Arab Spring Countries Research Articles

Football supporterism in Tunisia: facilitating participatory democracy through citizen education

ABSTRACT After the Arab Spring (early 2010's), the relationship between football supporterism and politics has been the subject of much debate. We attempted to describe, understand, and explain the modes of interaction between supporterism in post-revolution Tunisia, the ultras supporters’ (i) involvement in their club’_ affairs, and (ii) participation in the political life of the country. The case studied is that of ultras supporters of the Tunisian football team ”Club Africain” (CA). We opted for a constructivist-grounded methodology, using semi-structured interviews with 10 CA fans and 10 fans of the rival team from the same city (Tunis), Espérance Sportive de Tunis (EST), who represented the control group. A conceptual diagram was constructed to visualize the relationships between the items collected and the emerging theoretical dimensions. The results indicate an inclusive and autonomous commitment based on universal values. This persuasion experiment revealed a dynamic and creative model that led to positive changes in attitudes within the club and in the country's political life. During the club's crisis, this mobilisation led to the development of solidarity, mutual aid, and meaningful actions. As a result, it encouraged real involvement in the country's political events. The research model constructed visualizes a voluntary and autonomous educational process involving political participation that helps to regulate the country's democratic process. The study proposed pro-social alternatives, highlighting young people's spontaneous learning to participate in a dynamic and reflective political process. The results of the study should be verified with other types of supporters and in other Arab Spring countries.

The Impacts of Government Expenditure on Poverty Alleviation in Arab Spring Countries

The Impacts of Government Expenditure on Poverty Alleviation in Arab Spring Countries

The effect of political risk and corporate governance on bank stability in the MENA region: Did the Arab Spring uprisings matter?

This study examines the impact of political risk and corporate governance mechanisms (CGM) on bank stability. The research problem was addressed using a sample of 954 bank-year observations from 14 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries during the period 2010–2018 to take into account the effect of the recent uprisings that broke out in the MENA region (i.e., Arab Spring events). This study uses the three-Stage Least-Squares (3SLS) regression method for data analysis. It is found that political stability enhances banks’ financial stability. Regarding the impact of CGM, it is found that board size, board independence, managerial ownership, and audit committee size and meetings significantly and positively affect bank stability. In contrast, board meetings, board gender diversity, CEO duality, and institutional ownership significantly and negatively affect bank financial stability. By dividing the sample into two subsamples (Arab Spring countries and Non-Arab Spring countries), the results revealed that the Arab uprising events significantly affect the relationship between political stability, CGM, and bank stability.

The Systematic Risk at the Crisis—A Multifractal Non-Uniform Wavelet Systematic Risk Estimation

In the last decade, many factors, such as socio-political and econo-environmental ones, have led to a perturbation in the timeline of the worldwide development, and especially in countries and regions having political changes. This led us to introduce a new idea of risk estimation taking into account the non-uniform changes in markets by introducing a non-uniform wavelet analysis. We aim to explain the econo-political situation of Arab spring countries and the effect of the revolutions on the market beta. The main novelty is first the construction of a dynamic backward-forward model for missing data, and next the application of random non-uniform wavelets. The proposed procedure will be acted empirically on a sample corresponding to TUNINDEX stock as a representative index of the Tunisian market actively traded over the period from 14 January 2016 to 13 January 2021. The chosen 5-year period is important as it constitutes the first five years after the revolution and depends strongly on the socio-econo-political stability in the revolutionary countries. The results showed the efficiency of non-uniform wavelets in explaining the dynamics of the market well. They therefore may be good tools to explore important phenomena in the market such as the non-stationary aspect of financial series, non-constancy, and time-varying parameters. These facts in turn will have positive implications for investors as well as politicians in front of the evolution of the market. Besides, recommendations to extend the present method for other types of wavelets and markets will be of interest.

Source of fund, financial constraints, political instability, and firm innovation: empirical evidence from Arab Spring countries

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to examine the impact of financial constraints on innovation in countries experiencing the Arab Spring. It also looks at how the impact of financial constraints varies with the source of funding. The study uses 2013 BEEPS data. 2261 companies from 5 MENA countries were included in our sample. The recursive bivariate probit and extended probit models are used. Our findings show that financial constraints negatively affect the likelihood of enhancing a firm's innovative performance. Unlike the existing literature, the effect of financial barriers was not only directly examined, but also the region and fund structure of the company were examined together. Although bank loans directly negatively impact innovation performance, when this effect is considered together with financial barriers, it has been observed that the effects of financial barriers decrease. An even more significant decline is seen with the inclusion of the regional influence.

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

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.

The Stock and CDS Market Consequences of Political Uncertainty: The Arab Spring

ABSTRACT We investigate how political unrest affects asset prices in the context of the Arab Spring. Abnormal returns in the major stock-market indices of Arab Spring countries average −1.1% on key days of Arab Spring and abnormal changes in credit default spreads average 1.4%. There is significant reaction to region wide as well as local protests indicating a spillover with protests in neighboring countries affecting investors’ perception of local political instability and the pricing of assets. Once protests start locally, investors start paying more attention to what is happening at home than in the region. The significant stock market reaction to region-wide protests in Arab Spring countries indicates a spill-over where investors price an increase in the probability of political turmoil in one country when there are protests in neighboring countries. The decline in stock market indices coupled with the increase in credit default spreads indicates that investors anticipate and ex-ante price how current political uncertainty will affect firm value.

The Impact of Military Spending on The Economic Growth of Arab Spring Countries

The Impact of Military Spending on The Economic Growth of Arab Spring Countries

On the prediction of financial distress in emerging markets: What matters more? Empirical evidence from Arab spring countries

This study explores the main determinants of financial distress in 11 emerging countries. Using two-way cluster-robust standard errors, evidence shows that matured, profitable, liquid, small firms with high market-to-book ratio and low growth in assets are less prone to financial distress. Moreover, well-developed financial markets in countries with low levels of corruption reduce financial distress. Furthermore, it uses tests for equality between coefficients and moderates multiple regressions to capture the effect of firm life cycle on financial distress, over three Arab Spring sub-periods. The results imply adopting strategies to increase earned capital and cash holdings, avoid over-investment, and facilitate risk diversification strategies.

Shared values or shared interests? Arab publics and intervention in Syria

Analysing Arab public opinion on the international community’s response to the Syrian crisis, we expand existing scholarship by injecting a non-Western perspective into the oftentimes Western-centric debates on intervention. We demonstrate that publics in two prominent Arab Spring countries were quite willing to embrace intervention in Syria in order to depose Bashar al-Assad. More specifically, our analysis reveals that both interests and values shape support for different types of international intervention in Syria. In the context of the distinction between policy-driven and culture-driven anti-Americanisms, we show that Egyptian and Tunisian evaluations of US foreign policy behaviour and, to lesser extent, US culture correlate with support for Western-led intervention in Syria.

The Arab Spring and the International Defense Market

AbstractThe aim of this study is to analyze the impact of the political violence during the Arab Spring on the stock market return of international defense firms. The direction of this impact is not directly straightforward as the civil unrests influence the expectations of investors in two opposite ways. On the one hand, investors might expect that when the peaceful demonstrations were turned into violent events, the Arab governments involved will start acquiring more military-strategic goods to repress the protests or send a strong signal of power to ensure their stay in office. However, on the other hand, when the popular protests escalated, investors, perhaps, became more concerned about the possible imposition of international military sanctions against the Arab Spring countries to restore peace and protect human rights. The main empirical findings of a dynamic panel model clearly confirm this pattern and point out that when the Arab Spring originated, the abnormal return of international defense stocks starts to rise immediately. However, in the course of time, the concerns of the introduction of arms embargoes become stronger and eventually start to dominate, causing the abnormal return to fall again, while the idiosyncratic risk began to fall due to enhanced diversification. It turns out that firm-specific factors can explain a substantial part of the effect found. For instance, the reaction of investors to the Arab Spring is significantly larger for firms that produce predominantly military goods.

ВПЛИВ ГЛОБАЛЬНИХ КОНФЛІКТІВ НА РОЗВИТОК БАНКІВСЬКОГО СЕКТОРУ В КРАЇНАХ, ЩО РОЗВИВАЮТЬСЯ

The article reveals the features of global conflicts, which nowadays can combine both armed and unarmed instruments of influence. We distinguish several transmission channels in transforming the local conflicts to global ones: the channel of migrants, the information channel, the sociocultural channel, and the channel of financial flows. Regarding the impact of global conflicts on the banking sector we determine five hypotheses and evaluate them based on the case of Arab Spring countries (Libya, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Oman, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Algeria). Firstly, financial depth fluctuates slightly, with a tendency to momentary slight reduction and subsequent growth acceleration in the period after the conflict. Secondly, the ratio of bank deposits to GDP decreases if there are prerequisites for the bank run especially under armed military conflict. Thirdly, the ratio of liabilities to assets of banks is reduced at the time the conflict begins, except when the country’s banking sector is highly developed and no fundamental factors are making it necessary to increase the share of the equity. Fourthly, the change in the level of net interest margin with the onset of the conflict depends on the level of depositors’ confidence in the banking sector and the ability of borrowers to service loans with increased interest rates. Fifthly, the degree of market concentration (the share of TOP-3 and TOP-5 banks) as a result of the conflict increases unless the conflict leads to the liberalization of the banking sector.

IS THE TUNISIAN CENTRAL BANK FOLLOWING A LINEAR OR A NONLINEAR AUGMENTED TAYLOR RULE?

The political transition in the Arab Spring countries has been accompanied by a deterioration of economic and financial indicators like in the Tunisian case. This paper aims to get a deeper understanding of the nature of the rule that reflects the behavior of the Tunisian monetary authority in the current dominance of economic and financial instability. In particular, this paper assesses whether the Tunisian Central Bank is indeed following a linear or a non linear augmented Taylor rule. For our purpose, we use a forward looking version of Taylor rule augmented by including the effect of exchange rate to estimate the linear and the nonlinear models. A smooth transition regression model is used to estimate the nonlinear rule. The results obtained imply that the Tunisian Central Bank follows a nonlinear Taylor rule in the conduct of monetary policy. In addition, our evidence suggests that the reaction of monetary authority in Tunisia to the deviation of forecasts of inflation rate, output gap and exchange rate changes in terms of magnitude and statistical significance across the high and low interest rate regimes. In particular, when the lagged interest rate is above the threshold level of 4.76%, the main objective of the policy makers is to fight the inflation rate and to limit the depreciation of exchange rate rather than to boost the economic activity.Keywords: Taylor rule, smooth transition regression model, interest rate reaction function, nonlinearityJEL Classifications: C22, E17, E43, E52, E58DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijefi.8975

Fridays of Revolution: Focal Days and Mass Protest in Egypt and Tunisia

Focal days of protest are increasingly common to episodes of revolutionary mobilization. This paper explores the significance of focal days in patterning sustained protest in Egypt and Tunisia from 2011 to 2012. In Egypt, resource-poor activists exploited the confluence of worshippers on Fridays to mobilize mass transitory protest. This reliance on ritualized action hindered cross-sectoral coordination and meant mass protest often failed to inflict a direct economic cost. In Tunisia, there was no focal day of protest, in large part due to the coordinating hand of trade unions. In consequence, mass protest was more likely to span multiple sites, sectors, and tactics. These results suggest that oppositions can sustain mass mobilization even absent organizational capacity, but a reliance on a focal day limits the potential of protest over a political transition. Supplementary analyses point to the applicability of our findings to a number of other Arab Spring countries.

Effect of Education Sector Expenditure on Economic Growth in Arab Spring Countries: A Panel Data Analysis

From the second half of the twentieth century, human capital began to be added more and more, particularly to the basic factors of production considered as labor, capital, entrepreneurs and natural resources in classical economic theory. With this structural change in production, human capital development has become very important for internal growth models. Nowadays, as the strength of arms power in production is greatly reduced, brain power has increased in importance and the idea of people investing in themselves has been widely accepted. Education, which is one of the important dynamics of human capital with health, plays an important role in this context. Increasing the level of success with the higher education level, recruitment of qualified workers, better employment opportunities and increased earnings are significant contributors to growth and prosperity. The study explores the dynamics of education and economic growth expenditure in selected five major Arab countries with balanced panel data from 2000 to 2014. The results of Pedroni, Kao and Johansen Fisher 's co- integration show that there is a long- term balance between education and economic growth expenditure in all countries. The study argues that education is one of the important economic growth ingredients in all five major Arab spring countries. Education should be given priority and a handsome of the government's total expenditure on education should be made by enhancing different elementary, higher and technical education in the respective nations to have the skilled manpower for the long-term economic development.

The impact of the Arab Spring on democracy and development in the MENA region

AbstractIn evaluating the consequences of the Arab Spring 8 years later, this paper not only focuses on the short‐term consequences of the uprisings that swept through a number of countries in the Middle East and North African region but also analyzes the long‐term prospects for democratization and development in the MENA region. The impact of the Arab Spring, despite its promises and the expectations of the rest of the world, has been dismal. While only Tunisia made a successful transition to a democratic polity with a constitution guaranteeing the basic rights of the people, the rest of the Arab Spring countries remain in the grip of the authoritarian rule, and countries such as Syria, Libya, and Yemen have been degenerated into bloody civil wars with dwindling hope of peace and freedom. On economic front, the growth has been tardy, showing little difference with countries that were unaffected by the Arab Spring. Yet, the paper concludes, echoing historian Eric Hobsbawm's view, that revolutionary outcomes need not be judged as failure too quickly as they are likely to be partial success in the long term. The impact may be observed in the area of social opening, newer class alliances, and the emergence of a less rapacious, reformed, hybrid authoritarianism.

Political Risk and Foreign Direct Investment in Tunisia

Political risk factors have been considered as important factors which impact the foreign direct investment (FDI). But, the relationship between the political risk and FDI still not highly covered as expected. In this context, it is crucial to measure the political risk factors impact on the FDI especially for the Arab Spring countries which embraced radical political change after the revolution in 2011. This article aims to investigate the relationship between political risk and the FDI in Tunisia for the case of service sectors. The research is based on aggregate variables that represent six pillars of Governance Indicators. The data was extracted from the Worldwide Governance and the Tunisian Central Bank websites, the data frequency is yearly from 2004 to 2016. The research confirms that the political factors notably the government effectiveness and voice and accountability have significant impact on the FDI and on the FDI in the services sector.

The Economic Opportunity Cost for the Arab Spring Countries

This article examines the effect of political instability on countries caught in such a situation and also by their location. Using an interrupted time series model and an unrestricted error correction model, the indirect economic costs of political unrest are estimated for Tunisia, as an example of the Arab spring countries. Foreign direct investment fell by 17% in Arab countries. Indeed, the Arab Spring countries are the most affected countries in terms of investment as the fall of FDI for Tunisia by 21%. In the same direction, Egypt lost 92% of its FDI since it records $ 0.5 billion in 2011 against $ 6.4 billion in 2010 and also Libya 87% and 65% in Syria .This substantial loss is a warning sign that should be seriously taken into account by politicians and economists from the Middle East and the Arab Union, especially for countries whose resources are already limited.

The role of the external factor in the process of democratic transformation (Arab spring countries model)

The democratic transition through the revolutionary context is considered to be the only way in the Arab world, as if there is no room for a process of democratic transition without solution or military intervention (internal or external), revolutions, coups or protest movements. Has become the focus of the problem of internal democratization, which has led to the absorption of the idea of external interventions and regional influences, mainly because of the internal content of Arab political systems.

Unhappy Development: Dissatisfaction With Life on the Eve of the Arab Spring

AbstractDespite progress with economic and social development over several decades, life satisfaction was relatively low and declining in many developing Arab countries in the second half of the 2000s—a situation described in this paper as the “unhappy development” paradox. The paper empirically tests the direction and strength of association of a range of objective and subjective factors with subjective well‐being in the Middle East and North Africa in the years immediately preceding the Arab Spring uprisings (2009–10). The findings suggest a significant, negative association between life satisfaction levels and each of the main perceived grievances voiced during the 2011 uprisings—dissatisfaction with the standard of living, poor labor market conditions, and corruption in the form of nepotism or cronyism. The increased prevalence of dissatisfaction with the standard of living contributed the most to the decline in subjective well‐being during this period, followed by worsening labor market conditions manifested in increased unemployment and decline in self‐reported earnings. In addition, perceptions about corruption became more important for people’s life satisfaction, particularly in the Arab Spring countries where the uprisings were most intense.