Adconclusions come more than a Job Function Email Database decade after the so-called "Arab Spring" protests called for democratic change. Less than two years after the protests, only one of them, Tunisia, is still a democracy. But the country's draft constitution unveiled last week, if approved, could throw it back into authoritarianism. Michael Robbins, director of the Princeton University-based research network Arabian Barometer, conducted the survey between the end of 2021 and the spring of 2022, in collaboration with universities and pollsters in the Middle East and North Africa. He said perceptions of democracy had shifted across the region since the last survey in 2018/19. He said there was a growing realization that democracy .
was not a perfect form of government and that it would not solve everything. A lot of people across the Middle East are starving, people need bread and are frustrated with the system they have. On average, more than half of respondents in most of the countries surveyed agreed with the claim that economies are weaker under democracies. More than half of the countries surveyed also said they either agreed or strongly agreed that people care more about the effectiveness of government policies than the type of government. Umm Ali says her family could not cope without international aid Photo Credit: BBC News In some Arab countries, it is a problem for many ordinary people to get enough to eat. Across the seven countries and the Palestinian territories, the economic situation is seen as the most pressing challenge, more worrying than corruption, social unrest and the spread of the coronavirus. Only in two countries is theUkraine in February, and the war has further exacerbated food insecurity across the Middle East, especially in countries such as Egypt, Libya and Tunisia that are heavily dependent on Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports. .
Chinese model? Respondents in the survey who ran out of food and were unable to buy more had less support for democracy, especially in countries such as Sudan, Mauritania and Morocco. The economic outlook for the entire MENA region is bleak, with less than half of respondents willing to describe the economic situation in their country as good. Lebanon ranks lowest of all countries surveyed, with less than 1% of Lebanese saying the current economic situation is good. The World Bank described Lebanon's economic crisis as one of the worst in the world since the mid-19th century. Overall, most people do not expect their country's economic situation to improve in the coming years. However, there is also some optimism. Across six countries, more than one-third of citizens surveyed said things would be better or better in the next two to three years. Despite the current economic turmoil in Tunisia, its respondents are most hopeful for the future, with 61% saying things will be much