Measuring the evolution of Arab States’ perceptions of the Iranian threat: a quantitative text analysis of Arabic-language state media, 2010–20

Abstract

ABSTRACT After the Arab Uprisings, inter-state relations in the Middle East became polarized between the two camps of the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Iran and its allies, which strengthened the threat perception of Iran among Arab states. This study aims to empirically elucidate the changes in the perception of threats against Iran among Arab states through a quantitative text analysis of major state media in 10 Arab states. Through this analysis, we first substantiated that the Arab threat perception of Iran increased, especially in GCC members, after the Arab Uprisings. Second, there were significant differences in threat perception, even among the GCC states, according to their political stance towards key events in international relations. We also propose a new empirical method for studying securitization in critical security theory based on quantitative text analysis.