Andrea Teti

The Arab Uprisings were unexpected events of rare intensity in Middle Eastern history – mass, popular and largely non-violent revolts which threatened and in some cases toppled apparently stable autocracies. This volume provides in-depth analyses of how people perceived the socio-economic and political transformations in three case studies epitomis...

The EU missed the opportunity afforded by the Arab Uprisings to refocus its Neighbourhood Policy to address the structural causes of instability in MENA states. Findings from the Arab Transformations survey demonstrate that these causes remain unchanged, and directly impact on security, cohesion, resilience, political mobilisation and radicalisatio...

The story of the ‘Arab Spring’ as a revolt of young people against autocracy does not stand up to survey analysis at country level. Data from the Arab Transformations Survey show that young people were over-represented as participants, but it is necessary to stretch the concept of ‘youth’ into middle age in some countries to say this, there were pl...

This article draws on public opinion survey data from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan to investigate first, whether a “demand for democracy” in the region exists; second, how to measure it; and third, how respondents understand it. The picture emerging from this analysis is complex, eluding the simple dichotomy between prima facie support and s...

This book shows, first, why the EU is not a ‘normative actor’ in the Southern Mediterranean, and second, how and why EU democracy promotion fails. Drawing on a combination of discourse analysis of EU policy documents and evidence from opinion polls showing ‘what the people want’, the book shows EU policy fails because the EU promotes a conception o...

A recently published dataset of Middle East and North Africa (MENA)–focused scholarship in journals selected to represent the disciplinary “core” of political science sheds empirical light on key publishing trends, from the balance between quantitative and qualitative studies to the growth in experimental and “large-N” statistical methods. Cammett...

Dopo una breve panoramica sulle politiche domestiche dell'Egitto di al-Sisi (dal 2013 ad oggi), il capitolo si dedicherà ad analizzare criticamente alcune delle passate e presenti rappresentazioni dell'Egitto come bastione di stabilità in una regione turbolenta, e, soprattutto, come "partner ineludibile" per la sicurezza euro-mediterranea. L'analis...

During the Arab Uprisings (or ‘Arab Spring’), the EU recognized that the populations in its ‘Southern Neighborhood’ had been marginalized politically and economically; that this produced instability in politics, economics, and security; and that EU policy needed to correct its previous mistake of equating authoritarian repression with stability. Un...

Conventional approaches to democratization in the Middle East take for granted the priority of some civil–political rights (e.g., voting) over others (e.g., rights of association or protest, socioeconomic rights). The discursive structure of these approaches has framed both the promotion of democracy by the European Union and regional governments’...

We draw innovatively on new and existing public opinion survey data carried out across North African countries since 2011 to provide a 'view from below of the type of democracy that citizens of North African countries want and compare this conception with the type of democracy the European Union (EU) 'offers' its counterparts in the 'Southern Neigh...

Michel Foucault is one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century and one of the leading figures in contemporary Western intellectual life and debate. The recent publication of his last lecture courses at the Collège de France (1981–1984), together with the short texts, essays, and interviews from the same period, hav...

The sociology of the Middle East has been an expanding field of inquiry since the aftermath of WWII when phenomena as diverse as urbanization, internal and international migration, and peasant societies attracted the attention of scholars working on the region. The Middle East became central in key sociological debates on modernization theory and t...

This article explores whether, in the decade preceding the 2011 uprising, Egypt’s Independent Civic Activists (ICAs) can be considered organic intellectuals in terms of Antonio Gramsci’s well-known definition. To do so, three aspects of ‘organicity’ with respect to subaltern groups are identified: a ‘demographic’ dimension, namely their embeddednes...

This chapter looks in detail at citizens’ views on the extent to which their governments are meeting their demands for inclusive economic development, decent employment and fighting corruptions. It concludes that they are generally dissatisfied with the way governments are managing the economy and providing basic services, although there are some d...

This chapter uses survey data to analyse perceptions of the EU, its development cooperation programmes, its promotion of democracy, the appropriateness of its response to the Arab Uprisings and the perception of the EU as an international actor. Overall, the data suggests low levels of awareness and relatively negative opinions of the EU’s actions...

The chapter does three things: first, it examines the discursive structure of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as it was revised between 2011 and 2017, critically assessing its claim to discursive novelty in the post-Uprisings principles and frameworks of the ENP; secondly, it examines the policies and practices associated with post-Uprising...

This chapter provides a bridge between the critical policy analysis offered in the first half of the book and the analysis of public opinion survey data in the second half. Comparing before and after the Uprisings, it does three things. First, it examines the changing political context within which the EU is delivering the European Neighbourhood Po...

This chapter compares the way in which the EU defines and promotes gender equality and the empowerment of women on the one hand and the conceptions of women’s rights in Southern Mediterranean Countries (SMCs) on the other. The chapter begins by examining the evolution and metamorphosis of the EU’s self-image as a gender entrepreneur, followed by an...

This chapter explores the evolution of the EU’s self-image as a normative entrepreneur—what it sees as good and successful in its own creation—which should be exported as the model of society to which others should aspire. This provides the context for examining the extent to which the EU’s foreign policy in Southern Mediterranean Countries is, as...

This book has above all shown why the EU is not a ‘normative actor’ in the Middle East and how and why EU democracy promotion fails. These efforts fail because the Union promotes the wrong kind of democracy and the wrong kind of strategies for economic growth—wrong both in the sense that these approaches do not work and in the sense that they are n...

This chapter sets the scene for analyses in Chaps. 4 and 5 by tracing the roots, rationales and evolution of the EU’s pre-Uprisings external relations in its Southern Neighbourhood. The chapter then examines the discursive structure of EU policies in the run-up to 2010–11 in three key areas: democracy, development and delivery. Key pre-Uprisings EU...

This chapter addresses five questions: what were the drivers of the 2011 Uprisings?; what do citizens see as the main challenges facing their country?; do they want democracy and if yes what kind of democracy?; what type of government do they think will deliver on their priorities?; and do they trust their governments to deliver on their priorities...

The article can be downloaded at https://theconversation.com/tunisians-head-for-the-polls-amid-dimming-faith-in-democracy-122492

Youth, employment and Civil Society (CS) have long been crucial to both political and economic inclusion. Longstanding debates over how best to design and implement related policies were given renewed vigour in the wake of the Arab Uprisings: the risks involved in failing to achieve such inclusion and cohesion are clear. In line with Hiwar II’s aim...

What are nature and origins/causes of the major political, economic, and social challenges in the Euro-Mediterranean region today (e.g. security, migration, democracy, development)? What role can the EU play in the Southern Neighbourhood to meet those challenges? This report addresses these two central questions. Because there can be no stability,...

Egyptians are voting in presidential elections on March 26-28. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who grabbed power in 2013, is set to win another term by a landslide. Yet this is far from a sign of strength: opposition candidates have been silenced, and even pro-government media are being purged of the slightest undertone of dissent. Al-Sisi’s grip on power m...

A analysis of the underlying causes of the riots in Tunisia in 2018 for a popular audience. Link to article https://theconversation.com/tunisia-is-back-on-a-knife-edge-heres-why-90245

This chapter compares and combines key background information from political history and non-survey data with people’s perceptions as captured in surveys, to explore trends in people’s perceptions and political preferences before and after the Uprisings. This data suggest that people across all three countries are committed both to the idea of demo...

This chapter shows that, as with the economy, by 2014 people’s hopes that their lives would improve and that governments would address their grievances had been dashed. Early optimism was replaced by concern that things were not getting better. Trust in government was low—albeit higher in the judiciary and the police and very high in the army—and c...

This chapter summarises the results of an analysis of empirical data conducted throughout the volume, focusing on key issues: corruption, gender, youth, trust, religion and democracy. This analysis epitomises the integrated approach to quantitative and qualitative data the volume calls for. The chapter concludes with reflections on the implications...

This chapter shows that people’s hopes that the socio-economic and political situation would improve and that governments would address their grievances following the 2010–2011 Uprisings had not been met in 2014. The economic situation had not improved, the security situation had deteriorated and governance remained a concern. Citizens agreed that...

This chapter discusses the causes of the Arab Uprisings, who took part, what people saw as the main challenges facing their country and what their hopes were. It outlines the principal explanations for the Uprisings, then uses survey data to explore people’s views on key issues. We consider what we can learn from public opinion surveys about ordina...

The Arab Uprisings were events of rare intensity in Middle Eastern history as mass, popular and largely non-violent revolts which threatened and toppled supposedly stable autocracies. Branded them the region’s ‘1989 moment’, when counter-revolution followed revolution, artificial expectations gave way to equally misplaced disaffection, still fails...

EU policy towards its Southern Neighbourhood aims to ensure the security of Member States and is underpinned by an assumption of a shared interests in democracy, security, and prosperity through economic liberalisation. It sees the main way of achieving these aims as promoting Western-style liberal democracy as a political system capable of providi...

Corruption provokes much anger in the Middle East and North African (MENA) and was important in the Arab Uprisings; it was government corruption that sparked the greatest anger among the population. The argument of this Report is (a) that corruption is a major and obvious breach of trust, (b) that the same is true for ‘civil’ corruption – ‘wasta’ i...

The story of the ‘Arab Spring’ as a revolt of young people against autocratic rule and to bring democracy to their countries is not a good fit to the available data. Younger people were indeed over-represented in comparison to the age distribution of the population as a whole, but some of those ‘identified’ as young were in fact well into middle ag...

This paper examines whether the expectations of the post-2011 Arab uprisings have been met, by evaluating how citizens felt, three years later, who had supported the 2011 events actively or passively. The 2011 protests that shook the Arab world could be seen as a form of popular protest demanding democratic government - albeit on a massive, cross-n...

Since the beginning of the century, public opinion poll data has become increasingly available for researching political, social and economic attitudes and values in the MENA. This provides another avenue for new and innovative research, including exploring models of political systems and their transformations (e.g. democratization, authoritarian r...

The romantic story of the ‘Arab Spring’ as a revolt of young people against autocratic rule and in favour of liberal values does not stand up to analysis using representative survey data. It is true that young people were over-represented among both participants and supporters, but there were plenty of older people there as well, and the protests w...

Using public opinion survey data and international statistics, this Brief looks at the serious problem of youth unemployment in North Africa, due in part to decades of ‘structural adjustment’ which have eroded job opportunities in the public sector. The problem stretches beyond the ILO definition of ‘unemployment’ to include those who no longer see...

North Africa has some of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world and young women are at considerably greater risk of unemployment than young men and a majority of whom never make the school-employment transition. However, focusing on just those that are unemployed misses out on those that are neither in education or employment (NEETs). Th...

Article available at: https://opendemocracy.net/content/august-13-2017

Avalable at: https://opendemocracy.net/content/august-13-2017

Available at https://opendemocracy.net/content/august-13-2017

Download at: https://theconversation.com/iraq-must-now-rebuild-itself-and-that-means-fixing-its-dreadful-governance-80509?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%201%202017%20-%2079906396&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%201%202017%20-%2079906396+CID_0ec9c7f222bc3d159c4413cca41721...

Article available at: https://theconversation.com/public-disgust-over-corruption-threatens-stability-in-middle-east-and-north-africa-79308

Available at: http://www.thepolicyspace.com.au/2017/29/196-arab-publics-continue-to-see-women-as-second-class-citizens

The data set for the Arab Transformations Public Opinion Poll carried out in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia in 2014.

The Arab Transformations Survey was carried out in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia in 2014. full details can be found in the Methods Handbook and the Code Book

Avalable at: https://theconversation.com/against-the-tide-why-womens-equality-remains-a-distant-dream-in-arab-countries-74410

The main drivers of the Arab Uprisings were economic grievances and a perceived growth in inequalities. Poor economic growth and lack of inclusive policies are the underlying causes of insecurity in the region The main concerns of people in the MENA are economic security and corruption. People think that the best way in which the EU can help thei...

New findings from the 2014 ArabTrans research in six MENA countries shed light on what citizens think of the EU and whether its policies address their concerns. • The survey shows that citizens are less concerned with procedural democracy and more with corruption, the rule of law and social justice on the one hand and the economic consequences of l...

The EU is concern about the security threat posed by flows of migrants from the Arab World to Europe. • Instability in the region has increased the flow of migrants but migration is not new and just over half of migrants stay in the region. • Migrants bring economic benefits to the destination countries; the EU ,with an ageing population, needs mig...

• The European Union aims to assure its security by bringing prosperity, stability and democracy to its neighbours. • Southern neighbours have become less stable after the 2011 Uprisings, and the region faces continuing conflicts and floods of refugees and internally displaced people causing great economic strain. • The EU policy is failing becaus...

• EU policy towards its Southern Neighbourhood aims to achieve security for its Member States through development and democracy. A shared understanding of democracy is assumed to be in place, and Western-style market democracy is the main tool for achieving security and prosperity. • Although public opinion polls in Arab countries show strong suppo...

With ISIS' influence declining, Iraq faces the challenge of rebuilding both its economy and its political system. • Amidst the devastation left by conflict, Iraq's political leaders have the opportunity to address the internal divisions which made ISIS possible. • Any post-conflict settlement must take into account the population's concerns and pri...

Corruption is the antithesis of the Rule of Law and erodes the discourse of fairness and mutual consideration which is necessary for peace, prosperity and socioeconomic development. It increases the risk of state capture and resistance to change by the political elite. It results in poor public management and resource allocation and an inequitable...

The Arab region retains deeply conservative gender attitudes against the trend of moves to more liberal values generally across the globe.  Arab citizens say they support gender equality but women are generally treated as second class citizens especially in family law.  Islam is often blamed for gender conservatism, but the systematic repression...

Based on an analysis of a longitudinal dataset including both survey and non-survey quantitative indicators, the main objective of this report is to identify and analyse the significance of the political, economic and social transformations in Egypt during the 2000-2015 period. Methods of analysis is on the one hand popular perceptions as reflecte...

The objectives of this report are to: • provide background reports on the seven countries describing the social and political changes the countries underwent in the forty or so years leading up to the 2010/11 Uprisings; • analyse the drivers of the Uprisings using political economy analysis; • identify the detailed questions that the project will s...