Religion and Political Behavior in Arab Countries

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The wave of Islamist political parties winning elections in multiple Arab countries against the backdrop of the Arab Spring has certainly seceded. Nevertheless, despite Islamists having been either pushed out (or voted out) of government in most Arab countries, religion continues to play a significant role in politics and daily interactions in these countries.

On the one hand, Arab Barometer data indicate an increase in religiosity in its most recent wave (2021/22). Although this might have been partly caused by the Covid pandemic, the finding is consistent across many religiosity indicators: identifying one-self as religious, and engagement with religious text.

On the other hand, religion continues to be a visibly dominant in most Arab communities, being an integral part of daily transactions and acting as a signal for piety, making it a social conformity issue. With the rising inflation, the debt crises and stagnant economies hitting many non-GCC Arab countries, religiosity is also likely to act as a major resort for comfort to cope with socio-economic challenges. Many autocratic governments also remain committed to viewing Islamists as the primary threat to their survival and therefore continue to closely monitor mosques, push for a less conservative religious discourse, and introduce legislative changes that ensure regime control of the religious sphere.

It is this context that we are putting together a panel on “Religion and Political Behavior in Arab Countries” to study different facts of how religion, religious institutions and religious attitudes interact with behavior of both citizens and governments. In this proposed session, we focus on religion and politics through various but complementary perspectives.

Paper One looks at the issue from a regime level perspective, asking how the autocratic governments of the region regulate the location of religious institutions (mosques). As mosques have a potential of acting as centers for opposition mobilization and distribution of goods and services to those left out of state-society pacts, the first paper looks at factors affecting the geographic distribution of these religious – but very much political relevant – institutions.

Paper Two moves the discussion to the individual level of analysis and tackles voting behavior. Through a conjoint experiment, it asks whether how far religious attitudes affect the propensity to vote for female candidates in Morocco.

Papers three and Four take the debate to the realm of social interactions, asking whether – and how – religion could be a force for good, by increasing tolerance towards ethnic minorities (paper three) and whether reforming religious discourse could make religion a driver for prosocial behavior (paper four).

Methodologically, the four papers follow a diverse set of methods (geo-spatial analysis using big data, as well as lab, survey and field experiments). The papers also follow different research designs (cross-country and single country cases study designs), covering in total 14 Arab countries, either via in-depth or cross-sectional analysis.

Sub Unit

• Division 12: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries

Individual Presentations

• Anatomy of Religious Infrastructure in Authoritarian Regimes: Middle East Data - Gordon Alexander Arsenoff, Princeton University; Amaney Jamal, Princeton University; Elizabeth R. Nugent, Princeton University; Hani Warith; Huseyin Emre Ceyhun, Princeton University

• Religious Licensing as a Justification for Immoral Deeds: Experimental Evidence - Sarah Mansour, Cairo University; Mazen Hassan, Cairo University; Nour Abdelbaki, University of Chicago

• Can Religious Framing Reduce Anti-immigrant Sentiment in Tunisia? - Mohamed-Dhia Hammami, Maxwell School, Syracuse University; Sharan Grewal, American University

• How Conflicts become Ethnic: A New Conceptual and Methodological Framework - Alexandra Arons Siegel, University of Colorado Boulder; Yael Zeira, Syracuse University

Chair

• Ellen M. Lust University of Gothenburg

Discussants

• Ellen M. Lust University of Gothenburg

• Alexandra Domike Blackman Cornell University

• Sharan Grewal American University