Liberal-democratic ideas don't have universal support in Middle East

Liberal-democratic attitudes in the Middle East and North Africa aren't universal, say two University of Toronto sociologists. Analysis of liberal-democratic attitudes in the Middle East and North Africa on the eve of the Arab Spring by Robert Andersen and Robert Brym reveals some of the difficulties that face the democracy movement in those regions. The two professors examined the results of a 2009 survey of liberal-democratic attitudes in 16 countries of the Middle East and North Africa by international pollster Gallup. "Our aim was to discover the factors that can inform pro-democracy policy and contribute to citizen inclusion in a nation's political life," said Brym about the project's origins. They found that citizen inclusion and the degrees of popular support for freedom of speech, religion, and assembly varied from one nation to the next. Moreover, "only a small majority of adult citizens in the countries surveyed — barely more than 50 per cent — endorse all three freedoms," said Brym. Eight nations in the study — Turkey, Tunisia, Sudan, Qatar, Morocco, Mauritania, Lebanon, and Iraq — pass the 50 per cent threshold, while the other eight — Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, the Palestinian Territories, Syria, and Yemen — do not.