interference as a problem and this perception increased in every North African country between 2013 and 2016. Moreover, there is considerable variation across and within North African states in attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues, including the Arab-Israeli conflict and attitudes about economic and security relationships with Israel. Anti-Israeli sentiment increased substantially in the years leading up to and following the Arab Spring. Finally, since the Arab Spring, anti-Americanism, as measured by negative perceptions of U.S. culture, has declined in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, but risen slightly in Egypt, even as North Africans demonstrate increased support for a U.S. role in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict during this same time period. These trends suggest that anti-Americanism is highly dependent on specific domestic and international developments and is highly complex in the Arab world.
Research Interests:
Survey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and questionnaires included previously censored questions. Almost every Arab country... more
Survey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and questionnaires included previously censored questions. Almost every Arab country is now included in the Arab Barometer or World Values Survey and researchers have assembled numerous datasets to help answer theoretical and policy questions. Yet some scholars express the view that the Arab survey context is more challenging than other regions or that respondents will not answer honestly. I argue that this position reflects biases that assume “Arab exceptionalism” more than it does fair and objective assessments of data quality. Based on cross-national data analysis, I find evidence of systematically missing data in all regions and political regimes globally. These challenges and the increasing openness of some countries to survey research should spur studies on the data collection process in the Arab world and beyond.
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Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and... more
Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes toward democracy are shaped by beliefs about its political, economic, and religious consequences, including those related to sectarianism. I test this consequence-based theory using Arab Barometer data from six nations. Sixty percent hold favourable views of democracy generally and for their country, while 7% reject democracy. Twenty-seven percent support democracy generally but see it as unsuitable for their country. Beliefs that democracy will have negative consequences and perceptions of poor government performance are the most important predictors of democracy's unsuitability. Modernization theory receives support, but Islamic identity and beliefs do not consistently predict attitudes in the expected direction. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of Arab public opinion and suggest that concerns about the consequences of free elections affect support for democracy as much as assessments of the political and economic performance of the current authoritarian regime.
Research Interests: Comparative Politics, Public Opinion, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Democratization, and 28 moreIsrael/Palestine, Lebanon, Middle Eastern Politics, Political Attitudes, Public Opinion (Political Science), Public Opinion Research, Middle Eastern Studies, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Middle East Politics, Democratisation, Authoritarianism, Authoritarian regimes, Middle East, Comparative Politics, Democratization, Authoritarian Regimes, Regime Change, Concept Analysis, Measurement, Democracy and democratization, Algeria, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Middle East and North Africa, Democratic consolidation, Support for democracy, Democratic Transitions, Public Opinion Polling, Electoral Authoritarianism, Insecurity, Authoritarism, and Governmental Legitimacy
Despite the expansion of surveying in the Middle East, no published studies examine interviewer gender effects. Using data from a nationally-representative survey of Moroccans conducted in 2007, this study investigates whether interviewer... more
Despite the expansion of surveying in the Middle East, no published studies examine interviewer gender effects. Using data from a nationally-representative survey of Moroccans conducted in 2007, this study investigates whether interviewer gender affects responses and item non-response for questions related to women in politics and whether the effect depends on respondent gender. Males report more egalitarian views to females, suggesting that males in Morocco, as in other societies, seek to reduce social distance with females. Both genders report lower rates of item non-response to males--not to females, as in the US—suggesting that power relations mediate non-response in Morocco’s highly patriarchal society. These results demonstrate the context-sensitive nature of interviewer gender effects and potential bias arising from them.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Under what conditions do individuals who profess to boycott products align actual and intended consumption habits? Inconsistency between self-reported participation and practice can help explain why few boycott campaigns harm targets... more
Under what conditions do individuals who profess to boycott products align actual and intended consumption habits? Inconsistency between self-reported participation and practice can help explain why few boycott campaigns harm targets despite high political consumption rates reported in surveys of Americans and Europeans. Arab boycotts are fertile yet unexplored settings in which to assess this proposition. Using data from 820 Algerian students surveyed after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, we evaluate whether boycotters are more likely than others to weigh country-of-origin in preferences for soda, clothing, and mobile phones. Almost 60% claimed to boycott US goods – consistent with cross-national survey rates and a 2007 nationally representative survey of 800 Algerians – but fewer respondents expressed actual brand preferences consistent with this desire. We extend the political consumption literature by expanding its geographic scope and elaborating a mechanism by which product characteristics minimize or magnify collective action problems that undermine participation. Our results suggest that political consumers are more likely to maintain boycott behavior when targeting substitutable goods linked closely to identity (symbolic and visible), thereby reducing direct and information costs and enabling social network enforcement.
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Using data from a survey of 200 Moroccan and Algerian parliamentarians, this article assesses the relationship between parliamentarian gender, quotas, and constituency service provision to females. The findings suggest that while electing... more
Using data from a survey of 200 Moroccan and Algerian parliamentarians, this article assesses the relationship between parliamentarian gender, quotas, and constituency service provision to females. The findings suggest that while electing women increases service provision to females, quotas are needed to create mandates in clientelistic, patriarchal settings, where serving women is a less effective electoral strategy than serving men. Deputies elected through quotas are more responsive to women than members of either sex elected without quotas. The article extends a theory of homosocial capital to explain gender gaps in parliamentarians' supply of and citizens' demand for services. By demonstrating a novel mandate effect and framing mandates in a positive light, the article extends the literature on gender, representation, and clientelism; urges scholars to examine service representation; and supports quotas to promote women's access to services, political participation, and electability
Research Interests:
Why do Islamist parties succeed electorally? Studies addressing this question posit that Islamists’ success stems from the clientelistic context in which they are embedded, and their ability to institutionalize constituent relations to... more
Why do Islamist parties succeed electorally? Studies addressing this question posit that Islamists’ success stems from the clientelistic context in which they are embedded, and their ability to institutionalize constituent relations to serve marginalized citizens. This paper tests this hypothesis using a survey of 782 Algerians which asked citizens about their constituency service interactions with local, regional, and national legislators. It finds that, compared with other parties, Islamists’ more institutionalized constituency service practices allows them to reach a wider range of citizens they do not personally know and who are more likely to be marginalized from patronage networks (e.g., women). This was particularly the case for local councillors when compared with regional and national-level legislators, suggesting that the electoral benefits of robust constituency service practices at the local level may also support success nationally. By offering evidence for a ‘local Islamist advantage’ and showing Islamists’ effectiveness in reaching female constituents, this study suggests that authoritarian states’ reliance on clientelism leaves them vulnerable to challenges by opposition movements who can mobilize around religion and serve as intermediaries for citizens.
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology of Religion, Women's Studies, Religion and Politics, Women, and 24 moreWomen and Gender Issues in Islam, Gender and religion (Women s Studies), Women's Empowerment, Islam and women, Women and Gender Studies, Algeria, Women and Religion, Religion and Gender, Female Patronage, Clientelismo, Clientelism, Political patronage, Patronage, Contemporary Algeria, Political Clientelism, Service provision, Islamist movements, Bureaucratic Clientelism, Islamist Political Parties, Islamist parties, Provision of Public Services, Basic Service Provision, Clientélisme, and Patronage and Clientelism
What explains local governance effectiveness? Leveraging the theoretical concepts of ‘reserved positions,’ ‘reserved domains,’ and tutelage, we explore the link between the formal and informal institutions that structure intergovernmental... more
What explains local governance effectiveness? Leveraging the theoretical concepts of ‘reserved positions,’ ‘reserved domains,’ and tutelage, we explore the link between the formal and informal institutions that structure intergovernmental relations and local government effectiveness. We argue that local officials’ ability to respond effectively to citizens’ demands—and the likelihood that citizens will be satisfied as a result—is a function of the mayor or local councilor’s relationship with the state. Drawing on a case study of a commune in Bejaia and a survey of 782 Algerian citizens in eight provinces, we find that local councilors from dominant parties (i.e., FLN and RND) are more effective at responding to local development requests than councilors from non-dominant parties. This increased effectiveness is correlated with higher citizen satisfaction. We argue that dominant party members’ greater effectiveness is due to their more cooperative relationship with the wali (governor) and other state institutions, and the subsequent support these actors and institutions provide. Our research extends the literature on authoritarian politics and local governance by empirically demonstrating the relationship between dominant party membership and the successful implementation of local development projects. Our work also has implications for understanding why the structure of intergovernmental relations in authoritarian regimes, characterized by ‘reserved positions,’ ‘reserved domains,’ and tutelage, supports regime persistence and how development organizations might seek to promote democratic reform at the local level.
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Middle East (Political Science), North African Politics, and 11 moreAuthoritarianism, Electoral Studies, Middle East, Algeria, Elected Mayors, Public Service Delivery, Contemporary Algeria, Local Politics, Elections in Authoritarian states, Local Councils, and Algerian politics
Eno, Mohamed A., Daniel J. Van Lehman, and Lindsay J. Benstead. 2022. “Should Somalia’s Race-Based 4.5 Electoral Formula Be Reformed?” Paper presented at the “Muslim Societies and Peacebuilding,” Al Hokama Center for Peace Research, Rabat, Morocco, 26-28 May, 2022. (For inclusion in an edited book).more
This paper explores the role that the discriminatory 4.5 powersharing system plays in ossifying clan-based hierarchies and undermining the conditions needed for post-war peacebuilding in Somalia. The Banadiri, Bantu-Jareer, and other... more
This paper explores the role that the discriminatory 4.5 powersharing system plays in ossifying clan-based hierarchies and undermining the conditions needed for post-war peacebuilding in Somalia. The Banadiri, Bantu-Jareer, and other Minorities—Somalis who are not genealogically related to the majority clans—have a long history of social marginalization. We argue and show empirically that incumbent groups (that is, the majority clans) have vastly more power than opposition groups (that is, minorities) and thus have greater power to shape the electoral system to serve their interest and maintain their power. Under-representation of minorities occurs through two pathways: first, in granting minorities a half ‘.5’ share of seats to a full share for each of the Majority clans in the 4.5 system (where the ‘4’ are the four Majority clans), and, second, by falsely designating some majority clan members as minorities in order to allow them to take some of the few seats given to Minority Clans. Although Minority groups should receive at least 20 percent of the seats (55 of 275) in the legislative institutions according to their population size, Minority clans hold only 11 percent of seats (31 of 275) in the Lower House and 2 percent (1 seat) in the Upper House. We argue that this unjust situation persists for two reasons: first, Majority clans are able to advocate for their interests before the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) that supports Somalia’s federal elections (UNSOM 2022) Electoral Commission and, second, Somalia’s clan system, with its dozens of clans and sub-clans, is complex and difficult for outsiders to understand. By shedding light on the role that electoral structuring plays in Somalia, this chapter has implications for the literature on electoral institutions and conflict for policymakers seeking to support durable and just peacemaking in Somalia. It urges the international community to support a Census in Somalia, enforce equal representation of all Majority and Minority groups in the Upper and Lower houses of parliament by reforming the 4.5 system, and take steps toward reinstating direct elections, which have not occurred in Somalia since 1969.
Research Interests: Terrorism, Middle East & North Africa, Human Rights, Civil War, East Africa, and 10 moreSomalia, Electoral Studies, Minorities, Political Structures and Electoral Systems, Somali studies, International Aid and Development, Somalia Civil War, Peacemaking, CONFLICT IN SOMALIA, and Somalia and Somaliland
Political science literature on clientelism has tended to focus on parties and brokers, leaving the demand side of clientelism - the choices of potential clients - relatively unexplored. This paper proposes a formal model of the demand... more
Political science literature on clientelism has tended to focus on parties and brokers, leaving the demand side of clientelism - the choices of potential clients - relatively unexplored. This paper proposes a formal model of the demand side of clientelism, setting clientelism against programmatic redistribution. We include insights from social psychology literature, notably perceptions of political efficacy and inequality legitimation. A dynamic extension endogeneizes these perceptions and incorporates
the degree of informational connectivity in the community. Inefficacy and legitimation perceptions reinforce each other leading to multiple steady states, one of which resembles a “traditional” form of clientelism with disempowered clients that legitimize
social inequalities. Informational connectivity breaks this reinforcement mechanism and leads to a unique steady state, where clientelism and programmatic redistribution coexist, that resembles a “modern” type of clientelism (vote buying). Suggestive empirical evidence shows the insights of the model are empirically plausible.
the degree of informational connectivity in the community. Inefficacy and legitimation perceptions reinforce each other leading to multiple steady states, one of which resembles a “traditional” form of clientelism with disempowered clients that legitimize
social inequalities. Informational connectivity breaks this reinforcement mechanism and leads to a unique steady state, where clientelism and programmatic redistribution coexist, that resembles a “modern” type of clientelism (vote buying). Suggestive empirical evidence shows the insights of the model are empirically plausible.
Research Interests:
Due to the contentious nature of Middle East politics courses, students sometimes express strong reactions to elements of the course content, whether to a film, a guest speaker, or another student. Contentious discussions vary in terms of... more
Due to the contentious nature of Middle East politics courses, students sometimes express strong reactions to elements of the course content, whether to a film, a guest speaker, or another student. Contentious discussions vary in terms of how they unfold but at times they can be disruptive and diminish the course experience for other students. How faculty respond in the classroom is crucial. In this reflection, I argue that a close relationship between the course content and students’ and instructors’ perceived identities makes Middle East politics especially prone to conflictual discussions. I describe a self-reflection exercise that can be used in class to deescalate tense encounters, build empathy, and foster a better understanding of the course content. A self-reflection exercise is a valuable tool that allows instructors, especially those at with diverse institutions or who are at the beginning of their careers, to turn negative and conflictual classroom discussions into constructive, positive learning experiences for students.
Research Interests: Teaching and Learning, Diversity, Higher Education, Learning and Teaching, Equality and Diversity, and 11 moreDiversity & Inclusion, Learning And Teaching In Higher Education, Cultural Diversity, Diversity and Inclusion, College teaching, College Students, Classroom Dynamics, College Teaching and Learning, Teaching Political Science and International Relations, Teaching Political Science, and Teaching political issues
Armed conflict and state collapse since 1992 in Somalia have resulted in over 1,000,000 international refugees and 2.6 million people internally displaced people (IDPs). In this paper, we summarize the findings of the 2017 Somali... more
Armed conflict and state collapse since 1992 in Somalia have resulted in over 1,000,000 international refugees and 2.6 million people internally displaced people (IDPs). In this paper, we summarize the findings of the 2017 Somali Minorities Survey, a face-to-face survey of 139 Somali Bantu households (Jareer) who had been displaced from the Lower Jubaa Valley in Somalia during the previous year. The survey was conducted face-to-face between October and December 2017 by local interviewers and used quota sampling.
Our objective in the survey was to understand Al-Shabaab’s treatment of the Somali Bantu and other groups in the five administrative districts located in the Lower and Middle Jubaa Valley, the traditional homeland of Somali Bantu. The Bantu are a sizable ethnic group with East African slave ancestry who live largely in farming communities. The Lower and Middle Jubaa Valley came under Al-Shabaab control in 2009 and only the regional city of Kismayu has been successfully retaken by the Darood-led militia known as the Interim Jubbaland Administration. The rest of the Lower and Middle Jubaa Valley remains under Al-Shabaab control.
The Survey
The survey asked questions about experiences living under Al-Shabaab rule and focused on two areas: extraction and service provision. Evaluating Al-Shabaab’s predatory extraction practices across ethnic groups and five administrative localities in Somalia Jubba River Valley, we find that Al-Shabaab exploits the Somali Bantu while allowing Somalis from the powerful clans better access to vital services.
Extraction
We find that Al-Shabaab focuses mainly on extraction, providing limited services only to majority-clan members such as the Darood and others, and governs in a way that harms the weakest people in society. This includes not only the Somali Bantu but also women and weak members of other clans.
We find that Al-Shabaab, in order to fund and sustain the war, extracts more resources from and treats most brutally, the Somali Bantu, who may make up to one-third or more of the national population and have a lower social status than other clans, than from members of other clans. The respondents indicate that Al-Shabaab commits numerous atrocities against the Somali Bantu in Somalia, restricting their movement, forcing them to live by Al-Shabaab’s version of Islam, taking their children at young ages for a forced marriage or military service, and punishing any resistance with violence. The Somali Bantu are systematically subjected to extortion by Al-Shabaab, which generates revenues by imposing house taxes, collecting Zakat, seizing remittances, and taking half or more of most farmers’ harvests.
For instance, we find that many Somali Bantu boys are conscripted and that this occurs on average at age 13. Bantu boys receive about one-third of the salary of a Somali soldier (when paid at all). Somalis from Majority clans are reported as subjected to conscription by about one-third of respondents. Many Somali Bantu girls are forcibly married on average at age 16 to Al-Shabaab fighters. Most respondents state that Somali Bantu girls forcibly married to Al-Shabaab militiamen can expect to live fewer than seven days per month in their ‘spouse’s’ household. Moreover, Somali Bantu households are subjected on average to approximately $300 per year in Zakat payments, according to our survey. They must also pay $60 per month on average in a “house tax” and they lose more than 20 percent of their remittances and 50 percent of their harvest to Al-Shabaab extortion. The most common clan to which respondents gave their harvests and house tax was the Ogaden, which is part of the larger Darood clan.
The Somali Bantu also state that members of other groups face extortion (e.g., conscription, forced marriage, taxation), but it is less severe than that faced by the Somali Bantu.
Service Provision
We find that Al-Shabaab offers few if any services to Somalis, instead harshly extracting material and human resources. According to the 139 Somali Bantu households interviewed, Al-Shabaab offers few services to majority-clan Somalis except for religious courts and protection for middlemen engaged in trading goods such as charcoal, much of it produced by through Al-Shabaab coercion of Somali Bantu laborers. The Somali Bantu were not entitled to any services, except for religious courts, which are often used as means to punish or coerce minorities and others not abiding by Al-Shabaab rule. In order for Somali Bantu to access basic services like healthcare, education, and government documents, they are required to pay bribes to Al-Shabaab, despite these services mostly being provided by local communities and businessmen.
Comparison with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU)
The Somali Civil War has moved through several stages over the decades, with the identities of the primary combatants shifting as the struggle has evolved. Al-Shabaab’s immediate predecessor was known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), and it was the ICU’s defeat at the hands of a US-backed Ethiopian invasion that effectively left Al-Shabaab--formerly the ICU’s youth wing--as the most powerful successor. Based on the survey responses, we find that Al-Shabaab treats the Somali Bantu more harshly than did the ICU.
A Post-Al-Shabaab Somalia
Although some news outlets, research organizations and academics claim that the Somali Bantu enthusiastically join Al-Shabaab, the UN Security Council’s Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea counters this by reporting that the “range of persistent and serious violations experienced by the [Somali Bantu] community as documented by the Monitoring Group may constitute war crimes in non-international armed conflict and also crimes against humanity, including with respect to the underlying acts of persecution, murder, torture and sexual slavery.” While there may have been some early Somali Bantu acceptance of Al-Shabaab, our research results support the contention that the terrorist organization has lost any support from the Somali Bantu. The Somali Bantu are almost unanimous in claiming that they will abandon Al-Shabaab’s religious practices once the organization is gone and that they perceive themselves to be victims of Al-Shabaab persecution.
Conclusions
The UN has already claimed that Al-Shabaab is exploiting Somali Bantu farmers. Our research is among the first survey evidence showing that this is occurring and how it is conducted. In this respect, our findings are consistent with other analyses which suggest that some members of majority-clans benefit from this extractive system and thus do not have an incentive to end the war, which also attracts foreign aid. We believe the current US military strategy in Somalia is unlikely to be successful if the Somali partners from majority clans do not have an incentive to fully defeat Al-Shabaab and end the war.
Our research sheds light on the nature of the humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia and offers insights into difficult choices that the international community generally and the US in particular face in Somalia. On a security level, it may be effective to work with the Somali Bantu to defeat Al-Shabaab or at least to force the terrorist organization out of the Jubaa Valley in order to alleviate the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against the Somali Bantu. On the diplomatic level, it may be more effective for the US to use foreign aid and military support as leverage to bring the parties to the table to negotiate a political framework that is acceptable to all stakeholders.
Our objective in the survey was to understand Al-Shabaab’s treatment of the Somali Bantu and other groups in the five administrative districts located in the Lower and Middle Jubaa Valley, the traditional homeland of Somali Bantu. The Bantu are a sizable ethnic group with East African slave ancestry who live largely in farming communities. The Lower and Middle Jubaa Valley came under Al-Shabaab control in 2009 and only the regional city of Kismayu has been successfully retaken by the Darood-led militia known as the Interim Jubbaland Administration. The rest of the Lower and Middle Jubaa Valley remains under Al-Shabaab control.
The Survey
The survey asked questions about experiences living under Al-Shabaab rule and focused on two areas: extraction and service provision. Evaluating Al-Shabaab’s predatory extraction practices across ethnic groups and five administrative localities in Somalia Jubba River Valley, we find that Al-Shabaab exploits the Somali Bantu while allowing Somalis from the powerful clans better access to vital services.
Extraction
We find that Al-Shabaab focuses mainly on extraction, providing limited services only to majority-clan members such as the Darood and others, and governs in a way that harms the weakest people in society. This includes not only the Somali Bantu but also women and weak members of other clans.
We find that Al-Shabaab, in order to fund and sustain the war, extracts more resources from and treats most brutally, the Somali Bantu, who may make up to one-third or more of the national population and have a lower social status than other clans, than from members of other clans. The respondents indicate that Al-Shabaab commits numerous atrocities against the Somali Bantu in Somalia, restricting their movement, forcing them to live by Al-Shabaab’s version of Islam, taking their children at young ages for a forced marriage or military service, and punishing any resistance with violence. The Somali Bantu are systematically subjected to extortion by Al-Shabaab, which generates revenues by imposing house taxes, collecting Zakat, seizing remittances, and taking half or more of most farmers’ harvests.
For instance, we find that many Somali Bantu boys are conscripted and that this occurs on average at age 13. Bantu boys receive about one-third of the salary of a Somali soldier (when paid at all). Somalis from Majority clans are reported as subjected to conscription by about one-third of respondents. Many Somali Bantu girls are forcibly married on average at age 16 to Al-Shabaab fighters. Most respondents state that Somali Bantu girls forcibly married to Al-Shabaab militiamen can expect to live fewer than seven days per month in their ‘spouse’s’ household. Moreover, Somali Bantu households are subjected on average to approximately $300 per year in Zakat payments, according to our survey. They must also pay $60 per month on average in a “house tax” and they lose more than 20 percent of their remittances and 50 percent of their harvest to Al-Shabaab extortion. The most common clan to which respondents gave their harvests and house tax was the Ogaden, which is part of the larger Darood clan.
The Somali Bantu also state that members of other groups face extortion (e.g., conscription, forced marriage, taxation), but it is less severe than that faced by the Somali Bantu.
Service Provision
We find that Al-Shabaab offers few if any services to Somalis, instead harshly extracting material and human resources. According to the 139 Somali Bantu households interviewed, Al-Shabaab offers few services to majority-clan Somalis except for religious courts and protection for middlemen engaged in trading goods such as charcoal, much of it produced by through Al-Shabaab coercion of Somali Bantu laborers. The Somali Bantu were not entitled to any services, except for religious courts, which are often used as means to punish or coerce minorities and others not abiding by Al-Shabaab rule. In order for Somali Bantu to access basic services like healthcare, education, and government documents, they are required to pay bribes to Al-Shabaab, despite these services mostly being provided by local communities and businessmen.
Comparison with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU)
The Somali Civil War has moved through several stages over the decades, with the identities of the primary combatants shifting as the struggle has evolved. Al-Shabaab’s immediate predecessor was known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), and it was the ICU’s defeat at the hands of a US-backed Ethiopian invasion that effectively left Al-Shabaab--formerly the ICU’s youth wing--as the most powerful successor. Based on the survey responses, we find that Al-Shabaab treats the Somali Bantu more harshly than did the ICU.
A Post-Al-Shabaab Somalia
Although some news outlets, research organizations and academics claim that the Somali Bantu enthusiastically join Al-Shabaab, the UN Security Council’s Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea counters this by reporting that the “range of persistent and serious violations experienced by the [Somali Bantu] community as documented by the Monitoring Group may constitute war crimes in non-international armed conflict and also crimes against humanity, including with respect to the underlying acts of persecution, murder, torture and sexual slavery.” While there may have been some early Somali Bantu acceptance of Al-Shabaab, our research results support the contention that the terrorist organization has lost any support from the Somali Bantu. The Somali Bantu are almost unanimous in claiming that they will abandon Al-Shabaab’s religious practices once the organization is gone and that they perceive themselves to be victims of Al-Shabaab persecution.
Conclusions
The UN has already claimed that Al-Shabaab is exploiting Somali Bantu farmers. Our research is among the first survey evidence showing that this is occurring and how it is conducted. In this respect, our findings are consistent with other analyses which suggest that some members of majority-clans benefit from this extractive system and thus do not have an incentive to end the war, which also attracts foreign aid. We believe the current US military strategy in Somalia is unlikely to be successful if the Somali partners from majority clans do not have an incentive to fully defeat Al-Shabaab and end the war.
Our research sheds light on the nature of the humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia and offers insights into difficult choices that the international community generally and the US in particular face in Somalia. On a security level, it may be effective to work with the Somali Bantu to defeat Al-Shabaab or at least to force the terrorist organization out of the Jubaa Valley in order to alleviate the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against the Somali Bantu. On the diplomatic level, it may be more effective for the US to use foreign aid and military support as leverage to bring the parties to the table to negotiate a political framework that is acceptable to all stakeholders.
Research Interests:
Arab boycotts of American products intensified after 9-11. Scholarly neglect of this form of political action reflects an assumption that people do not change buying habits for political causes. Many studies of political consumption view... more
Arab boycotts of American products intensified after 9-11. Scholarly neglect of this form of political action reflects an assumption that people do not change buying habits for political causes. Many studies of political consumption view it as a phenomenon of advanced democracies. We propose hypotheses about why and under what circumstances it occurs in the Middle East, observing that consumption is an important form of participation where formal channels are closed or grievances are directed toward an external actor. We argue that consumer activism against such targets is often weak because people boycott only symbolic, substitutable, and socially visible commodities that minimize information costs and maximize social network enforcement. People with positive views about one or more aspects of the target also are unlikely to sustain boycott behavior. We test our propositions with data from a survey of 800 Algerian students, conducted at the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Consumption, Consumption Studies, and 24 moreTurkish and Middle East Studies, Middle Eastern Politics, Political Attitudes, Middle Eastern Studies, Middle East Politics, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, International Relations of Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa, Middle East, Algeria: language and national identity, Anti-Americanism, Algeria, North Africa, Social history of Algeria, Boycott, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Boycott Movements, Contemporary Algeria, Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa, Political Attitudes, Cross-National Research, Comparative Analysis of Social and Political Attitudes, Boycotting, Consumer Boycott Behavior, and Transnational Social Movements, Social Media, Globalization, Information Communication Technology, Post-colonial Theory, Social Movements Rhetoric, Solidarity, Human Rights, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
Why do authoritarian legislatures support regime durability? Existing literature utilizes country-level or case study data, but lacks detailed, within-country evidence on rent distribution to citizens which is needed to understand why... more
Why do authoritarian legislatures support regime durability? Existing literature utilizes country-level or case study data, but lacks detailed, within-country evidence on rent distribution to citizens which is needed to understand why authoritarian legislatures support regime durability. Drawing on original surveys from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Jordan conducted 2007-2014, this paper shows that institutional setting and resource endowments systematically shape parliamentarian-citizen linkages and have implications for regime stability. Socially-embedded, personalistic linkages are more common in monarchies and oil rich economies than resource-poor and single-party dominant regimes. Yet, non-personalistic linkages are less effective than personalistic linkages in fostering government satisfaction. By empirically demonstrating variation in the social embeddedness of rent distribution and its impact on citizens’ attitudes, this paper extends literature on political clientelism, authoritarian institutions, and regime breakdown and helps explain why resource-poor, single-party dominant regimes (i.e., Tunisia, Egypt) were vulnerable to regime challenges during the Arab spring.
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Moroccan Studies, Democratization, and 35 moreLegislative Politics, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Middle Eastern Politics, Parliamentary Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Morocco, Jordan, Legislatures, Middle East Politics, Democratisation, Mediterranean and North Africa, Authoritarianism, Authoritarian regimes, Legislative Studies, Middle East, Libya, Public Services, Parliament, Algeria, Tunisia, North Africa, Contemporary Libya, Egypt, Arab Spring, middle east, Arab studies, Arab Spring (Arab Revolts), Middle East and North Africa, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, Contemporary Algeria, Political Clientelism, Democratic Transitions, Libyan Studies, Electoral Authoritarianism, Parliamentary Politics, Arab Spring, Egypt and Tunisia, and Constituency
Why are women more able to access parliamentary clientelism and club goods in some patriarchal settings? Using original surveys from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Jordan and the Arab Barometer from six countries, this paper... more
Why are women more able to access parliamentary clientelism and club goods in some patriarchal settings? Using original surveys from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Jordan and the Arab Barometer from six countries, this paper assesses the link between parliamentarian gender, regime type, and women’s service and allocation representation. Due to homophily—in this case, on the basis of tribe—women are more able to receive services in monarchies, where tribal connections are common, than in other authoritarian regimes. All else equal, oil decreases women’s access to services by strengthening non-familial, personalistic linkages, while electing women and holding freer elections improves women’s representation by decreasing males’ advantages accumulating homosocial capital. By developing a theory of homophilous capital and showing how institutions impact state-society relations and women’s representation, this paper reveals a paradox: patrilineal tribes strengthen patriarchal family law, while positively impacting service and allocation responsiveness for women from represented tribes.
Research Interests: Racial and Ethnic Politics, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Women, and 18 moreWomen and Gender Issues in Islam, Electoral Behavior, Electoral Systems, Middle East Politics, Women's Empowerment, Elections, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Ethnicity, Electoral Studies, Middle East, Women and Gender Studies, North Africa, Clientelism, Political patronage, Patronage, Political Clientelism, Tribes, and Role of Government in Service Provision
(Note - See also a related and updated book chapter which is the published version of the Benstead and Atkeson 2011 conference paper:... more
(Note - See also a related and updated book chapter which is the published version of the Benstead and Atkeson 2011 conference paper: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/wasta-undermine-support-democracy-lindsay-benstead-lonna-rae-atkeson-muhammad-adnan-shahid/e/10.4324/9780367822859-5)
How to cite this paper:
Benstead, Lindsay J., and Lonna Atkeson. “Why Does Satisfaction with an Authoritarian Regime Increase Support for Democracy? Corruption and Government Performance in the Arab World.” Paper presented at the Survey Research in the Gulf: Challenges and Policy Implications, Doha, Qatar, February 27–March 1, 2011.
Why does satisfaction with an authoritarian government increase demand for democracy? Using the Arab Barometer conducted 2006-2008, we test whether perceptions of transparency and responsiveness affect support for the incumbent regime and demand for democracy. Perception of government crackdown on corruption is the most important dimension of performance affecting satisfaction. Satisfaction and corruption control are positively related to support for democracy. To account for this link, we argue corruption undermines trust and civil society and strengthens preferences for the current clientelistic arrangements. Governance, we argue, is a missing variable explaining support for democracy in the Arab world. Our results complement research on corruption and institutional development and inform democracy promotion efforts by showing that good governance supports demand for democracy.
How to cite this paper:
Benstead, Lindsay J., and Lonna Atkeson. “Why Does Satisfaction with an Authoritarian Regime Increase Support for Democracy? Corruption and Government Performance in the Arab World.” Paper presented at the Survey Research in the Gulf: Challenges and Policy Implications, Doha, Qatar, February 27–March 1, 2011.
Why does satisfaction with an authoritarian government increase demand for democracy? Using the Arab Barometer conducted 2006-2008, we test whether perceptions of transparency and responsiveness affect support for the incumbent regime and demand for democracy. Perception of government crackdown on corruption is the most important dimension of performance affecting satisfaction. Satisfaction and corruption control are positively related to support for democracy. To account for this link, we argue corruption undermines trust and civil society and strengthens preferences for the current clientelistic arrangements. Governance, we argue, is a missing variable explaining support for democracy in the Arab world. Our results complement research on corruption and institutional development and inform democracy promotion efforts by showing that good governance supports demand for democracy.
Research Interests:
Abstract How does US military aid shape confidence in Arab militaries and support for democracy? This chapter explores these questions. Drawing on data from Wave IV surveys conducted by the Arab Barometer in seven countries in 2016, I... more
Abstract
How does US military aid shape confidence in Arab militaries and support for democracy? This chapter explores these questions. Drawing on data from Wave IV surveys conducted by the Arab Barometer in seven countries in 2016, I explore how individual and contextual-level factors shape confidence in the military and, in turn, relate to support for democracy. I argue that citizens’ views of the military are shaped by their assessments of how the armed forces impact them and their social group. I find that citizens of countries with more robust armed forces—which is due in part to US security assistance—and those in which protests occurred are more supportive of the military because they see it as contributing to their security. Consistent with other research, higher confidence in the military also supports greater confidence in having a democratic system of government. Support for democracy is low in many countries in the region. The findings suggest that US security assistance strengthens authoritarianism in recipient countries, yet it also appears to contribute to institutional trust among citizens, an outcome that could support democratic development in the future.
Keywords: US security assistance, public opinion, attitudes toward the armed forces, support for democracy
How does US military aid shape confidence in Arab militaries and support for democracy? This chapter explores these questions. Drawing on data from Wave IV surveys conducted by the Arab Barometer in seven countries in 2016, I explore how individual and contextual-level factors shape confidence in the military and, in turn, relate to support for democracy. I argue that citizens’ views of the military are shaped by their assessments of how the armed forces impact them and their social group. I find that citizens of countries with more robust armed forces—which is due in part to US security assistance—and those in which protests occurred are more supportive of the military because they see it as contributing to their security. Consistent with other research, higher confidence in the military also supports greater confidence in having a democratic system of government. Support for democracy is low in many countries in the region. The findings suggest that US security assistance strengthens authoritarianism in recipient countries, yet it also appears to contribute to institutional trust among citizens, an outcome that could support democratic development in the future.
Keywords: US security assistance, public opinion, attitudes toward the armed forces, support for democracy
The past twenty years witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the number and sophistication of scientific opinion surveys being used to study society and politics in Arab countries. The conventional view of the Middle East as a wasteland... more
The past twenty years witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the number and sophistication of scientific opinion surveys being used to study society and politics in Arab countries. The conventional view of the Middle East as a wasteland for survey research has long since lost any relation to reality. Instead, the region has become one of the most innovative sites for creative survey research, while scientific research of public attitudes has shaped findings across a wide range of substantive issue areas of interest to the broader discipline of political science.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Unlike in many other Arab countries, Tunisia came into its independence with a strong, centralized education system and has greatly expanded enrollment rates at all levels in the past several decades. Yet Tunisia still falls short of... more
Unlike in many other Arab countries, Tunisia came into its independence with a strong, centralized education system and has greatly expanded enrollment rates at all levels in the past several decades. Yet Tunisia still falls short of achieving quality, transparent education programs that prepare students for the workforce. In this chapter I draw on the Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), a survey of nearly 3,600 Tunisians conducted in February 2015 by the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD) to explore why the quality of schools and the need to make informal payments varies across students and municipalities. Poorer households and those in less affluent regions enjoy lower-quality schools and encounter more problems in school such as the need to repeat grades. Moreover, transparency is a significant problem, with seven percent of families—disproportionately those in rural areas—having made at least one informal payment in the last year. The findings demonstrate that reforms that strengthen the rule of law are key to achieving higher returns from education in Tunisia.
Research Interests:
Does electing Islamists help or hurt women? Due to the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) obtaining 13% of seats in the 2002-2007 legislature and the implementation of an electoral gender quota that resulted in 35 women winning seats... more
Does electing Islamists help or hurt women? Due to the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) obtaining 13% of seats in the 2002-2007 legislature and the implementation of an electoral gender quota that resulted in 35 women winning seats in 2002, Morocco offers a rare opportunity to explore the intersectional impact of parliamentarians’ gender and party affiliation on women’s symbolic and service representation. Using visits to parliamentary office visits in Tangiers, a city in Northern Morocco, and an original survey of 112 Moroccan Members of Parliament (MPs) conducted in 2008, I find that responsiveness for female citizens depends on parliamentarians’ party and gender. Female legislators and Islamist deputies--including male Islamists--are also more likely to interact with female citizens than male parliamentarians from non-Islamist parties. I argue that the PJD’s stronger party institutionalization enhances legislators’ incentives to work in mixed-gender teams, leading to more frequent legislator interactions with female citizens. By offering novel evidence that developing a strong party system--in addition to electing women--is crucial for improving women’s representation in clientelistic settings, my results extend the literature on Islam, gender, and governance and offer insights into Islamist electoral success in clientelistic settings.
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Women, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Middle East Politics, and 9 moreMiddle East, North Africa, Moroccan Politics, Women's political representation, Parliamentary Representation, Islamist movements, Women's Representation in Parliament, Islamist Political Parties, and Islamists
Research Interests:
This chapter scrutinizes the changing roles of women and gender roles, particularly in the Arab world. It sketches not only how gender relations have been inflected by religion, politics, and colonialism since the early twentieth century,... more
This chapter scrutinizes the changing roles of women and gender roles, particularly in the Arab world. It sketches not only how gender relations have been inflected by
religion, politics, and colonialism since the early twentieth century, but also the multitude of ways that women in different societies have articulated their autonomy in spheres of work, education, and home life. More assertive expressions of women’s rights have increased over the past two decades through mechanisms such as civil society activism, legislative representation, changing legal codes, and uprisings like the Arab Spring, but indigenous women’s rights movements have existed since colonial times. The chapter also examines state feminism, which has been mobilized for both authoritarian and democratic ends, as well as Islamic feminism, which seeks to advance women’s rights by drawing on understandings of egalitarian practices in early Islam. The discussion finally touches on sexual orientation, in particular how new voices are questioning the historical treatment of queerness while also interrogating the changing nature of sexuality for cultural discourse.
religion, politics, and colonialism since the early twentieth century, but also the multitude of ways that women in different societies have articulated their autonomy in spheres of work, education, and home life. More assertive expressions of women’s rights have increased over the past two decades through mechanisms such as civil society activism, legislative representation, changing legal codes, and uprisings like the Arab Spring, but indigenous women’s rights movements have existed since colonial times. The chapter also examines state feminism, which has been mobilized for both authoritarian and democratic ends, as well as Islamic feminism, which seeks to advance women’s rights by drawing on understandings of egalitarian practices in early Islam. The discussion finally touches on sexual orientation, in particular how new voices are questioning the historical treatment of queerness while also interrogating the changing nature of sexuality for cultural discourse.
Research Interests: Sex and Gender, Public Opinion, Women's Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, and 11 moreWomen's Rights, Gender Equality, Gender Roles, Gender and education, Arab world, Gender Quotas, Gender and Queer Studies, Middle East and North Africa, Arab Spring, Women's Status In Islam, and Patriachal Society
The Arab spring experience suggests that dissatisfaction with an authoritarian government and corruption fuel popular demand for democracy. Using Arab Barometer data from 38 surveys in fourteen nations (2006-2016), we find that perceived... more
The Arab spring experience suggests that dissatisfaction with an authoritarian government and corruption fuel popular demand for democracy. Using Arab Barometer data from 38 surveys in fourteen nations (2006-2016), we find that perceived corruption control, freer elections, and satisfaction with the non-democratic government are positively related to support for democracy. To explain this link, we draw on literature that suggests that perceived corruption undermines regime legitimacy and fosters ambivalence about whether transparency would improve if free elections were implemented. Receiving clientelistic services does not impact support for democracy, suggesting that it functions as a form of system performance.
Research Interests: Development Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Turkish and Middle East Studies, and 24 moreMiddle Eastern Politics, Corruption (Corruption), Political Corruption, Democracy, Middle East Politics, Elections, Mediterranean and North Africa, Authoritarianism, Authoritarian regimes, Middle East, Anti-Corruption, Corruption, North Africa, Corruption in Education, Clientelism, Support for democracy, WASTA: How is it perceived in Iraq, Political Clientelism, Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa, Elections in Authoritarian states, Elections and Representation, Electoral Integrity, Bureaucratic Clientelism, and Clientélisme
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Political Participation, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, and 22 moreWomen's Rights, Gender, Gender Equality, Women's Right to Equality, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Parliamentary Studies, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Development, Middle East Politics, Elections, Elections and Voting Behavior, Mediterranean and North Africa, Women's Human Rights, Middle East, Women and Gender Studies, Representation, Tunisia, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, and Egypt and Tunisia
Since the first surveys were conducted in the late 1980s, Survey research has expanded rapidly in the Arab world. Almost every country in the region is now included in the Arab Barometer, Afrobarometer, or World Values Survey. Moreover,... more
Since the first surveys were conducted in the late 1980s, Survey research has expanded rapidly in the Arab world. Almost every country in the region is now included in the Arab Barometer, Afrobarometer, or World Values Survey. Moreover, the Arab spring marked a watershed, with the inclusion of Tunisia and Libya and addition of many topics such as voting behavior, which were previously considered too sensitive. As a result, political scientists have dozens of largely untapped datasets to answer theoretical and policy questions. In order to make progress toward measuring and reducing total survey error, discussion is needed about quality issues, such as high rates of missingness and sampling challenges. Ongoing attention to ethics is also critical. This chapter discusses these developments and frames a substantive and methodological research agenda for improving data quality and survey practice in the Arab world.
Research Interests:
Public opinion is strongly patriarchal in the MENA, leading to low women’s workforce participation and political and economic problems. Efforts to explain attitudes focus on Islam and modernization, but miss employment-based mechanisms... more
Public opinion is strongly patriarchal in the MENA, leading to low women’s workforce participation and political and economic problems. Efforts to explain attitudes focus on Islam and modernization, but miss employment-based mechanisms drawn from American sociological studies. Interest- and exposure-based employment theories argue that employed women and their husbands develop feminist views through redefinition of interests and exposure to women’s capabilities. Using data from six Arab countries, I find support for employment-based theories, particularly among men. Husbands of employed wives exhibit greater egalitarianism than single men and husbands of nonworking wives. Female supporters of Shari’a are less accepting of inequality than religious men, suggesting gendered interpretations of Islam. The results complement research on women, Islam, and oil and underscore the importance of supporting women’s employment.
Research Interests: Public Opinion, Palestine, Lebanon, Gender Equality, Women and Politics, and 8 moreMorocco, Yemen, Jordan, Women and Work, Gender Equity, Algeria, Social Change, Community Economic Development, Public Management, Policy Analysis and Evaluation Research, Project/program Management, Strategic Management, and Islam and Politics
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken recently reiterated U.S. support for the expansion of the Abraham Accords and called for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As highlighted by this volume's authors, the Accords are the most... more
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken recently reiterated U.S. support for the expansion of the Abraham Accords and called for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As highlighted by this volume's authors, the Accords are the most significant regional peacemaking achievement in decades, having already reduced Arab-Israeli tensions, particularly at the government level, and provided opportunities for Arab states to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians. The changing regional security architecture can only be welcomed by the U.S. Yet, due to political authoritarianism in the region, the Accords may fall short of their potential if the economic gains fail to reach marginalized populations. I argue that trade relations that support job creation and access to water and energy may increase public support. Just as a return to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is important, political reform in the Arab countries is needed to make the Accords successful by bringing more economic benefits to the Arab streets and ensuring that they will not be a "Cold Peace".
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Why do legislatures lengthen the tenure of authoritarian regimes? In order to gain insight into this question, this dissertation examines how parliamentary institutions influence members’ participation in debate and provision of casework... more
Why do legislatures lengthen the tenure of authoritarian regimes? In order to gain insight into this question, this dissertation examines how parliamentary institutions influence members’ participation in debate and provision of casework and how the representative link shapes constituent attitudes toward the parliament. It argues that public opinion serves as a contextual factor in future rounds of elite-level bargaining over the prerogatives of the legislature and is a neglected part of a causal story which accounts for the empirical regularity identified by Gandhi and Przeworski.
The project provides a description and analysis of casework practices in Morocco and Algeria. It makes three empirical contributions. First, it demonstrates that parliamentary institutions vary within a class of authoritarian regimes and shape members’ choice of activities. It suggests that representation is a mechanism of cooptation occurring as members bargain for reelection in elite and mass arenas. Incumbent preferences for level of debate and casework capacity vary by regime type, explaining why Moroccan members participate more frequently in parliamentary debate and have higher caseloads than do Algerian members and why debate and casework are substitutes in Algeria and complements in Morocco.
Second, it illustrates that incumbent preferences for debate in Morocco create an institutional opening for opposition elites, in this case Islamist parties, to more fully develop party-focused strategies and programmatic benefits than their counterparts in Algeria. It shows that Moroccan Islamist deputies are more likely to perceive incentives to cultivate a party reputation and to devote time to policymaking, but no more or less likely to have higher caseloads than are members of other parties. Algerian Islamist deputies do not differ from other parties on these outcomes.
Third, it demonstrates that incumbent strategies to engineer loyal parliaments have implications for public opinion. Provision of casework—arguably the primary representative function in Morocco and Algeria—is not associated with greater popular support for strong parliamentary prerogatives. Rather, individual-level support is related to perceptions that elections are more transparent and that political parties and deputies are more effective. The results inform literature on authoritarian politics and have implications for legislative strengthening programs.
The project provides a description and analysis of casework practices in Morocco and Algeria. It makes three empirical contributions. First, it demonstrates that parliamentary institutions vary within a class of authoritarian regimes and shape members’ choice of activities. It suggests that representation is a mechanism of cooptation occurring as members bargain for reelection in elite and mass arenas. Incumbent preferences for level of debate and casework capacity vary by regime type, explaining why Moroccan members participate more frequently in parliamentary debate and have higher caseloads than do Algerian members and why debate and casework are substitutes in Algeria and complements in Morocco.
Second, it illustrates that incumbent preferences for debate in Morocco create an institutional opening for opposition elites, in this case Islamist parties, to more fully develop party-focused strategies and programmatic benefits than their counterparts in Algeria. It shows that Moroccan Islamist deputies are more likely to perceive incentives to cultivate a party reputation and to devote time to policymaking, but no more or less likely to have higher caseloads than are members of other parties. Algerian Islamist deputies do not differ from other parties on these outcomes.
Third, it demonstrates that incumbent strategies to engineer loyal parliaments have implications for public opinion. Provision of casework—arguably the primary representative function in Morocco and Algeria—is not associated with greater popular support for strong parliamentary prerogatives. Rather, individual-level support is related to perceptions that elections are more transparent and that political parties and deputies are more effective. The results inform literature on authoritarian politics and have implications for legislative strengthening programs.
Research Interests: Legislative Politics, Parliamentary Studies, Electoral Behavior, Morocco, Legislatures, and 16 moreDemocracy, Elections, Democracy Promotion, Authoritarianism, Legislative Studies, Parliament, Algeria, Clientelism, Moroccan Politics, Political Clientelism, Role of Government in Service Provision, Parliamentary Work, Constituency, Clientélisme, Authoritarism, and Casework
Lindsay J. Benstead. “Can the Abraham Accords Succeed? Exploring Arab Support for Normalization with Israel.” Viewpoints Series. August 1, 2022.... more
Lindsay J. Benstead. “Can the Abraham Accords Succeed? Exploring Arab Support for Normalization with Israel.” Viewpoints Series. August 1, 2022. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/can-abraham-accords-succeed-exploring-arab-support-normalization-israel
Research Interests:
Despite substantial spending and external support, educational quality is stubbornly low throughout the Arab world. Yet Tunisia is a success story. Its high enrolment and literacy especially among women and girls-has been cited as a... more
Despite substantial spending and external support, educational quality is stubbornly low throughout the Arab world. Yet Tunisia is a success story. Its high enrolment and literacy especially among women and girls-has been cited as a factor that led to the Arab spring. While Tunisia's centralized education system might deliver equitable outcomes between boys and girls, I find in my research, published in my chapter of The Political Economy of Education in the Arab World, that substantial inequalities across families and municipalities exist and these inequalities are driven by students' socioeconomic status, rather than gender.
Research Interests: Education, Social Policy, Education (Social Policy), Equality and Diversity, Equality, and 9 moreDevelopment in the Middle East and North Africa, Educational reform, Education Policy Studies, Education and Social Policy, Corruption, Middle East and North Africa, Gender Equality Issues In Education and In the Labor Market, Tunisian politics, and bribes
Research Interests: Political Economy, Public Opinion, Middle East Studies, Women's Rights, Palestine, and 11 moreLebanon, Egalitarianism, Political Attitudes, Public Opinion Research, Morocco, Jordan, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Algeria, Middle East and North Africa, Women's Employment, and Patriachy
Scholars are interested in understanding why parties develop constituencies during transitional elections and what role ideology and particularistic benefits play in attracting and maintaining voters. In the case of Arab and Muslim... more
Scholars are interested in understanding why parties develop constituencies during transitional elections and what role ideology and particularistic benefits play in attracting and maintaining voters. In the case of Arab and Muslim countries, researchers seek to explain why citizens support Islamist parties. Yet, while some scholarly research finds that supporters are more observant and religiously conservative than those who vote for other parties, many studies also suggest that electoral behavior is shaped by complex political, social, and economic factors, including the constraints on access to public services created by authoritarian regimes.
Research Interests: Political Parties, Middle East Studies, Electoral Behavior, Survey Research, Islam, and 15 moreMiddle East Politics, Elections, Elections and Voting Behavior, Tunisia, Clientelismo, Clientelism, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, Political Clientelism, Public Opinion Polling, Service provision, Islamist movements, Islamist Political Parties, Religious Issues Political Parties, Clientélisme, and Ennahda Movement
Lindsay J. Benstead. “In Tunisia, more women in office can make all the difference.” The Washington Post, Monkey Cage, July 6, 2019.... more
Lindsay J. Benstead. “In Tunisia, more women in office can make all the difference.” The Washington Post, Monkey Cage, July 6, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/06/tunisia-more-women-office-can-make-all-difference/?utm_campaign=buffer&utm_content=buffer833dd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=.a5930df50c95
Why electoral gender quotas improve women's representation, even in democratizing and authoritarian regimes In Tunisia, 47 percent of seats in the 2018 municipal assembly elections are now held by women. This increase is due in part to a constitutionally-mandated electoral gender quota. Women are running for-and winning-elected office worldwide in ever greater numbers. A record number of women won seats in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections and six women are currently running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Women are also making strides electorally in non-democratic regimes, including in Rwanda, which currently has the highest proportion of women worldwide in its legislature-64 percent. Many question the value of this increased representation, however. Quotas, while a direct way of increasing the numbers of women in office, are not always seen as effective means of empowering women. This is especially the case in non-democratic countries in which the parliament does not have an independent role in lawmaking. Some worry that rising numbers of women in office as a result of quotas in democratizing and authoritarian countries may do little more than strengthen the regime's international image and undermine women's empowerment by tokenizing female representatives.
Why electoral gender quotas improve women's representation, even in democratizing and authoritarian regimes In Tunisia, 47 percent of seats in the 2018 municipal assembly elections are now held by women. This increase is due in part to a constitutionally-mandated electoral gender quota. Women are running for-and winning-elected office worldwide in ever greater numbers. A record number of women won seats in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections and six women are currently running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Women are also making strides electorally in non-democratic regimes, including in Rwanda, which currently has the highest proportion of women worldwide in its legislature-64 percent. Many question the value of this increased representation, however. Quotas, while a direct way of increasing the numbers of women in office, are not always seen as effective means of empowering women. This is especially the case in non-democratic countries in which the parliament does not have an independent role in lawmaking. Some worry that rising numbers of women in office as a result of quotas in democratizing and authoritarian countries may do little more than strengthen the regime's international image and undermine women's empowerment by tokenizing female representatives.
Research Interests: Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Gender Equality, Women, Gender and Development, and 10 moreMiddle East Politics, Tunisia, Gender Quotas, Clientelism, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, Local elections, Political Clientelism, Service provision, Gender and politics, Gender Quotas, Empowerment, and Electoral politics
Lindsay J. Benstead and Megan Reif. “Boycotts and Public Diplomacy: Lesson from Algeria.” June 27, 2019. Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD), https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/boycotts-and-public-diplomacy-lessons-algeria.
Research Interests:
Daniel Van Lehman and Lindsay J. Benstead “Protecting Minorities is Good Military Strategy.” LobeLog. June 19, 2019. https://lobelog.com/protecting-somali-minorities-is-good-military-strategy/.
Research Interests: Military Intelligence, Strategy (Military Science), Terrorism, International Terrorism, Political Violence and Terrorism, and 15 moreCivil War, East Africa, Survey Research, Military and Politics, Somalia, Counter terrorism, Use of Force & Counter-terrorism, Horn of Africa, Research From Somalia, CONFLICT IN SOMALIA, Religion and Terrorism, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Former Fighters, Rebel Groups, Alshabab, and Rebel Governance
Middle East Institute. https://www.mei.edu/publications/europes-deep-reservoir-goodwill-middle-east-lessons-public-diplomacy
Research Interests: Public Opinion, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Public Diplomacy, Middle Eastern Studies, and 13 moreSurvey Research, Middle East Politics, Intercultural Communication and Public Diplomacy, Middle East, Libya, Arab Spring (Arab Revolts), Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, Communication And Public Diplomacy, Libyan Studies, Public Diplomacy in Islam, public diplomacy, statecraft, American foreign policy, Soft Power and Public Diplomacy, and Arab Spring
Lindsay J. Benstead. “Why True Change in Algeria Will be Difficult.” April 25, 2019. Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD), https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/why-true-change-algeria-will-be-difficult.
Research Interests: Elections, Elections and Voting Behavior, Authoritarianism, Authoritarian regimes, Political Mobilization, and 12 moreSocial Mobilization, Algeria, Social protests, Election, Arab Spring (Arab Revolts), Mobilization, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, Contemporary Algeria, Elections in Authoritarian states, Arab Spring, Arabic Spring, and Algerian politics
Lindsay J. Benstead. “Plus Ҫa Change? Why True Change in Algeria Will Be Difficult.” The Geopolitics, https://thegeopolitics.com/plus-%D2%ABa-change-why-true-change-in-algeria-will-be-difficult/. April 6, 2019.
Research Interests: Protest, Military and Politics, Elections, Authoritarianism, Authoritarian regimes, and 13 moreMilitary, Protest Movements, Algeria, Egypt, Arab Spring, middle east, Arab studies, Arab Spring (Arab Revolts), Contemporary Algeria, Electoral Authoritarianism, Algerian Policy, Arab Spring, Arabic Spring, Arab Spring Social Media, Bouteflika, and Algerian politics
Lindsay J. Benstead. “Why Are Algerians Protesting? It’s Not Against Bouteflika.” The Geopolitics, , https://thegeopolitics.com/why-are-algerians-protesting-its-not-against-bouteflika/.
Research Interests: Legitimacy and Authority, Democratization, Algerian war, Middle Eastern Studies, Middle East Politics, and 13 moreAuthoritarianism, Authoritarian regimes, Military, Comparative Politics, Democratization, Authoritarian Regimes, Regime Change, Concept Analysis, Measurement, Algeria, Arab Spring (Arab Revolts), Contemporary Algeria, Algérie, Algerie, Elections in Authoritarian states, Arab Spring, Arabic Spring, and Algerian politics
How do Arab citizens view Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what does this mean for US public diplomacy? To what extent have attitudes shifted since 2006, and should US public diplomacy strategies change accordingly? This... more
How do Arab citizens view Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what does this mean for US public diplomacy? To what extent have attitudes shifted since 2006, and should US public diplomacy strategies change accordingly? This article assesses national-level public opinion toward diplomatic, security, and economic relations with Israel using new Arab Barometer data from fifteen Arab countries spanning a ten year period between 2006 and 2016. Several findings emerge. First, support for recognizing Israel if a two-state solution is reached with the Palestinians declined between 2006 and 2013 in six countries—Lebanon, Iraq, and North Africa (including Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt)—but increased in four others—Sudan, Jordan, Palestine, and Yemen. Second, since 2011, support declined in Egypt for maintaining the Egypt-Israel treaty, though a majority still support maintaining it, and fewer than half of Palestinians and Jordanians support maintaining their agreements with Israel. Arab citizens widely see external interference as a problem—and many blame the US and Israel for creating Da’esh. Yet support for the US to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also increased since 2011 in many countries. Many citizens do wish to have US development support, but listening sessions are needed to better understand the forms of support that are welcomed since the types of activities demanded varies. And in some types of countries—namely transitional countries (including Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt)—US involvement appears to be least welcomed. These findings have significant implications for how Western governments plan for and conduct public diplomacy, especially as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite diminishing support for recognizing Israel in some countries, increasing demand for the US to play a role in peacemaking in the years preceding the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem suggests a window of opportunity in which to support peace efforts. Rather than focusing on direct diplomacy only, the US and other western nations should listen to and acknowledge rising frustration among Arab citizens as they support efforts to improve human development and peace prospects.
Research Interests: International Terrorism, Gulf Studies, Foreign Policy, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and 15 moreMiddle Eastern Politics, Iraq, Public Opinion (Political Science), Public Opinion Research, Egypt, Morocco, Survey Research, Middle East Politics, Libya, Arab-Israeli conflict, Oman, Anti-Americanism, Algeria, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Raghnhild Louise Muriaas, Vibeke Wang, Lindsay J. Benstead, Boniface Dulani, and Lise Rakner. “Why Campaigns to Stop Child Marriage Can Backfire.” The Washington Post Monkey Cage, December 13, 2018.... more
Raghnhild Louise Muriaas, Vibeke Wang, Lindsay J. Benstead, Boniface Dulani, and Lise Rakner. “Why Campaigns to Stop Child Marriage Can Backfire.” The Washington Post Monkey Cage, December 13, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/12/13/why-campaigns-to-stop-child-marriage-can-backfire/?utm_term=.ed196e312d14
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, International Development, Human Rights, Gender, and 14 moreDesign of Experiments, Public Opinion (Political Science), Gender and Development, Children's Rights, Matrilineality, Sub-Saharan Africa, Malawi, Child marriage prevention, Traditional Leadership, Policy Advocacy, International Development Studies, Child Marriage, Malawian Politics, and Patrilineality
At the end of his term, President Obama stated that one of his greatest foreign policy regrets was not doing more to "follow up" in Libya after the 2011 intervention that helped Libyan rebels topple Muammar al-Qadhafi’s regime. By that... more
At the end of his term, President Obama stated that one of his greatest foreign policy regrets was not doing more to "follow up" in Libya after the 2011 intervention that helped Libyan rebels topple Muammar al-Qadhafi’s regime. By that time, another kind of regret had set in among some U.S. policymakers. “Libya was better off with Qadhafi” was no longer just whispered, but spoken aloud in Washington, other Western capitals and in public discourse on the Arab Spring.
Full posting: http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/public-opinion-demise-us-public-diplomacy-libya
Full posting: http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/public-opinion-demise-us-public-diplomacy-libya
Research Interests: Public Opinion, Public Diplomacy, Public Opinion (Political Science), Public Opinion Research, The Libyan Period, and 12 moreIntercultural Communication and Public Diplomacy, Libya, Anti-Americanism, Contemporary Libya, Conflict in Libya, Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, NATO INTERVENTION IN LIBYA AND THE INTERNATIONAL LAW, Public Opinion Polling, Public opinion and foreign policy, Libyan Studies, Political Communication and Public Opinion, and Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
The news that Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has named a gender-balanced cabinet — and one that is more representative along other dimensions, including religion and ability — is refreshing. (The cabinet of his predecessor, Steven... more
The news that Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has named a gender-balanced cabinet — and one that is more representative along other dimensions, including religion and ability — is refreshing. (The cabinet of his predecessor, Steven Harper, included six women among its 26 members in 2006).
Even more encouraging than Trudeau’s leadership on this issue — and his lack of excuses — is his apparent understanding of the need to address inequality. When asked why he named a government comprised of 50 percent women, he said simply, “Because it’s 2015.” As succinct as his response was, it reflects much greater clarity about the problem of inequality — and its solution — than much public discussion on the issue.
Even more encouraging than Trudeau’s leadership on this issue — and his lack of excuses — is his apparent understanding of the need to address inequality. When asked why he named a government comprised of 50 percent women, he said simply, “Because it’s 2015.” As succinct as his response was, it reflects much greater clarity about the problem of inequality — and its solution — than much public discussion on the issue.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, Women's Studies, Social Networks, Middle East Studies, and 29 moreMiddle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Moroccan Studies, Women's Rights, Gender and Sexuality, Gender, Gender Equality, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Women, Middle Eastern Politics, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Development, Morocco, Middle East Politics, Women's Empowerment, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Homosociality, Mediterranean and North Africa, Gender and Islam, Middle East, Women and Gender Studies, Algeria, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa, Male Homosociality, Homosociability, and Homosocial Friendships
Women's underrepresentation in political leadership is a longstanding problem that exists at a nearly universal level, despite progress toward gender equality in some countries. A recent U.N. report on women offers staggering evidence of... more
Women's underrepresentation in political leadership is a longstanding problem that exists at a nearly universal level, despite progress toward gender equality in some countries. A recent U.N. report on women offers staggering evidence of gender inequality, demonstrating that no country in the world has reached parity. And, even in the United States, one need only witness the debate over Hillary Clinton's potential presidential candidacy to realize that even where female representation is promoted, gender stereotypes and biases are widespread. The problem is particularly apparent in the Arab world. Government officials, activists and scholars warn that gender inequality in this region violates fundamental human rights, thwarts development and fosters instability. Most attempts to explain gender gaps in the Middle East and North Africa are based on cultural and modernization theories, with a particular focus on how oil or Islam shape preferences and practices. Yet, these explanations neglect the reality of gender inequality as a universal problem, evident in societies with different religions and levels of socioeconomic development, and draw attention away from a broader theory that can explain gender inequality in the Arab world and beyond. In our recent article in Perspectives on Politics – which is temporarily ungated – we put forth a theory of electoral bias that goes beyond the Arab world and applies to biases based on gender and other traits, including religiosity. Drawn from social psychology, role congruity theory was developed by Alice Eagly and her colleagues based on their work uncovering the " wonderful women effect. " This research shows that although women were seen as extremely capable in arenas such as child rearing and hosting and often viewed as superior to men with regards to traits such as honesty and kindness, they were not seen as having qualities associated with effective leadership (e.g., decisiveness, strength). As a result of this mismatch, people frequently undervalue women as potential and actual leaders because they attribute different stereotypical traits to men and women, based on gender roles stemming from sex differentiation in the labor force. Moreover, they hold established notions of a " good leader " that are often at odds with these stereotyped traits of women. This means that equally qualified women will be less likely to be chosen for leadership roles and, when they are, their performance will be discounted visàvis equally performing leaders from the dominant group (i.e., males). We argue that the extent to which voters view gender and another salient trait, religiosity, as signaling capable leadership depends largely on preconceptions about characteristics of good leaders and the stereotypes they hold about people with these traits. We demonstrate the existence of electoral bias against female and religious candidates and the strength of role congruity theory in explaining it through a survey experiment of 1,202 Tunisians conducted in October and November 2012.
Research Interests: Religion, Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, Women's Studies, Middle East Studies, and 22 moreMiddle East & North Africa, Religion and Politics, Women's Rights, Gender, Gender Equality, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Women, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Electoral Behavior, Electoral Systems, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Development, Gender and religion (Women s Studies), Middle East Politics, Women's Empowerment, Electoral Studies, Middle East, Electoral Campaign, Women and Gender Studies, Tunisia, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, and Egypt and Tunisia
Research Interests:
Do Islamists govern differently than non-Islamists, and does this relationship vary across the local and national levels? Burgeoning literature seeks to explain the politics of authoritarian and transitional legislatures (Malesky and... more
Do Islamists govern differently than non-Islamists, and does this relationship vary across the local and national levels? Burgeoning literature seeks to explain the politics of authoritarian and transitional legislatures (Malesky and Schuler 2010) and its relationship with regime durability (Gandhi and Przeworski 2006, 2007). So too researchers investigate why Islamist parties have been electorally successful (Mesoud 2014). In both literatures, service provision and patronage are central mechanisms (Lust-Okar 2009; Malesky and Schuler 2010). Yet, detailed and systematic data on citizen-legislator linkages across Islamist and non-Islamist members and at different levels of government is limited. In this memo, I take a preliminary step toward filling this gap by leveraging original data from a survey of 780 Algerian citizens conducted in 2006. This unique dataset allows me to test whether the service provision practices of Islamist parties differ from non-Islamist members and across levels of government. Here, the emphasis in on linkages between elected officials and citizens, through which citizens asks for help with personal and community problems, or express opinions. I find that Islamist parties do indeed govern differently; more often than other parties, they receive requests from citizens with whom they have no personal connection and citizens who are more likely to be marginalized from clientelistic networks with political elites—operationalized here as women (Benstead 2016). Moreover, the extent to which Islamists sever these citizens increases at the local level. These findings have several implications for existing literature, and for addressing why Islamist movements and parties are often electorally successful. First, they extend existing work which suggests that Islamist parties' strategy reach citizens outside established patronage networks by showing that it is more effective at the local than the national level. Second, they highlight variation in governance patterns across two Islamist parties—one allied with the government and the other outside the governing coalition—and suggest that some cooperation with the regime may be needed to implement this strategy. Third, they underscore the need to examine why local politics differ from the regional and national levels in authoritarian regimes. Along with other contributions in this volume, the findings suggest that authoritarian states' reliance on patron-client relationships leaves them vulnerable to challenges by opposition movements who are able to mobilize support among marginalized groups.
Research Interests: Regional and Local Governance, Local Government, Legislative Politics, Local Government and Local Development, Women, and 21 moreParliamentary Studies, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Legislatures, Political Islam, Islam and women, Legislative Studies, Islamic Movements and Political Islam, Parliament, Algeria, Local Governments, Legislative, Local governance, Islamic Movements, Contemporary Algeria, Parliamentary Politics, Women and Islam, Islamist Political Parties, Islamist parties, Women and Political Islam, Basic Service Provision, and Casework
Research Interests: Moroccan Studies, Women, Parliamentary Studies, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Morocco, and 11 moreİslamist Movement, Parliament, Algeria, Tunisia, Islam and Politics, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, Contemporary Algeria, Political System and Change in Tunisia, Islamist movements, Islamist Political Parties, and Basic Service Provision
Why do we know so little about gender and politics in the Middle East? Most obviously, few women were elected to office in the Arab world until recently, limiting the study of women in formal politics. In Morocco, the first female was... more
Why do we know so little about gender and politics in the Middle East? Most obviously, few women were elected to office in the Arab world until recently, limiting the study of women in formal politics. In Morocco, the first female was elected to the lower house in 1993, while in Saudi Arabia, women first ran for office—in municipal elections—in 2015. Systematic data on politics has also been historically scant, making the study of women's informal participation, such as voting and civil society activities, also difficult. The Middle East tends to contribute less to comparative politics than have other regions, and so, it is unsurprising that little is known about a sometimes marginalized, though sizeable area of political science—gender and politics—in the Arab region. In a working paper, Marwa Shalaby and I discuss these and other reasons the Middle East lags behind in its contribution to gender and politics literature. We also summarize insights from new avenues of research which are transforming the ways we think about gender relations within and beyond the Arab world. In this memo, I discuss another barrier: the need for improved conceptualization and measurement of patriarchy. I argue that political scientists under-conceptualize patriarchy and fail to draw on existing feminist theory.1 By better engaging with feminist theorists such as Kandiyoti (1988), who conceptualized gender relations as a " patriarchal bargain, " and Sadiqi (2008), who distinguished private and public patriarchy, political scientists can better explain mechanisms promoting women's empowerment.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, and 22 moreWomen's Rights, Gender, Gender Equality, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Women, Middle Eastern Politics, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Development, Gender and religion (Women s Studies), Middle East Politics, Women's Empowerment, Women and Work, Mediterranean and North Africa, Middle East, Women and Gender Studies, Patriarchy, North Africa, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Arab Spring (Arab Revolts), Middle East and North Africa, and Patriarchal Society
Lindsay J. Benstead. “Understanding Islamist Politics: The Possibilities and Promise of Untapped Surveys.” Memo prepared for the third annual Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) Islamist Politics Conference, George... more
Lindsay J. Benstead. “Understanding Islamist Politics: The Possibilities and Promise of Untapped Surveys.” Memo prepared for the third annual Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) Islamist Politics Conference, George Washington University, January 29, 2016.
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Survey Methodology, and 20 moreMiddle Eastern Studies, Survey Research, Middle East Politics, Elections, Survey Research (Research Methodology), Surveying, Elections and Voting Behavior, Mediterranean and North Africa, Middle East, Survey, İslamist Movement, Tunisia, Middle East and North Africa, elections and democratic consolidation a comparative study of Nigeria and Ghana, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, Public Opinion Polling, Islamist movements, Interviewer Effects, Islamist Political Parties, and Interviewer Bias
Lindsay J. Benstead and Mietek Boduszynski. “Encouraging Democracy after the Arab Spring: Public Opinion and the Potential for Linkages.” 2015. Memo prepared for the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, Workshop on “Linking Public... more
Lindsay J. Benstead and Mietek Boduszynski. “Encouraging Democracy after the Arab Spring: Public Opinion and the Potential for Linkages.” 2015. Memo prepared for the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, Workshop on “Linking Public Opinion and Political Action.” Tunis.
Research Interests:
Incumbency advantage is a key characteristic of African politics. Since the reintroduction of multiparty elections in 1994, corruption has been a persistent feature of the various administrations in Malawi. From this perspective, the... more
Incumbency advantage is a key characteristic of African politics. Since the reintroduction of multiparty elections in 1994, corruption has been a persistent feature of the various administrations in Malawi. From this perspective, the incumbent president Joyce Banda of the People’s Party’s (PP) loss of the presidency after two years in office is a puzzling outcome of the 2014 elections. The paper explores why the incumbency advantage did not accrue to Banda, drawing from national public opinion surveys and focus group discussions conducted after the 2014 elections. We argue that, while faced with a
major corruption scandal, ‘Cashgate’, Banda paid a heavier price than male incumbents facing corruption scandals before her. Her electoral fate is consistent with studies demonstrating that women holding political offices are scrutinized more than men and, when they transgress female gender stereotypes of incorruptibility, they are judged to a higher standard.
major corruption scandal, ‘Cashgate’, Banda paid a heavier price than male incumbents facing corruption scandals before her. Her electoral fate is consistent with studies demonstrating that women holding political offices are scrutinized more than men and, when they transgress female gender stereotypes of incorruptibility, they are judged to a higher standard.
How do Arab citizens view Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what does this mean for US public diplomacy? To what extent have attitudes shifted since 2006, and should US public diplomacy strategies change accordingly? This... more
How do Arab citizens view Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what does this mean for US public diplomacy? To what extent have attitudes shifted since 2006, and should US public diplomacy strategies change accordingly? This article assesses national-level public opinion toward diplomatic, security, and economic relations with Israel using new Arab Barometer data from fifteen Arab countries spanning a ten-year period between 2006 and 2016. Several findings emerge. First, support for recognizing Israel if a two-state solution is reached with the Palestinians declined between 2006 and 2013 in six countries—Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt—but increased in four others—Sudan, Jordan, Palestine, and Yemen. Second, since 2011, support declined in Egypt for maintaining the Egypt-Israel treaty, though a majority still support maintaining it, and fewer than half of Palestinians and Jordanians support maintaining their agreements with Israel. Arab citizens widely see external interference as a problem—and many blame the US and Israel for creating Da’esh. Yet support for the US to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also increased since 2011 in several countries. Many citizens do wish to have US development support, but their views must be taken into account when external actors craft programs. In some types of countries—namely transitional countries (including Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt)—US involvement appears to be least welcomed. These findings have significant implications for how Western governments plan for and conduct public diplomacy, especially as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite diminishing support for recognizing Israel in some countries, increasing demand for the US to play a role in peacemaking in the years preceding the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem suggests a window of opportunity in which to support peace efforts. Rather than focusing on direct diplomacy only, the US and other western nations should listen to and acknowledge rising frustration among Arab citizens as they support efforts to improve human development and peace prospects.
Research Interests:
Many studies of electoral behavior and women’s electability in the developing world focus on single traits—e.g., religion, gender, and ethnicity. Yet, candidate identities affect electability intersectionally—i.e., identities are mutually... more
Many studies of electoral behavior and women’s electability in the developing world focus on single traits—e.g., religion, gender, and ethnicity. Yet, candidate identities affect electability intersectionally—i.e., identities are mutually constituted by social hierarchies, leading to complex, interactive effects—in ways that are underexplored in this existing literature. Using an original survey experiment conducted among 1,499 Jordanians, we examine the effects of multiple, intersecting candidate identities (i.e., gender, tribe, and Islamist party identification) on voter preferences. Respondents at random received statements about male or female candidates who were Islamists or co-tribalists and rated their likelihood of voting for each. We argue and show empirically that existing theories of electoral behavior cannot account for women’s electability without an approach that considers how social hierarchies intersectionally shape electability. We find that although less electable overall, female candidates fare as well as comparable males once intersectional identities are accounted for. Among some voters, women do better than men from similar groups. Our findings underscore the need to apply intersectionality to theories of electoral behavior in the developing world and lay the groundwork for a larger research agenda explaining women’s electability.
Research Interests: Women's Studies, Middle East Studies, Religion and Politics, Race and Ethnicity, Gender Equality, and 14 moreJordan, Islam, Gender and Politics, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Islamism, Gender and Social Policy, Arab world, Women and Gender Studies, Gender Quotas, Middle East and North Africa, Gender Bias, Tribes, Representation and Quotas, and Jordanian Politics
Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions, yet we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public support for human rights issues. Using an... more
Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions, yet we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public support for human rights issues. Using an original survey experiment of 1,381 Malawians embedded in the 2016 Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), we randomly assign respondents to a control group or one of four treatment groups to receive a message about child marriage reform from a female or male traditional authority or parliamentarian. Overall, we find that the female traditional authority is most effective, while other endorsers elicit backfire effects. Endorsements produce complex heterogeneous effects across respondent sex, patrilineal/matrilineal customs, gender attitudes, and institutional trust. We extend traditional governance literature by elaborating an intersectional approach to policy advocacy and building a theoretical framework explaining the impact of state and traditional endorsements across countries and policy domains.
Research Interests: Women's Studies, Women's Health, Women's Rights, Women and the Law, Women, and 22 moreParliamentary Studies, Women and Politics, Violence Against Women, Women Leadership, Women's Empowerment, Black Women's Studies, Women and Culture, Malawi, Women and Gender Studies, Parliament, Child marriage prevention, Gender and Women's Studies, Traditional Leadership, Child Marriage, Women and Leadership, Malawian Politics, Women and Local Politics, Traditional leadership competencies, Girl Child Marriage, Women and Global Politics, Traditional Leadership; Rural Development, and End child marriage
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Research Interests: Gender Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Gender, Gender Equality, and 10 moreWomen and Gender Issues in Islam, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Development, Middle East Politics, Middle East, Women and Gender Studies, Tunisia, Tunisie, Political System and Change in Tunisia, and Basic Service Provision
“The Tunisian Local Governance Performance Index” (with Pierre Landry, Ellen Lust, and Dhafer Malouche). Paper presented 2nd MENAPAR Conference, Tunis, October 6-9, 2015. Video available: https://youtu.be/wAFQiBO4RLQ
Research Interests: Education, Development Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, and 26 moreInternational Development, Security, Regional and Local Governance, Governance, Local Government, Local Government and Local Development, Women, Middle Eastern Politics, Corruption (Corruption), Middle Eastern Studies, Political Corruption, Survey Research, Health, Middle East Politics, Surveying, Mediterranean and North Africa, Middle East, Survey, Anti-Corruption, Transparency, Corruption, Tunisia, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Tunisian Revolution-Arab Spring, and Local Government Reform
Abstract will be provided by author.
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... Some regard this policy as the result of US pressure on Morocco and see discrimination against veiled women as a misguided tendency to regard French and western ... political liberalization in which the incumbent regime seeks to... more
... Some regard this policy as the result of US pressure on Morocco and see discrimination against veiled women as a misguided tendency to regard French and western ... political liberalization in which the incumbent regime seeks to improve political participation without the ...
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U.S. Secretary of State Blinken recently reiterated U.S. support for the expansion of the Abraham Accords and called for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As highlighted by this volume's authors, the Accords are the most... more
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken recently reiterated U.S. support for the expansion of the Abraham Accords and called for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As highlighted by this volume's authors, the Accords are the most significant regional peacemaking achievement in decades, having already reduced Arab-Israeli tensions, particularly at the government level, and provided opportunities for Arab states to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians. The changing regional security architecture can only be welcomed by the U.S. Yet, due to political authoritarianism in the region, the Accords may fall short of their potential if the economic gains fail to reach marginalized populations. I argue that trade relations that support job creation and access to water and energy may increase public support. Just as a return to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is important, political reform in the Arab countries is needed to make the Accords successful by bringing more economic benefits to the Arab streets and ensuring that they will not be a "Cold Peace".
Research Interests: Political Economy, Peace and Conflict Studies, Israel Studies, Political Science, Politics, and 15 moreSaudi Arabia, Negotiation, Israeli-Arab Relations, Authoritarianism, Israel, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Egyptian Politics, Peacemaking, Isreali-Palestinan Conflict, Israel Palestine, Arab Israeli conflict, Orbis, Jordanian Politics, and Abraham Accords
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (Western donors) messengers... more
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (Western donors) messengers cause resistance across public rights (quotas) and private rights (land reform). Using a framing experiment implemented among 1,704 Malawians, we find that females’ attitudes are unaffected by campaigns, while backlash occurs among patrilineal and matrilineal males. Backlash among men is more common for sensitive private rights (land reform) than public rights (quotas) and Western donors than women’s organizations, suggesting complex effects generally more consistent with the intrusiveness hypothesis.
Research Interests: African Studies, Gender Studies, Africa, Gender and Sexuality, Governance, and 15 moreGender, Gender Equality, Gender and Development, African Politics, Gender and education, Experimental Design, Africana Studies, Backlash, Gender Quotas, International Aid and Development, International Aid, Goverance, Equality and quotas, Good Goernance, and Electoral Quotas
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Political Science, Middle Eastern Politics, Middle Eastern Studies, Islam, and 15 moreMiddle East Politics, Middle East, Representation, Piety, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Clientelism, Institutionalisation, Political Clientelism, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Islamist movements, Islamist Political Parties, Mandate, Basic Service Provision, Legislator, and Representation Politics
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The past twenty years have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the number and sophistication of scientific opinion surveys in Arab countries. The conventional view of the Middle East as a wasteland for survey research has lost any... more
The past twenty years have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the number and sophistication of scientific opinion surveys in Arab countries. The conventional view of the Middle East as a wasteland for survey research has lost any relation to reality. Instead, the MENA has become one of the most innovative sites for creative research about popular attitudes and beliefs, thanks to pioneering institutes and survey projects. It shows how such work clashes with old assumptions held by scholars unfamiliar with the region, such as those regarding the origins and persistence of public support for democracy, the myriad determinants of voting and electoral behavior, the changing texture of gender norms and women’s rights, and the coherence of youth politics, embodied by the generation that drove the Arab uprisings. It also surveys the rise of experimental approaches as a major methodological advance and discusses the procedural hazards of survey research as a data-collecting technique. Such methodological and ethical considerations will continue to drive forward innovative public opinion research.
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The past twenty years have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the number and sophistication of scientific opinion surveys in Arab countries. The conventional view of the Middle East as a wasteland for survey research has lost any... more
The past twenty years have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the number and sophistication of scientific opinion surveys in Arab countries. The conventional view of the Middle East as a wasteland for survey research has lost any relation to reality. Instead, the MENA has become one of the most innovative sites for creative research about popular attitudes and beliefs, thanks to pioneering institutes and survey projects. It shows how such work clashes with old assumptions held by scholars unfamiliar with the region, such as those regarding the origins and persistence of public support for democracy, the myriad determinants of voting and electoral behavior, the changing texture of gender norms and women’s rights, and the coherence of youth politics, embodied by the generation that drove the Arab uprisings. It also surveys the rise of experimental approaches as a major methodological advance and discusses the procedural hazards of survey research as a data-collecting technique. S...
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Lindsay J. Benstead. 2019. “Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), Algeria.” In Conflict in the Modern Middle East: An Encyclopedia of Civil War, Revolutions, and Regime Change. Broomfield, CO: ABC-CLIO.
Research Interests: Political Parties, North Africa Studies, Legislative Politics, Algerian war, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, and 14 moreMediterranean and North Africa, Authoritarianism, Berber studies, Local politics in the Arab World, Algeria, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Arab politics, Contemporary Algeria, Algerie, Electoral Authoritarianism, Elections in Authoritarian states, Ethnic politics, and POLITICAL PARTIES OPPOSITION POLITICS
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This paper shares the advantages and challenges of using tablets to implement a complex survey on local governance and offers practical advice stemming from lessons learned during the successful implementation of the survey. It focuses on... more
This paper shares the advantages and challenges of using tablets to implement a complex survey on local governance and offers practical advice stemming from lessons learned during the successful implementation of the survey. It focuses on the experience of the Program on Governance and Local Development Using tablets offered several advantages. They allow for implementation of a long, complicated questionnaire and to implement survey experiments in which randomized subpopulations received different “treatments” (namely, versions of questions, framing questions, and list experiments). Tablets also make it possible for us to verify the location of respondents according to our sampling design. This geographical information is important at the data analysis stage by making it possible to account for clustering and “neighborhood effects” within small localities. Additionally, tablets allowed us to time the length of each interview precisely, which turned out to be important for catching data collection errors in the field. Using the tablets entailed some particular challenges as well. These included start-up costs of learning new software, programming the questionnaire, and the need to do pretesting and piloting to resolve coding bugs that can potentially introduce errors into the study. There are also important logistical considerations, including the availability of electricity and Internet connectivity. Finally, although tablets remove some sources of survey error, they may introduce others. It is important to recognize these potential problems in order to guard against them.
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Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent a significant rapprochement between the governments of Israel and several Arab countries, the... more
Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent a significant rapprochement between the governments of Israel and several Arab countries, the region is marked by the conditions of violence and insecurity that harm social trust and reduce the likelihood of conciliatory views. Using Arab Barometer data from twelve countries (2012-2014), I explore the factors that lead Arab citizens to be more supportive of normalization with Israel. I argue that while instability undermines the demand for peace, civil society engagement develops bonding and bridging social capital that supports conciliatory views. I find that perceived insecurity is negatively related to support for Arab-Israeli peace, yet greater social capital, in the form of tolerance, associational membership, and social media use, produced demand for peace. The largest predictors of attitudes toward Israel are country of residence and religious identity, with Sunni and Shi’a Muslims being less conciliatory toward Israel than Christians. Additionally, contrary to assumptions underlying US foreign policy, participating in politics by voting in democratic or authoritarian elections or protesting were related to lower demand for peace. Demographic change, including younger, more educated populations, was unrelated to attitudes toward Israel, but the data largely supported modernization theory as a predictor of conciliatory views. By illustrating the role that civil society and perceived security play in improving the conditions for peace, the results have implications for scholars of security studies and policymakers working to support democracy and peacemaking in the region.
Research Interests: Demography, Public Opinion, Peace and Conflict Studies, Middle East Studies, Political Science, and 14 moreSecurity Studies, Survey Research, Peace Studies, Israel, Civil Society, Peace agreements, Arab world, Public Policy and Administration, Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israel Palestine, Arab Israeli conflict, History of Israel Palestine Conflict, Mediterranean Politics, and Abraham Accords
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Are individuals who view women as less corrupt more likely to vote for women? Drawing on research from the social psychology of gender, this chapter examines whether and how perceptions about women’s incorruptibility shape their... more
Are individuals who view women as less corrupt more likely to vote for women? Drawing on research from the social psychology of gender, this chapter examines whether and how perceptions about women’s incorruptibility shape their electability. Many citizens see female politicians as less corrupt. Others state that men are less corrupt, a view consistent with “hostile sexism.” When asked directly, people who state that women are less corrupt or who see no difference between men and women in their propensity to engage in corruption are more likely to say that they would vote for females. However, a survey experiment casts doubt on these conclusions. Gender egalitarianism, not positive bias, may be most likely to benefit females, which is consistent with theories of gender role congruity and ambivalent sexism.
Research Interests: Psychology, Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, Middle East Studies, North Africa Studies, and 15 moreGender and Sexuality, Gender, Gender Equality, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Women, Political Corruption, Gender and Development, Jordan, Middle East Politics, Middle East, Corruption, Tunisia, North Africa, Anti corruption, and Tunisie
Some Somali majority clan girls and women receive economic and security benefits from marriage to Al-Shabaab fighters. Yet, the literature treats women’s experiences monolithically and misses the r...
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Refugee Studies, Women and War Studies, Civil War, East Africa, and 15 morePolitical Violence, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Survey Research, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Extremist Groups, Somalia, Ethnic Conflict and Civil War, Islam and women, Insurgency, War in Somalia, Al Shabaab, Forced Marriage, Child Marriage, Tribal Politics, and Somali Bantu
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, African Studies, Law, Gender Studies, Development Studies, and 15 moreInternational Development, Political Science, Africa, Gender, Gender Equality, Gender and Development, African Politics, Elections, Elections and Voting Behavior, Authoritarianism, Malawi, Corruption, Gender and Corruption, Malawian Politics, and Sub Saharan Africa
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Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Poverty, Democratization, Elections, Elections and Voting Behavior, and 15 moreAuthoritarianism, Social Inequality, Arab world, Democracy and democratization, Theoretical Politics, Poverty and Inequality, Clientelism, Political patronage, Patronage, Political Clientelism, Electoral politics, Patrimonialism, electoral politics in Africa, Self Esteem, and Patronage and Clientelism
Scholars and democracy promoters often suggest that electoral observers’ (EOs’) assessments impact public opinion in a straightforward manner, yet, research on communication cautions against these ...
Research Interests: Demography, Middle East Studies, North Africa Studies, Electoral Behavior, Middle Eastern Studies, and 15 moreJordan, Middle East Politics, Elections, Elections and Voting Behavior, Mediterranean and North Africa, Election Studies, Electoral Studies, Election Campaigning, Middle East, Arab world, Election Monitoring, Election, Democracy In the Arab World, Jordanian Foreign Policy, and Mediterranean Politics
Research Interests: Demography, Gender Studies, Middle East Studies, Gender, Gender Equality, and 15 moreEgalitarianism, Middle Eastern Politics, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Development, Morocco, Middle East Politics, Mediterranean and North Africa, Middle East, Arab world, North Africa, Measurement, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Middle East and North Africa, Mediterranean Politics, and arab barometer
ABSTRACTSurvey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab Spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and researchers added additional questions needed to answer theoretical and... more
ABSTRACTSurvey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab Spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and researchers added additional questions needed to answer theoretical and policy questions. Almost every Arab country now is included in the Arab Barometer or World Values Survey. Yet, some scholars express the view that the Arab survey context is more challenging than that of other regions or that respondents will not answer honestly, due to authoritarianism. I argue that this position reflects biases that assume “Arab exceptionalism” more than fair and objective assessments of data quality. Based on cross-national data analysis, I found evidence of systematically missing data in all regions and political regimes globally. These challenges and the increasing openness of some Arab countries to survey research should spur studies on the data-collection process in the Middle East and beyond.
Research Interests: Public Opinion, North Africa Studies, Political Science, Survey Methodology, Public Opinion (Political Science), and 9 moreSurvey Research, Survey Research (Research Methodology), Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Surveying, Arab world, Survey, North Africa, World Values Survey, and Democracy In the Arab World
Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions; yet, we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public opinion. Using an original survey experiment... more
Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions; yet, we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public opinion. Using an original survey experiment of 1,381 Malawians embedded in the 2016 Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), we randomly assign respondents into one of four treatment groups or a control group to hear messages about a child marriage reform from a female or male traditional authority (TA) or parliamentarian. In the sample as a whole, the female TA is as effective as the control (i.e., no endorsement), while other messengers elicit lower support (i.e., backfire effects). Endorsements produce heterogeneous effects across respondent sex and patrilineal/matrilineal customs, suggesting the need for tailored programs. Our paper adds an intersectional approach to the governance literature and offers a theoretical framework capable of explaining the impact of state and traditional end...
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Social Policy, Sex and Gender, Public Opinion, Political Science, and 15 moreGender and Sexuality, Gender, Gender Equality, Gender and Development, Intersectionality, Representation, Child marriage prevention, Traditional Authority, Policy Advocacy, Child Marriage, African Traditional Authority, African Traditional Authorities, Malawian Politics, Traditional Authorities, and Public Policy
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Comparative Politics, North Africa Studies, Political Science, Local Government, and 15 moreGender Equality, Local Government and Local Development, Women, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Women and Politics, Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Equity, Women and Gender Studies, Tunisia, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Local Councils, Local Councillors, Basic Service Provision, and Representation Politics
Research Interests: African Studies, Computer Science, Middle East Studies, North Africa Studies, Survey Methodology, and 15 moreSurvey Research, Jordan, Middle East Politics, Surveying, Survey Methods, Malawi, Survey, Tunisia, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Sampling techniques and survey methodologies, Survey Data Quality, Sub Saharan Africa, Tablet Computers, and Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing
Public opinion is patriarchal in the MENA, leading to low women’s workforce participation and political and economic problems. Efforts to explain attitudes focus on Islam and modernization, but miss employment-based mechanisms. Interest-... more
Public opinion is patriarchal in the MENA, leading to low women’s workforce participation and political and economic problems. Efforts to explain attitudes focus on Islam and modernization, but miss employment-based mechanisms. Interest- and exposure-based employment theories, drawn from US sociological studies, argue that employed women and their husbands develop feminist views through redefinition of interests and exposure to women’s capabilities. Using data from six Arab countries, I find support for employment-based theories. Husbands of employed wives exhibit greater egalitarianism than single men and husbands of nonworking wives. Female supporters of Shari’a are less accepting of inequality than religious men, suggesting gendered interpretations of Islam. The results complement research on women, Islam, and oil and underscore the importance of supporting women’s employment.
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ABSTRACT Under what conditions do individuals who profess to boycott products align actual and intended consumption habits? Inconsistency between self-reported participation and practice can help explain why few boycott campaigns harm... more
ABSTRACT Under what conditions do individuals who profess to boycott products align actual and intended consumption habits? Inconsistency between self-reported participation and practice can help explain why few boycott campaigns harm targets despite high political consumption rates reported in surveys of Americans and Europeans. Arab boycotts are fertile yet unexplored settings in which to assess this proposition. Using data from 820 Algerian students surveyed after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, we evaluate whether boycotters are more likely than others to weigh country-of-origin in preferences for soda, clothing, and mobile phones. Almost 60% claimed to boycott US goods – consistent with cross-national survey rates and a 2007 nationally representative survey of 800 Algerians – but fewer respondents expressed actual brand preferences consistent with this desire. We extend the political consumption literature by expanding its geographic scope and elaborating a mechanism by which product characteristics minimize or magnify collective action problems that undermine participation. Our results suggest that political consumers are more likely to maintain boycott behavior when targeting substitutable goods linked closely to identity (symbolic and visible), thereby reducing direct and information costs and enabling social network enforcement.
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Scholars, policymakers, and citizens express concern about the impact of gender and Islam on political participation. Despite the attention, many questions remain: do male or female, religious or secular candidates, compete on an equal... more
Scholars, policymakers, and citizens express concern about the impact of gender and Islam on political participation. Despite the attention, many questions remain: do male or female, religious or secular candidates, compete on an equal playing field? How do gender and Islam interact to affect electability? If biases exist, what explains them? We explore these questions through an experiment embedded in the Tunisian Post-Election Survey (TPES). We find little support for expectations drawn from modernization theory; secular, well-educated Tunisians are not more likely to support female candidates than religious, less-educated citizens. However, role congruity theory receives support. Religious voters of both genders support religious, female candidates, while those of both genders and religious orientations who value female participation support secular, female candidates. Explicating the mechanisms underlying biases extends our theoretical understanding of the relationship between gender, religion, and politics, and provides theoretical and policy insights into how biases can be diminished.
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Muslim and Arab identities have long been instrumentalized to forge unifying national and regional identities. The impact of Algeria’s post-colonial Arabization policies that educated people in Standard Arabic (to the exclusion of... more
Muslim and Arab identities have long been instrumentalized to forge unifying national and regional identities. The impact of Algeria’s post-colonial Arabization policies that educated people in Standard Arabic (to the exclusion of dialectal Arabic, Berber, or French) on economic cleavages and attitudes has been underexplored. Algeria has been described as polarized, with cultural and religious cleavages between Arabs and Berbers and traditionalists and modernists blamed for the country’s instability. Questions from a 2004 survey of 820 Algerian students allow us to distinguish between maternal language and preference for Standard Arabic or French used in professional settings. We analyze the influence of mother tongue, religiosity, and socioeconomic status on Arabophone or Francophone language orientation and whether there is evidence for the common assumption that Algeria is polarized politically and culturally among the three main language groups. Berber speakers and less religiou...
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... source (n=695). Views about women's participation in the public space do not correlate highly ... Page 17. 16 Women's Rights: Gender or Religio-Political Conflict? Images of women clad in black abayas protesting reform... more
... source (n=695). Views about women's participation in the public space do not correlate highly ... Page 17. 16 Women's Rights: Gender or Religio-Political Conflict? Images of women clad in black abayas protesting reform reflect the conventional wisdom ...
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Lindsay J. Benstead, Ellen Lust, Dhafer Malouche, Gamal Soltan, and Jakob Wichmann. “Islamists Aren’t the Obstacle: How to Build Democracy in Egypt and Tunisia.” Foreign Affairs. February 14, 2013.... more
Lindsay J. Benstead, Ellen Lust, Dhafer Malouche, Gamal Soltan, and Jakob Wichmann. “Islamists Aren’t the Obstacle: How to Build Democracy in Egypt and Tunisia.” Foreign Affairs. February 14, 2013. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/tunisia/2013-02-14/islamists-arent-obstacle
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Raghnhild Louise Muriaas, Vibeke Wang, Lindsay J. Benstead, Boniface Dulani, and Lise Rakner. “Why Campaigns to Stop Child Marriage Can Backfire.” The Washington Post Monkey Cage, December 13, 2018.... more
Raghnhild Louise Muriaas, Vibeke Wang, Lindsay J. Benstead, Boniface Dulani, and Lise Rakner. “Why Campaigns to Stop Child Marriage Can Backfire.” The Washington Post Monkey Cage, December 13, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/12/13/why-campaigns-to-stop-child-marriage-can-backfire/?utm_term=.ed196e312d14
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, International Development, Human Rights, Political Science, and 15 moreGender, Design of Experiments, Public Opinion (Political Science), Gender and Development, Matrilineality, Malawi, Child marriage prevention, Traditional Leadership, Policy Advocacy, International Development Studies, Child Marriage, Malawian Politics, Sub Saharan Africa, Children`s Rights, and Patrilineality
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Benstead traces women’s descriptive political representation in Tunisia from the first woman elected to parliament in 1959 to the introduction of the law of parity following the Arab spring, which commits the state to ensuring equal... more
Benstead traces women’s descriptive political representation in Tunisia from the first woman elected to parliament in 1959 to the introduction of the law of parity following the Arab spring, which commits the state to ensuring equal representation in elected institutions. Under Ben Ali’s state feminism, the Constitutional Rally for Democracy (RCD) implemented a 20% party quota in 1999, which it increased to 30% in 2009. After the Arab spring, civil society advocated legislative quotas calling for vertical alternation between male and female candidates. However, when women won only 28% of seats in the 2011 and 2014 national elections, activists achieved a horizontal provision for local elections (expected in 2018) requiring that women also head half of all lists.
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Lindsay J. Benstead. 2019. “Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), Algeria.” In Conflict in the Modern Middle East: An Encyclopedia of Civil War, Revolutions, and Regime Change. Broomfield, CO: ABC-CLIO.
Research Interests: Political Parties, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Legislative Politics, Algerian war, and 14 moreMediterranean and North Africa, Authoritarianism, Berber studies, Local politics in the Arab World, Algeria, North Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Arab politics, Contemporary Algeria, Algerie, Electoral Authoritarianism, Elections in Authoritarian states, Ethnic politics, and POLITICAL PARTIES OPPOSITION POLITICS
Most national constitutions contain provisions calling for the protection of equal rights universally—for all groups—and more commonly in recent years for women specifically, due to the rise of the international women’s rights regime and... more
Most national constitutions contain provisions calling for the protection of equal rights universally—for all groups—and more commonly in recent years for women specifically, due to the rise of the international women’s rights regime and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action.
Yet, despite widespread promotion of equal rights, gender equality has not been fully achieved in any country. Patriarchal norms and practices are more robust in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) than in any other world region. This essay defines patriarchy, with attention to classic and modern approaches, and discusses how academics and policymakers quantify egalitarianism. Scholarly attempts to measure and explain gender inequality have limitations, in that they do not recognize patriarchy’s public and private forms—that is, its multidimensionality. This essay highlights the diversity of outcomes for women both cross-regionally, with the best outcomes for women in Tunisia, but lower egalitarianism in many parts of the Levant and Gulf. It calls for an intersectional approach which takes into account such factors as class and tribal identity in understanding the complex factors that shape women’s access to economic opportunities, health and human development, and political power.
Yet, despite widespread promotion of equal rights, gender equality has not been fully achieved in any country. Patriarchal norms and practices are more robust in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) than in any other world region. This essay defines patriarchy, with attention to classic and modern approaches, and discusses how academics and policymakers quantify egalitarianism. Scholarly attempts to measure and explain gender inequality have limitations, in that they do not recognize patriarchy’s public and private forms—that is, its multidimensionality. This essay highlights the diversity of outcomes for women both cross-regionally, with the best outcomes for women in Tunisia, but lower egalitarianism in many parts of the Levant and Gulf. It calls for an intersectional approach which takes into account such factors as class and tribal identity in understanding the complex factors that shape women’s access to economic opportunities, health and human development, and political power.
Research Interests: Women's Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, North Africa Studies, Women's Rights, and 15 moreEgalitarianism, Women, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Middle Eastern Studies, Women's Empowerment, Mediterranean and North Africa, Middle East, Women and Gender Studies, Women's Entrepreneurship, Patriarchy, North Africa, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Middle East and North Africa, Patriarchal Society, and Patriachal Society
Lindsay Benstead. 2012. “Parliament.” In Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, Princeton University Press.
Research Interests: Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Political Institutions, Parliamentary Studies, and 21 moreMiddle Eastern Studies, Legislatures, Islamic Political Thought, Middle East Politics, Elections, Elections and Voting Behavior, Political Islam, Authoritarianism, Authoritarian regimes, Middle East, Arab world, History of Islamic Political Thought, Comparative Politics, Democratization, Authoritarian Regimes, Regime Change, Concept Analysis, Measurement, Parliament, Muslim World Issues, Parliamentary Politics, Elections in Authoritarian states, Democracy In the Arab World, Islamic Political Philosophy, Legislature, and Comparative legislatures
Lindsay J. Benstead. 2019. “Clientelism (Patrimonialism).” In Conflict in the Modern Middle East: An Encyclopedia of Civil War, Revolutions, and Regime Change. Broomfield, CO: ABC-CLIO.