Determinants of political instability across Arab Spring countries

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of political instability across Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with special attention to the Arab Spring-affected region. The yearly data-set covers 19 countries in the MENA region for the period 1991–2014. The study uses pooled ordinary least square (OLS), fixed effect and random effect approaches. Our most robust result indicates that political instability in the region is very sensitive to exogenous food price shocks. Youth unemployment and regime durability are also strong predictors of unrest. The frustrated educated youth explanation of the Arab Spring is, however, not borne out by our study. The connection between the presence of democratic institutions and political unrest is more complex. Our results confirm other studies which find that more democracy leads to less unrest. On the other hand, our focused study of five Arab Spring countries and Egypt finds the reverse. Our results are sensitive to the ways in which the variables are defined. It is always important to use alternative empirical specifications when undertaking econometric investigations of political processes.