Maha Yahya
54 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
Arab Barometer surveys o nationally
representative samples from six Arab
countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia) and the
Palestinian territories, public trust in gov-
ernment has decreased over the past
decade. In 2016, more than 60 percent o
the respondents said that they trusted
government “to a limited extent” or
“absolutely [did] not trust it,” compared
with only 47 percent in 2011. On the
other hand, 60 percent o the respon-
dents in 2016 said that they trusted the
military to “a great extent,” up from 49
percent in 2011. In a December 2018
Zogby poll, a majority o the respondents
in Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia said that they
were worse o than they were Äve years
earlier. And earlier this year, a
survey o ten Arab countries found that
more than hal o the respondents
between the ages o 18 and 29 wanted to
emigrate. Thousands o others have been
conscripted into the region’s wars.POWER TO THE PEOPLE
In many respects, then, the Middle East
looks worse on many development
indicators than it did a decade ago. Yet
there is one key dierence. Although
the protests o the Arab Spring did not
lead to the reforms that many had hoped
for, they did succeed in fostering a
culture o political activism and dissent
among Arabs, especially the young,
that persists today. Governments can no
longer assume that their citizens will
remain passive.
In 2018 alone, there were protest
movements in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon,
Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. Earlier
this year, protesters in Algeria and
Sudan forced their countries’ respec-
tive leaders, Abdelaziz BouteÁika andand Änance its growing budget deÄcit,
the kingdom is planning to issue more
than $31 billion in debt this year. And
earlier this year, Moody’s downgraded
Oman’s credit rating to “junk” status,
citing low oil prices and the country’s
ballooning deÄcits.
Faced with mounting economic
challenges, governments in the region
are stressing the need for entrepreneur-
ship in the private sector. The United
Arab Emirates has turned itsel into a
destination for startups and now boasts
major success stories such as the ride-
sharing app Careem, the e-commerce
platform Souq, and the real estate
platform Property Finder. Egypt, too,
is a growing regional hub. According to
a report by MAGNiTT, an online
community for Middle Eastern start-
ups, in 2018, Egypt was the fastest
growing in the region “by number o
deals.” And governments from Bahrain
to Lebanon and Saudi Arabia have
unveiled initiatives, such as Riyadh’s
Vision 2030, to promote private-sector
investment.
This modest expansion o the private
sector, however, has not been enough to
provide good jobs for citizens. Unem-
ployment in the Arab states is still
high—in 2018, it averaged 7.3 percent;
excluding the oil-rich states o Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and the United Arab Emirates, it sat at
10.8 percent. Foreign direct investment
remains low; in 2018, according to the
International Monetary Fund, foreign
direct investment in Arab countries
amounted to only 2.4 percent o the
global total.
It should come as no surprise, then,
that Arab citizens’ conÄdence in their
governments is collapsing. According to