The Dimensions of Sociopolitical Destabilization in MENA Region in Comparative Global Perspective

Abstract

Much has been written about the destabilizing factors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (and the Afrasian instability macrozone in general) since 2011; however, the characteristics of its destabilization dimensions have been little discussed. Our principal component analysis based on the CNTS, Global Terrorism and Center for Systemic Peace databases, shows that some MENA countries are the most violently destabilized in the entire world for the period of 1970–2018 compared to all other countries. These results are supported by the mean factor scores of the principal components of socio-political destabilization for four world-system regions for three observation periods which show that both for the 1970–2018 and post-2011 periods, the Afrasian instability macrozone in general, and the MENA region in particular, emerge as the areas with the highest mean values of bloody destabilization factor scores. Moreover, the tests conducted show that MENA is the only region where destabilization component of mass protest is associated with repressions both for the general observation period (1970–2018) and for the post-Arab Spring period (since 2011) while for other regions the correlation with the purges/repressions indicator is insignificant, albeit positive (South America and sub-Saharan Africa) or even insignificant and negative (Western Europe). This seems to imply that in the MENA region protests are much more systematically accompanied by mass repressions than in other parts of the world. On the other hand, for Sub-Saharan Africa we find the presence of a number of terrorist attacks among the significant contributors to mass protest destabilization, suggesting that mass protest destabilization in this part of the world is also of a rather special nature, with a very substantial violent component. Meanwhile, the principal component analysis of destabilization in the MENA region (considered as a semi-peripheral world-system area) in comparison with South America (another world-system area), Western Europe (considered as a part of the world-system core), and Sub-Saharan Africa (considered as a part of the world-system core) has yielded the following results. In general, we find that the highest percentage of destabilization variance is explained by the mass protest principal component for the world-system core (represented by Western Europe); on the other hand, the lowest percentage of the destabilization variance is explained by the bloody destabilization principal component precisely for this part of the world. We also find that the highest percentage of destabilization variance is explained by the bloody principal component for the world-system periphery (represented by sub-Saharan Africa); on the other hand, the lowest percentage of the destabilization variance is explained by the mass protest destabilization principal component precisely for sub-Saharan Africa. The world-system semi-periphery appears here between these poles. The MENA region (which is the core of the Afrasian instability macrozone) ranks second in terms of both mass protest and bloody destabilization, with very high levels of both (while South America occupies an intermediate position between MENA and Western Europe).