Determinants of the Arab Spring Protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya: What Have We Learned?

Zahraa Barakat and Ali Fakih
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Zahraa Barakat: Department of Economics, Lebanese American University, Beirut P.O. Box. 13-5053, Lebanon

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: This paper provides empirical evidence on the determinants of protest participation in Arab Spring countries that witnessed major uprisings and in which social unrest was most pronounced. Namely, this paper investigates the latter in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya using a micro-level data survey, the Arab Transformation Survey (2015). The findings of our probit regression analysis reveal that gender, trust in government, corruption concern, and social media usage have influenced the individual’s perception of protest activism. We find evidence that the role of economic factors was inconsistent, whereas political grievances were more clearly related to the motive to participate in the uprisings. We then control for country-specific effects whereby results show that citizens in each country showed different characteristics of participation. The findings of this research would set the ground for governments to better assess the health of their societies and be a model of governance in the Middle East.

Keywords: Arab Spring; participation; protesting; probit model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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