than half of respondents in most of the job function email list countries surveyed agreed with the claim that economies are weaker under democracies. Arabs are losing confidence that democracy can bring economic stability to the Middle East and North Africa, a major new survey has found. Experts say citizens of the Arab region may be looking to other political systems, such as the Chinese model, an authoritarian one-party system. The Arab Barometer network interviewed nearly 23,000 people in nine countries and Palestinian territories for BBC News Arabic.
Most agree with the statement that the economy is weaker in a democracy. These conclusions come more than a 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.