The RISE OF A NEW GENERATION Political activism
Political activism is regarded as a distinctive feature characterizing current young
people in the world. This phenomenon has attracted scholars from diverse academic
backgrounds to study and elucidate; particularly after the Arab spring uprisings in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Although there is plethora of studies on the social,
economic and political milieu in which this new international generation has pushed
through, less attention was assigned to understanding their value systems reflected in their
means of expression and forms of engagement. This study aims to explore youth values in
comparison to older cohorts testing the claim of their relative uniqueness.
Youth values -expressed in multiple forms of sociopolitical engagement- cannot be
exclusively restricted in MENA-related activism. In late 2014, the young in Hong
Kong led wide protests against Beijing‟s interference in the constituency‟s 2017 chief
executive elections regulations.1 This new generation that did not eyewitness the pre-
1997 British ruling settings organized through “Occupy Central” movement expressing
their low level of trust in the Chinese government policies; according to a recent poll by
Hong Kong‟s University public opinion program.2 In a similar vein and away from the east
and the underdeveloped world, “Occupy” movements have swept major western
1 “Hong Kong protests: The key players,‟‟ BBC World News, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china29408476, Retrieved October 20, 2014.
2 “Press Release,” Public Opinion Programme, Hong Kong University, September 23, 2014.
http://hkupop.hku.hk/english/release/release1186.html, Retrieved October 20, 2014.
capitals such as London, New York, and Paris. Described by its members as anticonsumerist
movements, these utterances of outcry pinpoint to a different category of modern young
people who hold new set of values in terms of involvement and social responsibility. In
New York, participants in “Occupy” movement expressed their dissatisfaction with the
unequal income distribution and the growing role of capitalism in decision-making process
at the federal level in the United States of America.
1
As such, youth movements‟
experiences in the past decade such as “Otpor” in Serbia, “Pora” in
Ukraine, “Kmara” in Georgia, and “Mjaft” in Albania managed to topple diverse
authoritarian administrations; and in consequence inspired other MENA-youth movements
like “6th of April” in Egypt to shadow their path.
Youth expression of dissatisfaction and desire for change are central melodies in
MENA; this region which has been always allegedly resistant to democratization.
2
For
example in Iran, the 2009 so-called “Green Revolution” initiated by the new generation.
Iranian youth expressed their skepticism of election results after naming the conservative
candidate “Ahmedi Nejad” as president.
3
Although such movement brutally repressed at its
time, it forced the conventional-religious establishment to accept moderate candidate
“Hassan Rohani” as the new president of Iran in 2013.
4
Similarly, Middle East democracy
scholars argue that Turkey is likely to remain unstable after the June 2013 youth protests
Sean Captain, “Infographic: Who Is Occupy Wall Street,” FastCompany.Com, November 2, 2011.
http://web.archive.org/web/20120719184547/http://www.fastcompany.com:80/1792056/occupy-wallstreet-
demographics-infographic, Retrived October 21, 2014.
Eva Bellin, “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative
Perspective,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2, January 2004, pp. 139-141.
Tara Nesvaderani, “Iran‟s Youth: The Protests Are Not Over,” United Sates Institute of Peace, Peace Brief
36, June 8, 2010, http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/resources/pb36_0.pdf, Retrived October 21, 2014.
Bijan Khajehpour, “Iran‟s Youth Key to Elections,” Almonitor, May 31, 2013,
http://www.almonitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/iran-elections-youth-vote.html#, Retrived October 21,
2014.
given the unwarranted tough response from the Justice and Development Party (AKP)-
Islamist ruling government. As consequence, recent 2015 parliamentary elections showed
a similar trend like Iran leading to a lower turnout support for the ruling conservative party.
5
In a related vein, one can argue that political developments in Iran and Turkey are
related to the historic 2011 youth led-mobilization in the Arab world. This led to the rise of
question related to the distinctiveness of current Arab youth in relation to older cohorts who
participated in earlier waves of anti-colonial activism subsequent to the World War
II. Part of the answer related to the role of Information and Communications Technologies
(ICTs) in helping the youth generation spreading their discontent through being active on
the cyber space. This thesis does not dismiss such claim, although it aims at studying such
elucidations in interplay with the changing youth values per se within a broad international
generational replacement trend. Values of the “New Arabs” according to Juan Cole are
historically different as they reflect a divergent level of socioeconomic progression in terms
of excessive urbanization, cosmopolitanism and economic disparities, and a bulge
including 60% of population across Arab states.
6
Events of “Arab Spring” are the highlight of youth activism in MENA. I believe it
is likely to be –however not exclusively- related to young Arabs value system.
Joanna Slater, “Historic ousting of Erdogan‟s majority spells new uncertainty for Turkey”, The Globe and
Mail, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/historic-ousting-of-erdogans-majority-spells-
newuncertainty-for-turkey/article24846329/, Retrived June 15, 2015.
Juan Cole, The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is changing the Middle East, New York, Simon
and Schuster, 2014, pp. 2-15.
Nevertheless, it is considerably hard task to capture youth values in the region that led to
such unprecedented mobilization. In the efforts to approach such puzzle we empirically
map youth values based on their socioeconomic context while using Ronald Inglehart‟s
intergenerational value change thesis as a guiding framework for comparison with other
International young values‟ trends.
7
This study focuses on generational value differences in its focal case study
“Egypt.” Egyptian youth are considered by many scholars to be the chief driving agent
behind the 2011 uprising. Due to high level of unemployment and social inequality among
young Egyptians, I believe this generation was frustrated by the political censorship
exercised by Mubarak‟s regime. Additionally, claims have been raised on this generation‟s
value system to be more liberal, less religious and more democratic, thus the 2011 uprising
was considered to be natural breakthrough of the domination of these appearances.
8
Most
importantly, in terms of demographic power, Egypt is witnessing a historic youth bulge; in
which 62% of Egyptians are below the age of 29 reported in 2012.
9
This bulge is expected
to last at least for the next three decades, if the current composition of population growth
continues in a similar fashion. Based on the earlier mentioned facts, we believe that
successive waves of youth activism in Egypt are expected to intensify, while treating the
bulge effect as an amplifying factor for generational value change.
To sum up this introductory part, such recent international waves of youth activism
in the developed as well as the MENA region indicate the salience of youth phenomenon
in way that was not addressed before. Moreover, it suggests that the current Egyptian youth
generation holds different values from older cohorts in terms of activism, forms of
expression, and channels of political participation. In understanding such claims, we aim
to give considerable attention to the socioeconomic context allowing youth values to appear
in Egypt. In addition to mapping out youth value system characteristics based on their
attitudes towards democracy, religion and gender tolerance.
1.2 Literature Review
At the theoretical level, there is overabundance of studies that gave special attention
to youth, generational value replacements and characteristics of youth values in MENA.
This part reviews related literature to intergenerational value change mechanisms, youth as
an analytical category in the Middle East and its related characteristics. It aims at mapping
out existing gaps when it comes to the study of the youth phenomenon in the Middle East,
and the case of Egypt in particular.
Dynamics of Generational Value Change
Generational value change conceptualization is divided between two major schools
of thought, one focuses on the life-cycle changing values, and the other bases its
argumentation on the salience of formative experiences during early adulthood and its
05
enduring effects on youth values. Institutional and Life-Cycle school of thought bases its
argument on stages of cognitive and biological progression through one‟s life cycle. This
school influenced much of the research on equal-sized age cohorts in studying partisan
identification in the United States and Europe treating those effects as systematic ones.
10
Other scholars looked on the interplay between aging processes and socialization. As the
person ages, his attitudes become more rigid and conservative, due to the loss of social
status, i.e. the lesser ability for interaction with others due to pure biological reasons such
as cognitive disabilities. Similar evidence is found in the “disengagement theory.” It
suggests that when individuals grow old, they tend to be more restricted in terms of group
membership and interaction with others, either voluntarily or due to societal conducts.
Another possible explanation for the effect of age is by controlling for the variable
of experience. As young people usually do not have enough experience coining their
attitudes to be more optimistic. Other institutional theories focus on “the relearning
alignment process,” where individuals change their opinions and attitudes through their life
cycles disregarding the prominence of childhood and early adulthood socialization.
11
However, empirical research does not fully support the continuity of early formed
attitudes over successive life stages as cultural theorists suggest.
12
In another vein, other set of studies underlines Cultural and Political
Socialization explanations in shaping attitudes and their change. Talcott Parsons and
Edward Shils argued that any given political system holds embedded group of sentiments
and manifestations within; reflected on its public through their value system and roles in
the polity afterwards.
13
Similarly, Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba in their study of civic
culture mapped the operational components of society's political culture to include
cognitive, affective and evaluational attitudes towards their role and the general political
system per se, thus shaping individuals‟ attitudes and consequently their forms of political
engagement.
14
In the same line, James Scott studied the relationship between political
culture and individual's political behavior and program of action.
15
Scott argued that it can
be best explained through mechanisms of political socialization.
Cultural theories stress on the process of political learning through which
generations undergo subsequent phases of political socialization. David Easton and Robert
Hess suggested that the process of political socialization starts in the early stages of
childhood at the age of three through family, and the schooling system. However, such
forms of socialization do not yield symmetric effects on the same birth cohort.
16
Moreover,
David Sears and others noted the importance of education in attitude formation that shapes
the persistence of the ideological way of thinking with little change over time.
17
Fred
Greenstein noted that attitudes are formulated at a very young age, but its ramifications and
effects are shaped through adulthood-learning phase, as it works as "filters" for any
subsequent kind of knowledge a person may acquire.
18
The study of generations was developed mainly through Karl Mannheim‟s classic
writings. Mannheim argued that political generations came to existence through a complex
historical-social process of socialization.
19
The impressionable years‟ hypothesis was
ultimately coined with the efforts of Theodore Newcomb and Norman Ryder based on
Mannheim‟s earlier explanation.
20
Both scholars argued that individuals of the same birth
cohorts aging tentatively between eighteen and twenty-five in their formative years are
most likely to share the same political attitudes if witnessed a salient political event. Thus,
this particular age cohort represents a distinctive political generation, and probably differs
from other generations. Later on, Howard Schuman and others argued that attitudes
fluctuate during youth time, then enters stability stage afterwards, thus they do not
completely support the earlier proposition on attitudinal stability among birth cohorts.
21
On
the contrary, Paul DiMaggio and Ronald Inglehart stress the weight on attitudes and
memories on salient political events in early adulthood that is likely to persist after
fluctuations to form certain characteristics of a given political generation.
22
On the other hand, Nicholas Danigelis and others found that not all political events
qualify to be salient to add to the coining of political attitudes among certain age cohorts.
23
In the same line, Kent Jennings tackled the salience nature of political events, relating it to
its "visibility" for a certain birth cohort in their formative years.
24
Therefore, Inglehart and
others highlighted the need for careful cross-sectional intergenerational analysis as inter-
cohort differences is more present in advanced societies than developing ones, due to the
Norman Ryder, "The Cohort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change," American Sociological Review,
30, 1965, pp. 849-852.
Howard Schuman and Amy D. Corning, "Collective Knowledge of Public Events: The Soviet Era from the
Great Purge to Glasnost," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 105, No. 4, January 2000, pp. 933-946.
08
Paul DiMaggio, "Culture and Cognition," Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 23, 1997, pp. 270-280.
unstable political circumstances they pass through leaving no space for salient political
events, as many can be considered as such.
25
Inglehart‟s efforts in producing the Euro barometer and the World Values Survey
(WVS) later on are considered major contribution to the study of generations based on the
gradual accumulative socioeconomic progression thesis. This line of thought rejects
Mannheim‟s stance on the effect of salient events in shaping long-lasting political
attitudes.
26
Inglehart through his scholarship on value change in Western developed states,
noted that there is a silent revolution tacking place allowing for a generational value change
causing the emergence of postmaterialist values of self-expression and secularism among
younger birth cohorts born after the World War II.
27
Moreover, Inglehart rejected the role
of aging or life-cycle effects. Simultaneously, he noted the theoretical difficulty in
distinguishing between cohort, period, and life-cycle effects even statistically-wise.
28
Accordingly, for elaborating the cohort effects, it needs a suitable theoretical background
to control or rule out the other effects for suitable understanding.
Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker , "Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of
Traditional Values, "American Sociological Review, Vol. 65, No. 1, February 2000, pp. 30-34.
Ronald Inglehart, “The Renaissance of Political Culture.” American Political Science Review, Vol. 82,
1988, No. 4, pp.103-110.
09
Ronald Inglehart, Culture Ship in Advanced Industrial Society, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990.
Ronald Inglehart, "Postmaterialism in an Environment of Insecurity,” American Political Science Review,
Vol. 75, 1981, pp. 883 -884.
Youth Characteristics in the Middle East
Youth bulge in the Middle East is growing intensively, with sixty percent of the
population below the age of thirty, and more than half of the people fall below the age of
twenty-five; that is twice the corresponding age category in North America.
29
. The
segments below cover youth features and its usage as an analytical concept in the Middle
East.
In his book, Tarik Yousef and Navtej Dhillon focused on the social grievances that
unite the youth in MENA, arguing that such category is socially marginalized, thus
contributing to their coherent collective action which affects the policy-making processes.
30
The same line of thought is present internationally; Johanna Wyn stressed the policy-
implications that affect the youth as social category, accompanied by the shift towards
capitalist forms of policies in the western societies since the 1980s.
31
Wyn looked at the
youth through their reactions to such policy implications in the fields of education, health,
and labor. Since the 1970s, the study of political generations in MENA highlighted the
youth as active agents bringing up change in ways never expected before.
32
This post-
Michael Hoffman and Amaney Jamal, “The Youth and the Arab Spring: Cohort Differences and
Similarities,” Middle East Law and Governance, Vol.4, 2012, pp. 169-170.
Tarik Yousef and Navtej Dhillon, "Introduction," Generation in Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Young
People in the Middle East, Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef (editors), Washington, DC, The Brookings
Institution, 2009, pp. 1-10.
21
33 Johanna Wyn, “Youth as Social
Category and Social Process,” Arab Youth: Social Mobilization in Times of Risk, Samir Khalaf and Roseanne
Saad Khalaf (editors), London, Saqi Books, 2011, pp. 57-61.
James Mattson, “Development in the Arab World” in Mark Tessler (editor), A New Look at the Middle East,
Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1971, p. 13.
independence generation who are more educated, and urbanized are willing to determine
the fate of their societies. Thus, the young are the main pillar for post-colonial political
settings in MENA. Projecting such conception on the modern developments, Bahgat
Korany noted the importance of youth activism as unique phenomenon adopting a social
movement‟s theory (SMT) which encompasses mobilization, political opportunity
structure (POS), and framing.
33
Similarity, Dina Shehata acknowledged the youth
mobilization in the Egyptian 2011 uprising, arguing that their organization is integral to
understand the dynamics of such events, as a part of a general Egyptian social movement.
34
On the other hand, other scholars overlooked the youth as an analytical category in
relation to the Arab Spring events and in part as primary source of change. John Chalcraft
extended his disagreement to oppose the "exclusive" linkage between Arab
Uprisings and youth, while undermining the role of new forms of social media such as
Bahgat Korany and Rabab El-Mahdi, "Introduction," Arab Spring in Egypt: Revolution and Beyond, Op.
Cit., pp. 10-13.
Dina Shehata, "Youth Movements and the 25 January Revolution,” Ibid., p. 106.
20
22
"Facebook" in mobilizing these mass uprisings.37 In the same line, Kastrinou
Theodoropoulou argued that using youth as analytical unit is of no theoretical significance
as it renders different types of resistance and struggle into a nominal holistic building unit.
35
Asef Bayat‟s work on Islamists Movements in MENA suggested an alternative view. Bayat
employed Bourdieu‟s position on the manipulative nature of the concept of youth; as it
does not represent a single category. Thus, it needs a deep examination. Consequently,
Bayat proposed a youth-sensitive approach rather than treating the youth as a distinct
analytical category.
36
Nevertheless this intense debate on youth in MENA, the generational replacement
perspective is overlooked.
37
It was only mentioned back in 2009 through Fahmy
Hewidy‟s induction on the Egyptian youth reactions towards political conflict with Algeria
over a sports event.
38
Likewise, Emma Murphy in the aftermath of the Arab Spring adopted
the conception of generations through the study of youth and their value system to explain
their activism.
39
According to Murphy, young generation in the region
Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, “A Different Struggle for Syria: Becoming Young in the Middle East,”
Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2012, pp. 60-61.
Asef Bayat, “Reclaiming Youthfulness,” Arab Youth: Social Mobilization in Times of Risk, Op. Cit., pp. 80-
82.
Karl Mannheim, Op. Cit., pp. 281-310.
Fahmy Hewidy, “Neo-Egyptians,” Aljazeera Website, January 5, 2010.
http://www.aljazeera.net/opinions/pages/10e96716-7fee-452c-9491-bc715381150f. Retrived October 27,
2014.
Emma Murphy, “Problematizing Arab Youth: Generational Narratives of Systemic Failure,” Mediterranean
Politics Vol. 17, No. 1, 2012, pp. 7-9.
23
37 John Chalcraft, "Egypt‟s 25 January Uprising, Hegemonic Contestation, and the Explosion of the Poor,"
The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges (editor), first edition, New
York, Cambridge University Press, pp. 161-165.
are different from their older peers, in terms of expressing their opinions, tools used, and
their rejection of the “failed” Arab states in which they live in.
In the same line, other scholars argued that current MENA youth activism waves
are reaction to deliberalizing respective political public spheres.
40
Youth being left out of
formal political channels, found in cyber space a parallel platform to express their opinions
and voice out their dissatisfaction spontaneously away from state censorship. They
transformed social media into active political recruitment venue leading to the historic 2011
mobilization. Moreover, other scholars like John Esposito argued that the Arab Spring was
even an expression of distrust within the mainstream opposition movements, particularly
the Islamists.
41
Arab spring at that time as imagined to be led by liberal young Arabs who
seek to democracy rather than establishing Islamic-oriented political systems based on the
failures of Islamic experiences in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan.
On the other hand, recent studies showed that youth in the Middle East despite their
online activism and international exposure; they lack sense of political organization and
modern values.
42
Such readings showed that Arab youth identify themselves as traditional-
religious with high focus on subnational-tribal loyalties. Moreover, several elections‟
Jack Shenker and others, “Young Arabs Who Can‟t Wait to Throw off Shackles of Tradition,” The
Guardian, February 14, 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/14/young-arabs-throw-
offshackles-tradition, Retrived June 15, 2015.
Michael Hoffman and Amaney Jamal, Op. Cit., pp. 171-172.
Sara Sorcher, “Arab Youth Still Want Change, But Won‟t Be Politicians,” National Journal, August 4,
2011, http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/arab-youth-still-want-change-but-won-t-
bepoliticians-20110804, Retrived June 15, 2015.
24
experiences in post-2011 settings showed that Arab youth are not politically organized to
impact decision-making in their respective societies. For instance in Egypt, following
Mubarak‟s ouster, more than 140 political youth coalitions appeared on the scene;
nonetheless they failed to agree on a joint list running for the 2011 parliamentary elections.
As a result Islamists got 72% of the total turnout vote. Between the earlier presented
narratives, this study is trying to map out youth values in chronological context in the
Egyptian case to test such claims employing an empirical perspective.
1.3 Contextualizing Egyptian Youth
In theory, Egyptian youth are considered the critical mass to determine the future
dynamics of politics as James Mattson argued on his scholarship on Arab political
generations in the 1970s.
43
In post-2011 settings, questions of legitimacy, income
distribution, and social equality are critical for stability in Egypt. This study is trying to
explore the current features of Egyptian youth and whether their changing values qualify
to provide answers for the 2011 events and predict the potential route of politics in Egypt.
In order to do such task, this section portrays youth demographics and their context of
political socialization.
Demographic Characteristics
One of the major defining features of Egyptian youth is their relative size;
composing a historic bulge that Egypt never witnessed before. Several indicators help in
James Mattson, Op. Cit., p.13
25
emphasizing such claim. 62% of Egyptians are below the age of 29 as reported in 2012.
44
Moreover, the average age of total Egyptian population is 25.1 years.
45
Reported total
fertility rate is 2.79 between (2010- 2015) in comparison to 5.2 during the period of (1980-
1985).
46
Population growth rate was decreasing during (1980-1985) at 2.28 %.
47
It
decreased to be 1.56% during the 1990s, and rose slightly to be 1.68% during (20052010),
however it expected to decline and reach 0.69% in (2045-2050). Although fertility and
population growth rates are declining; life expectancy rate is increasing over time reaching
73.45 years in 2014. All of that is reflected on Egypt‟s population pyramid in figures (1.1-
1.3); the wide skewed bases signaling youth population are obvious in figures 1.1 and 1.2,
while it is expected to narrow down by (2045- 2050) as shown in figure 1.3.
48
Figure 1.1 Egypt‟s Population Pyramid in 2000
Egypt: Population Overview, United Nations Population Fund,
http://egypt.unfpa.org/english/Staticpage/1/89ee0417-6c84-4410-
8317f41518c07273/Population_and_Development.aspx, Retrived May 18, 2015.
Egypt: People and Society, CIA World Fact Book, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-
worldfactbook/geos/eg.html, Retrived May 20, 2015.
United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision,
http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm, Retrived May 20, 2015.
United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision, Ibid.
Egypt: International Data Base, US. Census Bureau, last updated December 2013,
http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php, Retrived February 20,
2015.
26
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Figure 1.2 Egypt‟s Population Pyramid in 2014
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Figure 1.3 Egypt‟s Population Pyramid in 2045
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
27
As shown in the above figures, current Egyptian youth cohort is demographically
overrepresented and expected to be in such case over the next three decades at least. We
argue that Egypt‟s youth population values are vital for any potential political arrangements
in the country. Moreover, Egypt‟s current political generation is more urban and educated.
Although present population distribution is inclined towards rural sort of residency, yet the
internal migration waves towards urban parts of the country are obvious in the last two
decades. Rural-Urban migration is estimated to be around 13.1% of total population
movement between 1986 and 1996; however these numbers are defining feature of
Egyptian population if compared to growth rates at the time.
49
Moreover, inter-urban migration is the highest during Egypt‟s recent history; it ranges
between 64.3% at 1976 to 60.4% according to the 1996 census.
In terms of education, youth literacy rate
50
increased dramatically to reach 87.51%
in 2010 in comparison to 51.03 % in 1976.
51
Moreover, total number of enrolled students
at higher education institutes in Egypt was around 2.02 million students in 2004, with 49%
females.
52
In addition, it is not only the gross number of enrollment at different schooling
Ayman Zohry, “Rural to Urban Labor Migration: A Study of Upper Egyptian Laborers in Cairo,
Unpublished Dphil thesis, University of Sussex, 2002, pp. 29-31.
Youth Literacy Rate: the percentage of people ages (15-24) who can read and write a short, simple
statement on their everyday life.
“Literacy in Egypt”, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Institute for Statistics,
http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/countryprofile.aspx?regioncode=40525&code=EGY, Retrived
May 20, 2015.
Women in Education, Egypt‟s State Information Service,
http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/Templates/Articles/tmpArticles.aspx?CatID=838#.VWJ5ydJViko, Retrieved May
20, 2015.
28
levels that matters; however the content and quality of education is very indicative per se.
Along with private and international schools for primary and secondary education;
Egyptian public universities during the mid-1990s developed special language-based
programs to privatize education and increase its quality. Therefore, there is a qualitative
improvement in addition to the quantitative progression in Egyptian educational system.
Young Egyptians now are more connected to the world through cyber
engagement. It resulted in creating parallel-virtual political spheres in which they act and
express freely in away from the formal restricted conventional public sphere. One indicator
for that is internet usage in Egypt.
53
It is estimated that about 40 million
Egyptians use internet during July 2014.
54
Internet usage increased by 490% between 2002
and 2005, and then fluctuating at the 30-40% level till it reached relative stagnation at 10%
from 2013 to 2014. In addition, it is estimated that there are more than 100 million mobile
subscribers in Egypt with average 17% annual growth in this booming sector.
55
Moreover,
10.87% of those users are estimated to use mobile internet in August 2012. Social media
networks are very popular in Egypt; “Facebook” is the most used with total penetration rate
of 16.5% in 2014.
56
Egypt‟s active “Facebook” users are estimated to be about 12.9 million
Internet User: individual who can access the Internet at home, via any device type and connection.
Egypt Internet Users, “Internet Statistics,” http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/egypt/, Retrived
October 10, 2014.
“Egypt‟s ICT Sectors Brief,” Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, August 2012,
http://www.egyptictindicators.gov.eg/en/Pages/default33.aspx, Retrived May 18, 2015.
“Facebook in the Arab Region,” Arab Social Media Report, May 2014,
http://www.arabsocialmediareport.com/Facebook/LineChart.aspx, Retrived May 18, 2015.
29
in 2014 and “Twitter” users are 510,000 thousands during the same period. It is important
to mention that Egypt‟s social media share is the
highest within the Arab world with about 24%.
Political Socialization of Egypt’s Millennial Youth
Egypt‟s millennial political generation has pushed through certain sociopolitical
context that differs structurally from their older peers. Most of literature on political
socialization focuses on age between 11 and 15 years old in the person‟s life; being
regarded as the starting point to encounter politics.
57
Thus, if we take Egypt‟s generation
aging between (18- 35) between 2000 and 2013 as the data in hand entails; their formative
political period ranges through 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Thus, we aim in this section
to elaborate the context in which current Egypt‟s youth have pushed through.
An important feature of Egypt‟s political history in the last three decades is the role
of its ruler Hosni Mubarak; although the political system was designed as
“semipresidential” according to the 1971 constitution, however in reality it was a one-man
show. Egypt‟s political system under Mubarak was characterized mainly by stagnation; I
would owe much of that to the Mubarak‟s personal characteristics who is considered to be
the longest serving ruler of Egypt since 1850.
58
That was reflected on providing no hope
for successive political generations in Egypt.
Roberta Sigel, Learning About Politics: A Reader in Political Socialisation, New York, Random House,
1970 and R.E. Dawson, K. Prewitt and K.S. Dawson, Political Socialisation, Boston, Little, Brown, 1977.
Charles Davidson, “Reform and Repression in Mubarak‟s Egypt,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs,
Vol. 24, Fall 200, pp. 77-79.
30
1980s was marked by Egypt‟s isolation from its Arab milieu following the peace
agreement with Israel in 1978. Like his predecessor (Anwar Al-Sadat), Mubarak continued
his liberal-economic policies with a desire to end the gigantic foreign external debt Egypt
faced at the time. On the other hand, his early promises on political liberalization were
proved wrong; two successive parliaments were dissolved in 1987 and 1990 respectively
with the danger of Islamic insurgency in horizon. At the same time, he kept ruling the
country under emergency law that eliminates nearly all sorts of political opposition and
freedom of expression.
59
During the 1990s, securitization of public sphere was prioritized over political
bargaining. Faced with the threat of Islamist insurgencies, Mubarak relied on security
forces to deal with waves of terrorism and sectarian violence. Many assassination
Tarek Osman, “The Fall of Hosni Mubarak,” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs,
http://www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairoreview/pages/articleDetails.aspx?aid=233, Retrived May 20, 2015.
attempts for liberal figures were in display, such as the head of parliament professor Dr.
Refa‟at al-Mahgoub and Farag Fouda, a political liberal writer who publicly criticized
Islamist-Jihadi groups. Even Mubarak himself survived an assassination attempt in
Ethiopia in 1995.
60
At the same time, Egypt started its “privatization” program in 1991 to
treat its mal-functioning economy.
61
However, by the end of the twentieth century,
Egypt‟s debt doubled with high rate of unemployment due to the inefficient handling of
the privatization program.
During the 2000s, it was Mubarak‟s third term in power, and started containing
political opposition in various ways, following Albrecht and Schlumberger‟s
“liberalization/de- liberalization” explanation.
62
Both scholars argued that after promises
for political openness, authoritarian rulers restrict political freedoms in their route to sustain
their power. Furthermore, the visibility of Gamal Mubarak –Mubarak‟s son- in politics
further instigated public discontent; coupled with the rise of his capitalist coalition that
ruled Egypt through Ahmed Nazif‟s government from 2004 to 2011. Another important
development is the reaction towards major catastrophes and corruption cases that Egypt
faced during mid-2000s. In early 2006, the “MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98” Egyptian ferry
Craig Turner, “Egypt's Leader Survives Assassination Attempt : Africa: Muslim extremists suspected in
attack on Mubarak's motorcade in Ethiopia. President is unharmed,” Los Angeles Times, June 27 1995,
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-27/news/mn-17703_1_president-mubarak, Retrived March 20, 2011.
Nadia Farah, Egypt’s Political Economy: Power Relations in Development, Cairo, The American University
in Cairo Press, 2009.
Holger Albrecht and Oliver Schlumberger, „Waiting for Godot: Regime Change without Democratization in
the Middle East,” International Political Science Review Vol. 25, No. 4, 2004, pp. 371-372.
32
sank in the red sea, leaving about 1400 deaths.
63
The government did not react and the ferry
owner was allowed to escape the country after allegations of his relation to Gamal Mubarak
and his membership in the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) heading committee.
It is obvious that circumstances surrounding youth political socialization since the
1980s are turbulent and likely to affect their behavior and value expressions. I would argue
that one important feature of Egypt‟s history under Mubarak is the “condition of
uncertainty,” shared by many of Egyptians, particularly the youth. As the political system
restricted prospects of reform and youth‟s future were dependent on one person who never
mapped out a clear path for the future. I believe that such condition led to the 2011
mobilization that aimed to put an end to such cognitive danger.
1.4 Inglehart’s Value Change Thesis
In this section, I present the guiding framework that influenced much of this study
in principle. Following the World War II; competing paradigms of modernization and
dependency aiming to accelerate economic development were in display. Modernization
theory with its linear evolutionary laws was criticized heavily by the dependency school
that the “metropolis” or international western capitalism is the main reason for the
underdevelopment happening in the periphery states.
64
However, the post-cold war epoch
Hassan Fattah, “Egyptian Ferry Carrying 1,400 Sinks in Red Sea,” New York Times, February 3, 2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/international/middleeast/03cnd-ship.html?_r=0, Retrived May 10,
2014.
31
Guillermo O‟Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Studies in South American
Politics, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973.
30
coupled with the rise of South East Asian economies regained credibility in the
modernization view. From this ontological perspective, Inglehart‟s work stems out.
However, Inglehart rejected some of the simplistic laws of modernization in his works after
the 1990s. He considered social and culture changes owed to modernization as path-
dependent. Moreover, such evolutionary changes are yet to take place in the longterm
development of a given society. Thus, Inglehart though criticizing traditional
modernization view, he can still be considered as a strong believer in modernization effects
in a prolonged manner. Modernization is the dominant approach to the study of values in
the literature. However, this research utilizes it as an outlining frame to approach its
problematic inquiry. In another words, modernization help us in understanding the casual
mechanisms behind values formulation and change. However, we argue through it this
reaserach that the universal views of modernization do not hold right in explaining all youth
values in Egypt. Furthermore, we add several assumptions from the literature to further
adjust Inglehart‟s original thesis and help us in our study
quest.
Inglehart based his changing values thesis on the Maslowan notion of hierarchy of
needs.
65
Abraham Maslow noted that physiological needs are satisfied in a hierarchal
progressive way from the lower order to the highest rank.
66
Drawing on such conception;
Inglehart‟s hypothesis argues that there is a “postmaterialist” value shift among younger
generations whose formative years‟ formulated after World War II due to unprecedented
Ronald Inglehart, “The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies,”
American Political Science Review, No. 65, pp. 990-991.
Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, New York, Harper, 1954, p. 236.
34
economic prosperity. For older cohorts born before the war, economic threats raised safety
needs. However, younger cohorts‟ priorities are coined by set of “post-bourgeois” values
reflecting needs for belonging and intellectual expression demands.
67
Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies,
Op. Cit., pp. 992-993.
35
Inglehart‟s thesis is based on the primacy of the causality between socioeconomic
development and generational value change. As socioeconomic progress changes society‟s
substantial basis and its social fabric, it is directly tied the conception of existential security.
Inglehart agrees with Milton Rokeach‟s definition of values as the desirable modes of
conduct that shape human goals, therefore affect one‟s behavior.
68
Moreover, cultural
anthropologists like Durham and others consider value change to be an evolutionary
process as reflective for the prevailing conditions of existence.
69
This understanding
adopted by Inglehart entails that value orientations reflect existential living conditions.
Moreover, if these conditions are to change, values will change as well but in a prolonged-
time lag after the experience of new life strategies and conditions. Such change is arguably
to be adopted by the young more than the elderly, as the latter hardly abandon their
surviving traditions and ontological views, but once the new life strategies merge with new
modes of thinking, the young will adapt with their new existential conditions.
Moreover, socioeconomic development reduces constraints on the human abilities
in terms of independence, imagination and choice.
70
As it decreases material constraints on
human options and elevates the level of existential security, coupled with the increase in
the level of formal education, and access to information through different forms of media.
In addition, it increases working specialization and social involvedness which is reflected
on more diversified human interactions.
Milton Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values, New York, Free Press, 1973, pp. 7-8.
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human
Development Sequence, Cambridge: University Press, 2005, pp. 22-24.
Christian Welzel and Ronald Inglehart, “Agency, Values, and Well-Being: A Human Development Model,”
Social Indicators Research, Vol. 97, No. 1, May 2010, pp. 48-50.
36
Industrialization initiates bureaucratization and secularization, while the movement
towards post-industrialization emphasizes individual autonomy and selfexpression values.
These cultural changes reshape people‟s political orientations towards authority, but rather
in different ways.
71
The shift in human values accompanying the industrialization phase is
attributed to the breakthrough in technology and different means of control over human
conditions. As in pre-industrial societies, it was a game against nature, while in industrial
societies, the control over nature and production decreased the role assigned to religious
beliefs, as materialistic ideologies gave raise to secular interpretations of history and
increased emphasis on human created bureaucratic organizations. Thus, the shift towards
secular values from traditional religious beliefs is likely to occur.
In the process of post-industrialization, production outcomes are not yet material;
rather they are in forms of ideas, innovative services and knowledge. In addition the mode
of occupational division is not mechanical anymore; rather it occurs through an organic
working environment. Hence, progression of existential economic conditions is more
profound than in the industrialization phase; consequently changed people‟s values in a
different way. This emancipative process allowed people to be more autonomous, with
more options, and skeptic of authority.
The prevalence of post-materialist values is not a universal phenomenon. Different
nations experience different levels and patterns of technological and economic change, the
emerging postmaterialist values are likely to prevail mainly in developed nations. This
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human
Development Sequence, Op. Cit., pp. 25- 32.
37
takes us to the Egyptian case, as well as the cases of other developing nations where the
uneven socioeconomic development values effects within the same generation is not
accounted exclusively for Inglehart‟s thesis.
Adjusting Inglehart’s Thesis
This thesis‟s quest is to test Inglehart‟s intergenerational value change hypothesis
in the developing context of post-2011 Egypt. Moreover, this thesis explores the presence
of post-materialist values among Egyptian societal sectors while acknowledging that
reactionary stances towards such expected values shift are prevalent among other segments
of the society.
Inglehart's thesis overlooks the effects of persistent cultural traits including religion,
and the scholarship on pre-materialist values in terms of political socialization in which
socioeconomic progression is relatively low. This thesis attempts to broaden the analysis
through the inclusion of these kinds of effects. Hence, this study is trying to further
problematize such value change thesis in the developing world by accounting for the role
of political attitudes and social values in explaining generational differences.
Samir Amin argued that Egypt historically did not enter the international capitalist
system until the national bourgeois imposed revised division of labor on imperial power.
With such process, and the uneven industrialization effects led to the creation of “developed
pockets,” within the developing economy. Thus, projecting that on this reaserach, we expect
to find that the Egyptian society still contain such developed pockets attached to the
international capitalist economy and in turn more globalized in the modern sense, while
other segments are marginalized based on their relative socioeconomic status within this
38
dual industrialized process. This entails different levels of socioeconomic development and
consequently value holdings. Consequently, we expect to find varying effects for economic
development among specific sectors, while most of Egyptians still relate themselves to
traditional-materialist values and that goes for the youth as well. Finally, the thesisthesis
below considers Inglehart‟s framework only as a guiding outline for the study of
intergenerational value change in Egypt, however I tend to use other political and social
indicators to map out Egyptian youth values and explain existing cohort differences.
1.5 Problematization and Objectives
This study‟s subsequent sections and chapters base its analysis of youth values on
the conception of political generation. A generation which is defined subjectively as
members of the same birth cohort –following Mannheim‟s definition- qualifies to explain
changing values in the Egyptian case. Our main inquiry in this study is to answer the
following question:
“Are youth political values different from older generation(s)? If they are different;
in which manner?”
By integrating Inglehart‟s typology of postmaterialist versus materialist values
thesis, we develop another set of sub-questions:
- Do the same pattern(s) of youth values in the developed world hold for
Egypt?
- Can Inglehart‟s typology explain youth values in Egypt? If not, what are
the main values that help in explaining cohort differences?
39
Furthermore, Egyptian youth values are perceived to be fragmented, i.e. not holding
the same value patterns due to the internal socioeconomic variations, and effects of different
stratifiers like class-system, education level, gender, place of residency, and religion. For
example, while some Egyptian youth hold post-materialist values, others go ultra-
conservative joining the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) or Jerusalem Supporters (JS).
Also, the thesis aim at explaining the 2011 uprising in Egypt, through posing the following
questions:
1. What are the underlying factors that drive Egyptian youth in different
directions?
2. Can the events of January 2011 in Egypt be explained by changing youth
values?
In addition to the qualitative reasoning used throughout this thesis‟s sections, it
mainly relies on empirical demonstration of youth values using various data-sets based on
its availability. In that sense, I depend on the following main hypotheses:
Hypothesis A: Youth holds different political values than older generations both in
Egypt and the world.
Hypothesis B: The structure of youth values in Egypt is different from other
societies
Hypothesis C: Egyptian youth values are fragmented due to uneven effects of
socioeconomic development, where the increase in socioeconomic status is associated to
higher expressions of postmaterialist values.
40
Hypothesis D: Religion is essential in explaining youth values trends in Egypt,
where higher levels of religiosity are likely to yield traditional-material values Objectives
This study takes up the mission of realizing the following interrelated goals:
i) Applying the generational perspective to map the Egyptian youth values in the
new millennium that led ultimately to the January 2011 events.
ii) It attempts to cluster Egyptian youth value trends in comparison to older
generations and to the mainstream trajectories of international youth through
employing Roland Inglehart‟s intergenerational value change thesis.
iii) The study‟s contribution is yet an analytical one tackling the issue of the youth
from an empirical/generational perspective that is under-researched in this part
of the world.
iv) It contributes to the literature on democratization in MENA through mapping
Egyptian youth values related to democratization, political Islam, and gender
equality. Thus, to foresee effects of youth on democratic potential in Egypt.
1.6 Data and Methodology
This study is using secondary data from five different surveys conducted in Egypt
during the period between July 2000 and March 2013. Data sources are respectively; the
World Values Survey (WVS), the Arab Barometer (AB). All of these data sets are free to
use according to the agreement conditions on each of the above reaserach project websites.
Data characteristics are shown in Table 1.1:
41
Table 1.1 Survey Data on Egypt between 2000 and 2013
Project
Sample Size
Survey Date
Response
Rate
Estimated
Error
Data Collection
Agency
WVS
Wave 472
3000
July 2000-
January 2001
N/A
+/- 1.8 %
EMAC Research
and Training
WVS
Wave 573
3051
March- April
2008
N/A
N/A
Survey Unit at
IDSC
WVS
Wave 674
1523
March- April
2012
N/A
+/- 2.6 %
TNS Egypt
AB
Wave II75
1200
June 2011
100%
+/- 3 %
Al-Ahram Center
(ACPSS)
AB
Wave III76
1200
February-
March 2013
71.6%
+/- 2.8 %
Mada Foundation
Note: Since not all of the above data sets are probably weighted, we weighted the WVS
4, 5, and 6 datasets around the 2006 Egypt‟s census demographic characteristics issued by the
Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).
77
Egypt 2001, WVS Wave 4 (1999-2004), World Values Survey Website,
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV4.jsp, Retrived March 13, 2013.
Egypt 2008, WVS Wave 5 (2005-2009), World Values Survey Website,
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV5.jsp, Retrived March 20, 2013.
Egypt 2012, WVS Wave 6 (2010-2014), World Values Survey Website,
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp, Retrived January 3, 2015.
Arab Barometer Wave II, http://www.arabbarometer.org/instruments-and-data-files, Retrived June 15, 2014.
Arab Barometer Wave III (2012-2014), http://www.arabbarometer.org/instruments-and-data-files, Retrived
June 15, 2015.
Census Data, CAPMAS, http://www.censusinfo.capmas.gov.eg/, Retrived October 10, 2014.
42
As per the mathematical definition of political generations, we used a mediatory
method to define youth in relevance to the data hand. The Population Council which
conducted the Survey of Young People in Egypt defines this category to include those
between the ages of (15-29).84 On the Other hand, Mannheim's conception of the young's
formative years to be between the ages of (18-25), whereas the individual transcends to the
adulthood phase, and starts facing reality. While Mark Tessler in his study on
Morocco‟s political generations set the age of 35 years to be the threshold between younger
and older political generations. We used a mediatory technique to count for generational
gabs ranging between (10-14-19) years in the attempt to produce more stable attitude
analysis over the different waves of surveys in use. Hence, in exploring postmaterialism
values, I defined the youth as those falling within the age bracket of (1630) following the
CAPMAS weights in hand of the WVS on Egypt, while in assessing political, religious and
social attitudes; I used a range of (18-35) to explain youthful orientations due to the weights
of the AB II and III .
Method of Analysis
Throughout the research below, we rely on multiple approaches of analysis, given
that there is no single indicator, or analytical method can solely explain a social complicated
phenomenon such as attitude formation and value change.
In analytical empirical discussions, we used several dependent, independent,
control and interaction variables using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models in
order to explain the effect of different predictors on our parameters that reflect youth values
in Egypt over survey pools. In addition, for the sake of constructing world and regional
maps of postmaterialism, I used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in which
84 SYPE 2009 Final Report, The population Council.
www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2010PGY_SYPEFinalReport.pdf. Retrived August 27, 2014.
44
41
common features reflecting Inglehart‟s typologies where derived from country mean
scores. I used both SPSS and STATA statistical applications in all the following analyses.
In conclusion, this study follows the subsequent line of inquiry; I first examine the
trends of postmaterialist values in the world at the present moment and its relevance to
Egyptian youth. I show how Egyptian youth values patterns are placed in their regional and
global contexts. Then, I provide different manifestations on youth‟s political value
differences in terms of trust, efficacy, and democracy and possible explanations for such
trends. Moreover, I project the role of religiosity on Egyptian youth and its effects on
activism and gender tolerance. Finally, I project youth value change and it relevance to the
Arab Spring events and account for fragmentation among the young in Egypt.
40
CHAPTER II
POSTMATERIALISM IN EGYPT
In this chapter, I aim to place postmaterialist value portfolio in Egypt within its
global and regional contexts. In sections below, I explain thoroughly the underpinnings of
such values and its current status in the world, producing a world cultural map
complementing the earlier work presented by Inglehart. Then, I trace value shift in the
Middle East based on socioeconomic causality. Finally, I provide insights on the level of
postmaterialism among Egyptian youth and its main predictors.
2.1 Postmaterialism in a Comparative Perspective
The causal relation amongst social, economic and political vicissitudes is integral
in the literature of social sciences. Ever since the Marxist doctrine on the primacy of
economic infrastructure in shaping values and norms; this controversial debate never was
outdated. Although a Marxist proletarian class never ruled out in due course of history, yet
the primacy of socioeconomic causation implies some degree of predictably on the mode
of global value change. This section aims at portraying the structure of postmaterialist
values at the turn of the new millennium in a comparative perspective to serve as a starter
to detect such trend in Egypt afterwards. This work is one hand novel in the context of the
Middle East. In addition, it adds to the already existing earlier cultural maps developed by
Inglehart and Welzel before.
46
Modernization Theory: Re-visited
For Karl Marx, production relations within class-systems are the infrastructure in
any given society that influences the superstructure including state, culture, and legalities
that reflects interests of a given dominant class, and through process of class-antagonism,
47
change is achieved.
78
On the contrary, Emile Durkheim who is more of a sociologist was
concerned with studying the patterns of stability than change in respective societies.
79
. In
another line of thought, Max Weber confronted both Marx and Durkheim arguing that ideas
can actually shape economic conditions under specific conditions through the introduction
of the concept of “Verstehen” or understanding in German.
80
Weber noted that through
understanding the motivations behind actions, ideas can influence economic and political
behavior. Still, recent inputs from scholars like Samuel Huntington, Robert Putnam, and
Francis Fukuyama noted that regardless any kind of socioeconomic cultural variations
caused by industrialization, cultural traditions are persistent mainly in orthodox societies
and ultimately shape economic and political behavior per se.
81
Postwar underdevelopment in the south is owed to the persistence of traditional
economy, psychological and cultural traits in any given society.
82
Thus, for any given
society to develop, it has to follow the western capitalist model of modernization. However
other neo-structuralist scholars, such as Wallerstein, regarded modernization as an outdated
Karl Marx, “The German Ideology.” In The Mm-Engels Reader, Robert C. Tucker (editor), second edition,
New York, W.W. Norton, 1978, pp. 155-175.
Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, New York, The Free Press, 1997.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London, Routledge, 1993.
Paul DiMaggio, “Culture and Economy,” In Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg (editors.), The
Handbook of Economic Sociology, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 27–57.
Daniel Lerner, Passing Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East, New York, Free Press, 1958.
48
explanation of the underdevelopment in poor countries.
83
The postwar modernization
version failed to account for the external causes of underdevelopment.
World-systems theorists owed the uneven center-periphery socioeconomic development to
the exploitation of world capitalism.92 However, such perception has been under criticism
itself, as Evans noted that global division of labor and inclusion into international trade can
stimulate economic growth, and provide welfare portfolio for developing countries as well.
The post-cold war period coupled with the economic boom in South East Asian
regained the credibility of the westernized version of modernization theory. Yet, Inglehart
and others noted for the need to revisit the classical version of it to match the new global
developments, for example Inglehart believes that Russia and China are likely to
democratize because of the long-term effects of socioeconomic growth on individuals‟
behaviors, thus the institutional manifestation of such values will take place.93 He
advocated for the internal fallacies within the main stream underpinnings of modernization
in terms of the perquisites that assume certain level of “modern” values for a given society
to progress.94 On the other hand, he did not adopt the neo-Marxist stances that owed the
underdevelopment of the poor countries to the exploitation by the rich capitalist north.
The process of industrialization leads to cultural shifts, yet this change is path
dependent, i.e. not uniform.95 Cultural zones primarily designed by Samuel Huntington,
and later on used by Inglehart prove to have a stabilizing effect on the worldwide post-
92 Guillermo O‟Donnell, Op. Cit.
Immanuel Wellerstein, “Modernization: Requiescat in Pace,” in The Uses of Controversy in Sociology, L.
A. Coser and O. N. Larsen (editors), New York, Free Press, pp. 130-132.
49
93 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, “How Development Leads to Democracy: What We Know About
Modernization,” Foreign Affairs, March/April Issue, 2009,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64821/ronald-inglehart-and-christian-welzel/how-developmentleads-
to-democracy, Retrived October 28, 2014.
94 Alex Inkeles and David Smith, Becoming Modern: Individual Changes in Six Developing Societies,
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1974.
95 Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, Op. Cit., pp. 48-50.
materialist value change. Thus, Inglehart doubts the modernization forces‟ capability of
producing a global culture in the near future. Second, the growing trend of antisecularism
is overlooked. Theoretically, processes of industrialization and post- industrialization
yields less emphasis on the traditional religious values, yet a growing interest in the
meaning and purpose of life provides a counterbalanced effects. Third, the path dependency
of value change is present within each cultural zone itself, not only cross-cultural. Finally,
the mode and magnitude of value change is dependent on various factors, yet the distinction
between long/short term value changes is highly important. Long-term value changes are
likely to occur, with no necessary westernized “Americanization” turnover in world values.
Thus, unlike the first phase of modernization theory, the post-industrial version of
modernization increases the demand for democracy and little government interference with
remarkable human autonomy.
The Postmaterialism Thesis
By late 1970s, Inglehart developed a technique to understand the value changing
trends all over the world. He did not fell into the trap of unicultural attributes, and to
overcome the hardships connected with the usage of culture as residual variable, he rather
focused on long-term effects of socioeconomic development, which is fairly stable to
overcome the legitimate criticism of the fluctuation and fragmentation of the culturist
50
approaches.
84
It started with his silent revolution thesis, observing a value change towards
post-materialism analyzing the Euro barometer, then he considered more as a cultural shift
by the end of the cold war, and by early 2000s, he started to revisit his original thesis by
accounting for the short-term effects of inflation and its temporal effects on long-term post-
material value standings.
85
In theory, the central claim of modernization is that economic prosperity leads to
change in worldwide values in a predictable mode.
86
The heavy reliance on
industrialization is to yield occupational specialization, high levels of education, rising
economic growth. These effects change the existential living conditions of individuals in
any given society. Modernization is a budding course of human development forced by
socioeconomic progression; it brings cultural change in terms of gender roles, authority
perceptions, sexual norms, religious beliefs, and more participation in the polity‟s affairs.
It likely yields a new form of society that is more emancipative than earlier forms of societal
progression.
87
Such changes according to Inglehart are not under any control, thus elites or
military leaders might think of limiting its effects, yet it is more profound and hard to be
restricted.
Samuel Newman, “Constructing Political Culture Theory: The Political Science of Ronald Inglehart,”
Politics & Policy, Volume 30, No. 4, December 2002, pp. 606-609.
Samuel Newman, Ibid., pp. 599- 604.
Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, Op. Cit., pp. 21-24.
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human
Development Sequence, Op.Cit., 2-3.
51
On the other hand, post-materialism is linked to the changing nature of work and
economy into post-industrial developments. Daniel Bell noted that the changes in nature of
economic transactions in the postwar epoch, where a shift towards service products take
over businesses all over the world.
88
Such shift has major political, economic and social
consequences. The more secure existential living conditions drives human value to focus
on quality of life, environmentalism and self-expression, or in another words what Inglehart
regarded as postmaterialist values. The pre-industrial life is dominated by conflict against
nature, thus more emphasis on traditional-religious values. Furthermore with complexities
in economic transactions, humans manipulated their nature. This gave the rise of material
ideologies that focuses on secular-rational interpretations of history. The shift towards post-
industrial mode of production gave the rise of more autonomous explanations of history,
where more and more people lives in mechanic societies, thus it becomes a game against
persons.
89
Findings of the WVS enhance the hypothesis on the Human Development Sequence
as shown in figure 2.1 based on the rise of post-materialism in postwar developed societies.
The core theme of broadening human choices by elevating social, material and cognitive
constraints on human calculations results a socioeconomic change, rising values towards
of self-expression, and growing trend of democratization. The socioeconomic
modernization process decreases objective capabilities on humans that escalates people‟s
autonomous choices. Changing global values gives more emphasis on individual liberty,
allows for human diversity, in other words “self-expression” values. This syndrome of
Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, New York, Basic Books, 1973, pp. 146-150.
Daniel Bell, Ibid., pp. 149.
52
values focuses on civil and political liberties which comprises democracy. It allows people
the flexibility to be more autonomous, thus realizing freedom of speech and action. The
rise of self-expression in short qualifies modernization to be an emancipative process of
human development.
Figure 2.1 Process of Human Development
Source: Christian Welzel, Focal Point Human Development: On the Foundations of Democracy
and the Causes of its Spread (German), Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 2002, p.
46.
World Cultural Map in the New Millennium
Inglehart based on a conviction of the changing nature of world values towards
postmaterialism has set different mechanisms to test his proposed thesis. The centrality of
rising self-expression values in post-industrial societies provides an adequate indicator to
see such related effects. As in such societies; services and knowledge-based businesses are
prevailing, workers deal with binary codes, symbols and ideas; thus more freedom to take
53
decisions and open up for new ideas. Moreover, the social safety net that surrounds new
life conditions changes the existential threats that face the post-industrial individuals
resulting in upgrading their human development syndrome as proposed by Inglehart. On
the other hand and despite of globalization, the realization of self-expression and secular
values is not yet homogenous around the world. In many parts of the world due to economic
stagnation, individuals do not prioritize such post-materialist values.
90
In this section, I use Inglehart‟s technique to trace the changes of world values
related to the rise of post-materialism in the world at the turn of the new millennium to
assess the global trend of such values, and then I classify it geographically rather than
Inglehart‟s classification that rests on Huntington‟s cross-cultural clash units. Subsequent
to the fall of the Berlin Wall; Samuel Huntington, Robert Putnam and others noted the
persistence of cultural traditions over the simplistic conviction of homogenous
international culture.
91
Huntington classified the world into major cultural zones that
includes; western-Christians, Orthodox part, Islamic world, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu,
African and Latin American Zones. In this part I developed the same dimensions used by
Inglehart to assess the shift in post-industrial societies to place different parts of the world
in this cross-cultural variation values comparison.
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human
Development Sequence, Op.Cit., p.4.
Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,‟‟ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No.3, pp. 22-40.
54
I used data from the 6th wave of the WVS conducted between 2010 and 2014 to
compare it to Inglehart‟s earlier work on the same dimensions. I use PCA method to extract
two dimensions reflecting “traditional versus secular-rational” values on the one hand,
while the other indicates “survival versus self-expression” on the national level.
92
Table
2.1 presents the factor loadings of these ten items and the description of the twoextracted
dimensions.
Questions wording are in appendices A and B.
Table 2.1 Dimensions of Cross-Cultural Variation: National-Level
Factor
Loadings
Traditional values emphasize the following
(Secular-rational values emphasize the opposite)93
God is very important for respondent
.484
It is more important for children to learn obedience and religious faith
than independence and determination (Autonomy Index)
.337
Abortion is never justified
.324
Respondent has a strong national pride
.683
Respondent favors more respect for authority
.504
Survival values emphasize the following
(Self-expression values emphasize the opposite)94
Respondent gives priority to economic and physical security over
selfexpression and quality of life (4-item postmaterialist index)
.495
Respondent feels not very happy
.326
Homosexuality is never justified
.745
Respondent did not and would not sign a petition
.539
Respondent is careful about trusting other people
.359
Note: World Values Survey, Wave 6 (2010-2014)
As table 2.1 shows, the two extracted factors loaded quiet lower in my extracted
PCA components than Inglehart‟s earlier works of 1997 and 2005, as it loaded above (0.6)
in his earlier work. I owe such results to the effect of missing data that is estimated to be
about 12%; where the statistical application used here Statistical Package for Social
The first factor explains 38.9% of total cross-national variations. By multiplying the extracted factor with (-
1), the positive pole is rational-secular values.
The second factor explains 22.6% of the total cross-national variations. By multiplying the extracted factor
with (-1), the positive pole is self-expression values.
Sciences (SPSS) excludes countries that contain missing items.
95
The extracted factors
correlated at r=0.514. The logic
96
behind selecting these ten items –same as Inglehart- is
the consistency of these questions across the WVS.
In order to produce a world cultural map at 2014 that assesses postmaterialist value
rankings around the world according to the earlier extracted factors, I then extracted the
arithmetic mean scores of countries of the WVS sixth wave, and then place them
graphically. For the sake of such analysis, country cases were weighted around 1500
observations per nation. And due to the effect of missing data, only 50 countries produced
means, thus 16.4% of the data were excluded due to pairwise exclusion technique, leaving
the final cases to be (N=65183). Missing values as mentioned above affects the number of
eligible countries, as it was excluded automatically on the factor loading analysis.109
Results of the countries‟ mean score values of over the two extracted dimensions;
emphasizes the same pattern discussed in Inglehart‟s work of 1997 and 2005; where higher
scores on the two dimensions is found among developed high-income countries.
97
In
accordance with the world development indicators of 2015, the countries of high economic
status scored the highest on the estimated means of the post-materialism dimensions.
98
All cases (N=74042) were weighted around 1500. Principle component analysis was used to extract
(factors=2) with varimax rotation, while excluding any coefficients (=>0.3). The two extracted factors are
based on pairwise deletion, where correlation coefficients for each pair of variables are based on all cases
with valid data for that pair. The model scored (.761) on Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of samplingadequacy
test. Bartlett‟s test of sphericity chi-square scored (56118.077) at p<0.05.
51
World Cultural Map in appendix C
Full list of mean countries scores on Inglehart‟s dimensions are in appendix D.
World Growth, World Development Indicators 2015, pp. 80-82.
50
Figure 2.2 represents the countries‟ mean scores on two axes; the horizontal one indicates
progression towards “Self-Expression” values, while the vertical axis tends towards
“Secular-Rational” values. Both progressive values tend towards the
positive pole.
The following figure is represented in geographical terms rather than Inglehart‟s
earlier reliance on Huntington‟s cultural zones. The logic behind such classification is that
I believe that the cultural-zones classification is subjective, geographical zones is more
valid. Moreover it shows that Middle East is scoring lowest on both dimensions, in another
words, one can grasp that peoples of such region face direct economic hardship particularly
in the past four years following the political instability in this part of the world resulting in
the focus on survival values, with reliance on traditional values expect for deviant cases
such as Lebanon. On the other hand, Western Europe and North America scores are the
highest on both dimensions. It reflects a higher level of existential security and social safety
net, thus more emphasis on rationality and self-expression values are reported. Other parts
of the world scores differently and in turn placed over diverse parts on the graph. South
East Asia countries scores just below North America, which means that this part of the
world is rapidly changing its value identification as result of the mid-1990s economic
prosperity. The figure in general matches our original assumption that the high degree of
modernity in terms of value expression is related to socioeconomic progression.
To sum up, the growing trend of postmaterialism at the turn of the new millennium
is still prevalent; however the magnitude of such progression is different from one part of
the world to another. While scores are really high in Western Europe and North America,
the Middle East region is still scoring negatively on both dimensions. This growing trend
which results in changing gender, political, and individualistic values can be contested in
developing states as latter sections will show. Scores on Inglehart‟s
52
59
survival/self-expression and traditional/secular-rational dimensions show variations in cultural
homogeny of post-materialist values that he predicted before.
Traditional<---------------------------------->
Secular-Rational
1.5
5
|
South
East
Asia
Eastern
Europe
West
Europe and
North
America
1
+
.
|
@
Taiwan
@
Japan
|
@
Ukraine
China
@
South
Korea
|
@
Slovenia
05
|
@
Germany
@
Sweden
4
@
Netherlands
|
@
Spain
1
Singapore
1
a
4
_
@
04
Tunisia®
Armenia
@
Chile
e
@
New
Zealand
]
Sa
¢
Palestine
@
algeria
@
Poland
@
Australia
|
Morocco
Malaysia
Uruguay
@
United
States
|
@
Yemen
|
@
Jordan
05
4
Latin
America
1
Middle
East
|
qn
Tfinidad
and Tobago
Uzbekistan
1
e
o
° S
Mexico
14
Colombia
-1.5
——
oo
tt
ot
a
a
a
-1.5 -1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
SUTVival<-----------------2--neeeeennneeneeeneneeneeeseseeee>
Self
Expression
Figure 2.2 Mean of Country Scours on Cross-Cultural Value Variations (World Map)
54
62
Value Change in the Middle East
In this study‟s quest to place Egyptian values within a wider global and regional
context. I believe it‟s of a great importance to compare Egyptian value system to other
states in MENA given the commonalties among these states in terms of culture, economy
and the nature of respective political regimes.
Figure 2.3 represents the location of MENA countries on Inglehart‟s dimensions
from 2000 till 2014.
99
Vertical axis represents variation from traditional to secularrational
values towards the positive pole, while horizontal axis represents variation from survival
to self-expression values. The reason for the incomprehensive representation in the below
figure, i.e. missing countries, is due to large number of missing cases in wave 6 (2010-
2014); thus, much of the respective country scores cannot be obtained. In addition,
questions did change from wave to another, yet I tried to stick to Inglehart-Welzel original
items in the 1997 and 2005 dimensions for comparison reasons. The figure shows Egypt‟s
value system changing from 2001 to 2008 on the self-expression continuum, and slightly
towards secular-rational values. A plausible explanation for that is the growing disconnect
with government‟s economic and social policies during the Ahmed Nazif second‟s cabinet
with remarkable increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates explained
earlier. Thus, an obvious movement on the horizontal axis is noted, while degrees of
conservatism are still maintain. However, it is important to bear in mind that Egypt‟s scores
lies in the (negative) area on the aggregate dimensions.
These mean value scores used in figure 2.3 were extracted in two ways. Waves (4=2000-2004 and 5=2005-
2009) were derived from WVS‟s website from Inglehart and Welzel‟s representation of global cultural map,
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp?CMSID=Findings, Retrived March 20, 2015. Wave
(6=2010-2014) was extracted from a principle component factor analysis used in the earlier section (2.1).
63
Figure 2.3 Mean of MENA Country Scores on Inglehart‟s Model (2000-2014)
Note: 4=2000-2004, 5=2005-2008 and 6=2010-2014
Source: World Values Survey Waves 4, 5 and 6 (2000-2014)
In fact most of the countries in the region scores negatively on both dimensions
expect for both Lebanon (2010-2014) and Israel (2000-2004). While both Iraq and Tunisia
changed their scores to be positive on the secular-rational dimension in (20102014), yet
they still negatively scores on the self-expression dimension. An important remark as well,
is that Qatar (2010-2014) and Saudi Arabia (2000-2004) scores the highest among other
Arab states on the self-expression dimension. I argue that it does not necessarily mean a
shift towards postmaterialist values, however it reflects a high level of existential security
64
related to the oil-revenues that such states acquire.
100
Arab spring states, such as Libya,
Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt scores higher than other states on the secular-traditional
dimension, with less development on the self-expression axis. Hence, the above figure can
lead us to assume that there is a limited movement towards more expression values in the
Middle East.
2.2 Value System(s) in Egypt
By early 2000s, Egypt has been through considerable change in its political,
economic and social spheres. This wave of transformation had its impact on the Egyptian
society. Although many highlighted the post-millennial transformations in Egypt, yet little
work accounted for the changing nature of changing values of the Egyptian society. In the
section below, I start by highlighting the sociopolitical background of Egypt in the post
2000 epoch, then I account for the aggregate/disaggregate value change in Egypt based on
Inglehart‟s Postmaterialism indices. Other than filling the knowledge gap on the structure
of Egyptian value system, this section further aims at providing an overview on the current
settings of Egyptian value systems.
Socioeconomic and Political Background
Since 1978 peace agreement with Israel and the adoption of the Infitah “Open-
Economy” during Sadat‟s reign (1970-1981), the Egyptian society has transformed
dramatically given its earlier socialist attachments prioritized by President Gamal
AbdelNasser (1954-1970).
101
Mubarak –coming from the same institutional background
Michael L. Ross, “Will Oil Drown the Arab Spring? Democracy and the Resource Curse,” Foreign Affairs,
September/October 2011, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2011-08-19/will-oildrown-
arab-spring, Retrived May 2, 2015.
Egyptian-Israeli Peace Agreement: Peace Treaties Digital Collection, United stated Institute of Peace,
http://www.usip.org/publications/peace-agreements-israel-egypt, Retrived May 2, 2015
65
and formerly served as Sadat‟s deputy- as mentioned earlier continued in his predecessor‟s
economic strategies. The composition of successive governments under Mubarak reveals
such fact as well. Table 2.2 shows list of cabinets under Mubarak in which most of the head
of these governments were technocrats or university professors affiliated with the NDP
adopted neo-liberal economic policies. Successive governments in Egypt aimed at coping
with the International Monetary Fund‟s (IMF) structural adjustments accords and the
regime willingness at that time to integrate Egypt‟s economy into world trade and
alleviate the external debt.
Table 2.2 List of Cabinets under Mubarak since 1986
Prime Minster
Government Term
Political Affiliation
Atef Sedky
1986-1996
NDP
Kamal Elganzouri
1996-1999
NDP
Atef Ebeid
1999-2004
NDP
Ahmed Nazif
2004-2011
NDP
Source: Former Prime Ministers of Egypt, Egyptian Cabinet,
http://www.cabinet.gov.eg/Cabinet/Former.aspx, Retrived May 2, 2015.
In order for the Mubarak regime to face the chronic external debt that Egypt suffered
from since the 1960s. Successive governments since the 1990s took harsh macro-economic
measures mainly in the form of cutting public spending and privatization. However, the
Egyptian economy entered a stagnation period by the end of the 1990s due to political
instability and lack of investments. Thus, since 2004; Nazif‟s cabinet had to rethink its
Macroeconomic strategy, as to focus on deregulation in terms of trade regulations, tax
system and investment portfolio to attract private and foreign investments.
102
Coupled with
Nadia Farah, Op. Cit.
66
the rise of Gamal Mubarak and his direct/ indirect involvement in both NDP and Nazif‟s
cabinet economic planning, Egypt GDP growth rate reached 7.2% in 2008 representing the
highest value in 25 years.
103
Moreover, World Bank considered the Egyptian economy as
one of the most developing economies in mid2000. See Figure 2.4 below on Egypt‟s GDP
annual growth rates (1999-2011), that shows periods of economic growth and stagnation
during the past decade.
Figure 2.4 GDP Growth Rate in Egypt (1999-2011)
Source: CIA World Fact book and World Development Indicators
However, the international recognition of the high GDP growth rates did not reflect
in internal political stability or satisfaction with income redistribution given the earlier
waves of privatization and social inequality shared by many sectors in the Egyptian society
especially the workers. Table 2.3 shows the number of worker strikes from 1999 till 2008,
it shows an increase especially during the high economic growth periods of 2007 and 2008
Egypt‟s Economic Indicators, Egypt: CIA World Fact Book, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-
world-factbook/geos/eg.html, Retrieved May 2, 2015.
5
5
2.5
1.7
3.1
4.5
4.9
6.8
7.1
7.2
4.6
5.1
1.8
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Year
67
especially in the private sector. This raises the question of whether the periods of economic
growth in Egypt reflects nominal or real economic growth and whether it resulted in just
income distribution and higher livings standards.
Table 2.3 Number of Workers‟ Strikes per Sector (1999-2008)
Year
Government
Sector
Public Business
Sector
Private Sector
Total
1999
13
10
15
54
2001
3
6
9
40
2002
6
8
5
19
2002
8
3
13
24
2003
6
3
16
25
2004
24
10
9
43
2005
21
13
12
46
2006
17
13
17
47
2007
36
31
43
110
2008
37
17
68
112
Source: The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt, Solidarity Center, 2010, pp. 16-17,
www.solidaritycenter.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F02%2Fpubs_egypt_wr1.pdf,
Retrived May 2, 2015.
Politically, the first decade of 2000s was remarkably salient in addition to several
economic developments. In February 2005, Mubarak announced his intention to amend
article 76 of the 1971 constitution which defines the procedures for choosing the
president.117 It allowed for the first time for a direct people‟s vote in selecting the president.
Then in 2007 a set of amendments was passed on the same article that solidifies the ruling
NDP‟s role in selecting the future president of Egypt. 118
These amendments coupled with the visibility of Mubarak Junior, intensified the
narratives on the possible line of succession of power in Egypt, i.e. within Mubarak‟s
117 Nathan J. Brown, Michele Dunne, and Amr Hamzawy, “Egypt‟s Controversial Constitutional
Amendments,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2007,
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/egypt_constitution_webcommentary01.pdf, Retrived April 30, 2015.
118 Amended article 76: The President shall be elected by direct, public, secret ballot. For an applicant
to be accepted as a candidate to presidency, he shall be supported by at least 250 elected members of the
People‟s Assembly, the Shura Council and local popular councils on governorate level, provided that those
shall include at least 65 members of the People‟s Assembly, 25 of the Shura Council and ten of every local
council in at least 14 governorates […] The number of members of the People‟s Assembly, the Shura
Council and local popular councils on governorate level supporting candidature shall be raised in pro rata to
any increase in the number of any of these councils. In all cases, support may not be given to more than one
candidate.
- 2007amendments of the 1971 Constitution, Egypt State Information Center,
http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/Templates/Articles/tmpArticles.aspx?CatID=204, Retrived May 2, 2015.
61
family. It was then termed as Altawrith “Inheritance” project.
104
Such development gave a
momentum for the rise of social movements to erupt given the restricted nature of the
political regime at that time, Kefaya “Enough” movement -aimed at failing the earlier
mentioned succession project- took the lead in paving the way for various routes of
untamed opposition to appear. Youth movements were formulated from Kefaya and other
protest organizations such as April 6th. These kinds of activities as argued in earlier sections
used secured cyber space to organize and recruit their supporters.
Waves of post-2000 political activism according to Dina Shehata can be identified
in four phases.
105
The first phase is closely related to external affairs such as the Palestinian
Intifada in 2000 and the war on Iraq 2003, which was manifested in the March 20th
movement that brought thousands of Egyptians into Tahrir square. The second phase
focused on democratization, with the installation of "Kefaya" movement that adopted
unconciliatory notions with the regime, which attracted cross-ideological youth. The third
phase is closely associated with the socioeconomic grievances mainly manifested in
workers' demands, as youth comprehended that grass-rooted social work might be the mean
Manar Shorbagy , The Egyptian Movement for Change- Kefaya: Redefining Politics in Egypt, Public
Culture Vol. 19, No. 1, 2007, pp. 175-196.
Dina Shehata, "Youth Movements and the 25 January Revolution” Arab Spring in Egypt: Revolution and
Beyond, Op. Cit., p. 106.
60
70
for change. Finally, the fourth phase is a return to the political sphere with the timing of
succession in the regime from Mubarak to his son.
The earlier mentioned economic and political developments had major
sociopolitical consequences on the Egyptian society in terms of social grievances,
inequality and the rise of new-capitalist elites that took over the formal political sphere.
Postmaterialism in Egypt
Based on the qualitative assessments presented in earlier sections that indicate the
changing socioeconomic and political milieu of Egyptian and the political socialization of
Egyptian youth, we believe there are enough reasons to assume that Egyptian values are
undergoing process of change as a reflection of existential progression. In this section; I
use Inglehart “Materialism/Postmaterialism” 4-item and 12-item batteries to trace such
value change through the WVS waves of 4, 5 and 6. These indices reflect progression
towards postmaterialism at the positive end. Moreover, for more robustness, Egypt‟s data
were extracted and weighted according to several parameters provided by the CAPMAS.
106
The Materialism/Postmaterialism 4-item index is composed repeated questions used in
successive WVS waves that are classified on the earlier dimensions.
107
The Egyptian data were weighted in all following analyses according to the Egyptian Central Agency for
Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) http://www.censusinfo.capmas.gov.eg/, Gender
(Males=50.5%, Females=49.5%), Demography (Urban=44.1%, Rural=55.9%), Age Categories
(1630=39.6%, 31-40=20.9%, 41-50=17.4%, 51-60=12%, 61+=10.1%), and Education Levels
(Illiterate/Read= 37.6%, Below High School= 17.1%, High School Diploma=33.7%, College
Degree=11.6%). In order to neutralize sample effects, sampling sizes have been approximated to N=2525 per
wave.
Paul R. Abramson and Ronald Inglehart, “Value Trends in Western Europe and the United States,” Value
Change in Global Perspective, Michigan, the University of Michigan Press, 1998, pp. 9-10.
Question items follow the subsequent order:
1. Maintaining order in the nation;
2. Giving the people more say in important government decisions;
3. Fighting rising prices;
4. Protecting freedom of speech;
With these earlier responses, 6 combinations can be reached. Options (2 and 4) yield
postmaterialist values, while items (1 and 3) compose materialist values. The other
72
remaining 4 combinations produce mixed-values yielding an additive scale ranging
between -2 and +2, where the latter indicates postmaterialist values.
Projecting such index on the Egyptian case with data available from the WVS;
Table 2.4 represents the distribution of “postmaterialist/materialist” percentages among the
three waves on Egypt. The table clearly reflects a decreasing emphasis on the
postmaterialist values after 2001. In theory, an increasing prioritization of one type of
values is directly linked to a decrease in another set of value type. Where only 0.9% of
Egyptians at 2012 were considered to hold such progressive values, coupled with growing
emphasis on pure materialist values. Such result contradicts the high level of economic
growth reported in the second half of the first decade of the 21st century in Egypt. In the
same line, I constructed a Percentage Difference Index (PDI) 123 scores to detect aggregate
value shifts in Egypt. In the same table, PDI scores are increasing as well, in particular
between 2008 and 2012 to reach -62.4%. Inglehart accounted for shortterm fluctuations in
the level of postmaterialist values in given societies as an effect of inflation. However, I
urge with such obvious difference, post-2011 with the political and economic instability, it
led for more emphasis on pure materialist values focusing on basic needs, thus less attention
is assigned to emancipative values.
Table 2.4 Percentages of Postmaterialist/Materialist 4-item Index in Egypt (2001-2012)
Year Postmaterialist Mixed Materialist (N) PDI
%
%
%
Score
Index
2001
5.3
48.7
46.1
2461
-40.8
2008
1.7
53.4
44.9
2523
-43.2
2012
0.9
35.8
63.3
2525
-62.4
Source: WVS waves 4, 5 and 6 (2001-2008-2012)
73
123 PDI= postmaterialist value percentages (minus) materialist value percentages.
For more visual representation, figure 2.5 shows the same postmaterialist/
materialist 4-item index distribution of the decreasing emphasis of post-materialist effects
in the Egyptian society in bars from 2001 to 2012.
Figure 2.5 Postmaterialist/ Materialist 4-item Index Percentages by Wave in Egypt
Source: WVS waves 4, 5, and 6 (2001-2008-2012)
The other index used by Inglehart throughout his thesis is the 12-item value
index.
108
This index thought to be more reliable and valid as it shows a wide range of
variability among respondents to account for the short-term inflation effects.
109
In addition
to the four-item battery; this index includes other two sets of questions adding up to 12-
items as the following:
1. Maintaining a high rate of economic growth;
2. Making sure that this country has strong defense forces;
Questions wording is in appendix D.
Paul R. Abramson and Ronald Inglehart, “Value Trends in Western Europe and the United States,” Value
Change in Global Perspective, Ibid., pp. 22-23.
46.1
44.9
63.3
48.7
53.4
35.8
5.3
1.7
0.9
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
2001
2008
2012
Materialist
Mixed
Postmaterialist
74
3. Seeing that people have more say in how things are decided at work and in their
communities;
4. Trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful.
In this set, options (1 and 2) designed as materialist values, while options (3 and
4) yield postmaterialist values. The other set of this index includes:
1. Maintain stable economy;
2. Progress towards a less impersonal, more humane society;
3. Fight against crime;
4. Progress toward a society where ideas are more important than money.
Options (1 and 3) in this set designed to reflect materialist values as well, while
options (2 and 4) yields postmaterialist values. The scores from respective categories on
postmaterialist/materialism are summed up yielding an additive scale from 0 to +5, where
the positive pole reflects postmaterialist values. Table 2.5 shows that the mean values on
the 12-item index in Egypt by wave at three different points of time; 2001, 2008 and 2012.
Bearing in mind that a perfect postmaterialist score by individual is achieving score of (+5),
scores at its highest during the early 2000s was 1.68 on average. Moreover, results show a
growing emphasis as well on pure materialist expressions that emphasize traditional-
cultural attachments coupled with the importance of present-day challenges in terms of
economic hardships.
Table 2.5 Mean Scores on Postmaterialist/Materialist 12-Item Index by Wave in Egypt
Year
Mean Score
(N)
2001
1.62
2440
2008
1.42
2514
2012
1.08
2525
Source: WVS Waves 4, 5 and 6 (2001-2008-2012)
75
In conclusion, overall scores on both 4-item and 12-item postmaterialism batteries
in Egypt show an inverse trend towards materialist values different from the international
trends portrayed in the earlier sections. Although countries in the region scores negatively
on Inglehart‟s cultural map, however I argue that postmaterialism status in Egypt is lower
than respective Arab states since its turbulent economy dating back to the 1960s.
Moreover, such conclusion is emphasized in the post-2011 epoch due to political
instability and the obvious social grievances expressed by individuals mainly through
sectoral demands. Many scholars and commentators in Egypt argued that sectoral
demands is the real driving force behind the 2011 uprising not liberal progressive
aspirations. Such assumption can be packed by the general scores presented above.
2.3 Youth and Postmaterialism in Egypt
In this section I focus exclusively on youth postmaterialist values in Egypt before
and after the 2011 uprising. As it was believed, the 2011 events aimed at achieving
democracy and political freedoms, thus it can be placed under the category of
postmaterialist “self-expression” values. I control for the age category between (16-30) as
the weight provided through CPAMAS demographics, then I test two general claims, one
is related to effect of age and other is income on postmaterialist values among Egyptian
youth. However, it is worthy to note that overall scores of such values are low in Egypt in
general. Moreover, questions used by Inglehart are not sensitive for developing
communities. For instance, question such as “having more say in government decisions,”
can be regarded as materialist in Egypt in contrast to its classification as postmaterialist
indicator at other understandings in other parts of the world.
76
Effect of Age in Comparative Context
Much of the literature on long-term patterns of postmaterialist values in western
societies is contingent upon generational replacement. Generational replacements due life
socialization effects are central for Inglehart‟s thesis. Younger generations (cohorts) replace
older ones through an accumulative process of graduation resulting in change in political
and social attitudes and behaviors of the publics. In this section, I aim to portray the
structure of youth value system in Egypt on both postmaterialist 12-item and 4-item indices
developed by Inglehart. Then, compare it to similar patterns among other young generations
all over the world to assess the plausibility of Inglehart‟s model in explaining
youth value change in Egypt.
I use both 12-item and 4-item postmaterialist indices for more comprehensive
results. They are constructed respectively on scales from (0 to +5) and (-2 to +2) that
possibly sensitive for short-term inflation fluctuations as well. Here, I test my first claim
that there younger generations in Egypt are more likely to hold postmaterialist values in
forms of desire to have more say in politics and active participation in their respective
communities. Since their formative socialization experiences took place during periods of
economic prosperity in comparison to older cohorts.
Hypothesis 1: younger generations are more likely to express postmaterialist values
in comparison to their older peers in Egypt
First, Table 2.6 tests the relationship between postmaterialist values and age in
Egypt through successive waves. Age as continuous variable tends to be highest on its
positive pole, and materialist/postmaterialist indices are positively arranged as explained
before. Cases were weighted based on earlier data –mentioned above- from the 2006
77
CAPMAS census in Egypt. The results show the same pattern of decreasing emphasis on
postmaterialism among all Egyptian from 2001 to 2008. However, postmaterialist values
increases when age decrease, which matches our original assumption as well as Inglehart‟s
thesis on generational change. Still the magnitude of such association is relatively low
across all waves in Egypt. Association between age and postmaterialism is at its maximum
in 2001, Pearson coefficient scored r= -0.153 in the 4-item battery and r= -0.145 in the 12-
item battery at 99% confidence level. And trends continue to decline in subsequent waves
as well.
Table 2.6 Correlation between Materialist/Postmaterialist indices and Age
Survey Year
Pearson Coefficient
Age
4-Item Index 12-Item Index
2001
-0.153** -0.145**
2008
-0.026* -0.049*
2012
-0.039 -0.017
* p<0.05, ** p<0.01
Source: WVS 4, 5, and 6 (2001-2008-2012)
Figure 2.6 show the mean scores of age categories on the
Materialist/Postmaterialist 12-item dimension in Egypt is declining since 2001 through
2012. Arithmetic mean scores of the younger cohort (16-30) scores highest on the
continuum among the three different waves. Such result further emphasizes the earlier
correlation between age and the proposed dimensions. However, the trend in the table
matches the original trend on decreasing emphasis on postmaterialist values especially after
the 2011 events. Although younger cohort (16-30) scores highest on the continuum, which
explains their differential values in relation to other cohorts, still the decreasing emphasis
on postmaterialism leaves our quest unsolved. It can be owed to short-term inflation effects
mainly that marked the post-2011 epoch. As mentioned above sectoral demands were at its
78
highest following the uprising. Moreover, since Egypt increased its internal and external
debts following the uprising, it was reflected in decreasing quality levels of public services,
thus many of Egyptians including the youth see direct economic conditions crucial for life
conditions.
Figure 2.6 Materialist/Postmaterialist 12-item means scores by Age Categories
Source: WVS,4, 5and 6 (2001, 2008 and 2012)
Another simple method is to compare Egyptian youth mean value scores on the used
index to the international means. In 2001, world youth (16-30) mean score value was 1.93,
while Egyptian youth scored 1.8; that indicates that Egyptian youth at the turn of the
millennium was of more open to participate more in the political process and rethink
traditional norms on average level according to the international standards. In
2008, Egyptian youth value mean score was 1.46, while international mean was 1.55. Thus,
still Egyptian youth was near to the average international scores. However, in 2012, the
international mean score was 2.03, whereas Egyptian youth score was 1.08. That indicates
a drastic decrease on the emphasis on postmaterialist values of self-expression and
1.8
1.51
1.49
1.44
1.46
1.46
1.46
1.41
1.34
1.3
1.08
1.04
1.13
1.05
1.07
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
16-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61+
Age Categories
2001
2008
2012
79
secularism on the contrary to what was expected in the aftermath of the 2011 events and
related political mobilization. I argue this finding is very important to explain the
depoliticization and polarization that Egypt is facing in the aftermath of the uprising after
the overestimation of youth abilities at that time. Additionally, it opens the door for casting
doubt about the youth abilities claim.
To further test the relationship between age and postmaterialism is to compare
Egyptian youth in its regional and international contexts, thus to be able to answer the
original hypothesis if international youth value trends hold for Egypt or not. I developed
mean scores for countries on the 12-item index for the (16-30) age category based on the
6th wave of WVS (2010-2014).
110
Cases were weighted around 1500 to normalize the
results. Cross-national mean scores‟ results were very informative. Bearing in mind that
the international average score on this index is 2.03, results shows that Egyptian youth
values mean score is between the lowest among the 50 countries used in this measurement.
While it scored 1.08 in Egypt, western European countries scored the highest, for instance
Sweden scored 2.81, and 2.14 was the U.S score. Even Arab states expect for Tunisia and
Yemen, scored more than Egypt. Lebanese youth for instance got
2.08, even Libya, Morocco and Iraq scored between (1.77 and 1.68).
Income Effect
In this final section, I test Inglehart‟s main causal mechanism related to the
generational shift towards postmaterialist values, which is the effect of income. As level of
income increases, existential constraints on human minds decreases resulting in changing
values related to gender, sexuality and more deliberative democratic practices. Thus, my
main hypothesis in this section:
Hypothesis 1: higher income levels among young Egyptians, is likely to result in
higher levels of postmaterialist value preferences
Full table is in appendix D.
71
I use data from the WVS on waves 4 and 5 that were conducted in Egypt at 2001
and 2008 respectively to construct an OLS regression model only for youth (16-30).
Cases were weighted according the 2006 CAPMAS demographic outputs as mentioned
before. Data from 6th WVS wave at 2012 in Egypt were excluded as income and place of
residency variables were not reported by the collecting agency. Dependent variable is the
12-item materialist/postmaterialist index that tends to positive pole, while the main
independent variable is a scaled-income that was reported in local currency from less than
500 Egyptian pounds to more than 12501 pounds per month. Thus, we expect to find
positive correlation between both variables. I use other controls that were reported in binary
forms, education refers to college degree holders, gender refers to females, while place of
residency refers to urban residents.
111
Results from table 2.7 on the factors affecting postmaterialism among Egyptian
youth between 2001 and 2008; shows that income is of great explanatory power on our
postmaterialist parameter in 2008, as it explains 0.37 increase in such values if income
increases at 90% confidence level, while at 2001 it was statistically insignificant, this has
to with the high level of economic growth reported between 2005 and 2008, thus those who
has more income are likely to be postmaterialist. In a related vein, high education level is
robust across models, explaining 0.425 in 2001 and 0.417 in 2008 the increase in such
values at 95% and 99% confidence levels respectively, only males are more supportive of
Place of residency variable in the WVS was derived for size of town variable, in which more than 20,000
inhibits are placed in the urban category.
70
82
such values in 2001 which I think has to do with the higher level of social security among
males at the turn of the millennium in comparison to females.
Table 2.7 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Postmaterialism among Youth in Egypt
2001
Model 1
2008
Model 1
Income
-0.008
(0.017)
0.37 *
(0.017)
College Degree
0.425** (0.152)
0.417***
(0.115)
Gender (=female)
-0.209**
(0.075)
0.091
(0.069)
Urban
-0.007
(0.074)
-0.017
(0.083)
Intercept
1.905*** (0.101)
1.221***
(0.085)
R2
0.017
0.026
N
912
900
Note: standard errors in parentheses
*p<0.1, **p<0.05, ***p<0.01
Source: WVS (2001 and 2008) on Egypt
Ultimately, I conclude the following remarks on the postmaterialist
intergenerational value change thesis. First, Inglehart scholarship on growing accumulative
long-term trend of postmaterialist value change was primarily designed and tested in the
western developed hemisphere of the world. Although he revisited many of the universal
conceptions of modernization, yet it cannot be argued that it holds comprehensively for
other parts of the world as shown in earlier discussion. Hence, we call for refining the index
while accepting its principal causal mechanism.
Second, mean scores for Egyptian youth values and other MENA-states are below
the international average mean on the materialist/postmaterialist indices. Further this trend
is back-warding internationally and clearly in Egypt due to different factors. Internationally,
one can assume that the 2008 financial crisis caused much of this decreasing emphasis on
postmaterialist values. However the overall international score on postmaterialist values
are far from the scores of Egyptian youth in post-2011 on the
84
contrary to what have been theorized by many Middle East scholars of democracy. This
finding is crucial to account that international postmaterialist patterns do not hold for
Egyptian youth in the post-2011, in fact Egypt‟s scores have been decreasing steadily since
2001. Therefore, I can say that structure of Egyptian youth values is different from other
international youths. It still emphasizes more on materialist priorities of survival, existential
security and traditional-cultural dominance according to Inglehart‟s measures.
Third, overall scores of MENA-Muslim countries are quiet low on both the
traditional/secular-rational and survival/self-expression dimensions. This raises issues of
cultural singularity and persistence of cultural traditions in this underdeveloped part of the
world. While scores of Western Europe, North America and South East Asia are relatively
high, this further emphasizes my original criticism on the inadequacy of such dimensions
to be tested in MENA and Africa per se. Finally, both Inglehart‟s models (bivariate
dimension and postmaterialist indices) are not sensitive for testing Egyptian youth value
system. It can be owed to its Eurocentric routes, question wording, data collection
techniques and might be due to the unfulfilled prophecy of modernization per se. The results
above entails more investigation for the material values among Egyptian youth that was
statistically shown to be different from older generations, yet have not been empirically
considered before these lines are being written.
CHAPTER III
85
YOUHT POLITICAL AND DEMOCRATIC VALUES
The widespread popular mobilization took place in Egypt during 2011 had
remarkable implications on the study of youth participation and role in the society.
112
Moreover, it instigates problematizing this demographic phenomenon going beyond the age
as independent factor in explaining such unpredicted wave of activism. Younger age
cohorts -termed as political generation in much of this study-, who participated and in part
prepared for this unprecedented historic wave of mobilization, gauge much of the potential
of democratization in Egypt. Many scholars and commentators argued that they differ in
their features from older generations, thus affecting the direction of change in the country‟s
political settings.
This chapter deals with such claim on Egypt‟s current political generations; from
an individual-oriented perspective. As earlier chapter showed that Egypt‟s young
generation differs from international trends of postmaterialism, I aim in this chapter to
portray and anatomize youth value holdings. Moreover, I account for the fragmentation
effects with the current generation of young Egyptians, in another words, I do not treat the
youth as holistic one bloc. I start by examining youth political values using different
parameters such as interest in politics, political trust and efficacy to gauge the differences
among Egyptian cohorts testing the claim on youth‟s singularity and its relation to
mobilizing the 2011 uprising. Then, I examine their democratic values in terms of support,
authoritarian attitudes and degree of satisfaction with political system based on democratic
Nahla Mahgoub and Reham Morsi, “Youth Perspectives on Citizenship and Civic Engagement in Egypt."
The Undergraduate Research Journal, Vol. 3, 2014.
86
literature that accounts for youth activism and their related role in successful
democratization. This chapter provides an unconventional understanding for the profiles of
young Egyptians that are believed to be diverse unlike the original assumptions by many
Middle East scholars.
3.1 Youth Political Values
The study of political generations in the Arab world since the 1970s regarded the
youth category to determine future pathways of respective Arab states. Tessler noted that
before on his studies on Algerian and Moroccan youth in early 2000s, in which they differ
from their older counterparts whose formative years were deeply entrenched with the
independence struggle in contrast to the post- independence periods of 1970s and the
1980s.
113
Those who were brought up after1970s in the Arab world are thought to be more
expressionists and democratic in different way from their peers as well.
114
I hold similar argument in Egypt, given the historic mobilization took place in 2011
and its implications on the Egyptian political system. However, I believe that post2011
settings showed lack of political organization and high fragmentation among the young
themselves. In the following sections, we tend to explore the generational differences in
respect to political orientations in Egypt during the 2000s. And the next step is to anatomize
Mark Tessler, “Morocco's Next Political Generation,” The Journal of North African Studies, Vol.5, No
.l, 2000, pp. 8-12. And see also: Mark Tessler, “Political Generations in Developing Countries: Evidence
and Insights from Algeria 2004,” Public Opinion in the Middle East: Survey Research and the Political
Orientations of Ordinary Citizens. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011, pp. 75-80.
“Development in the Arab World,” in M. Tessler (editor), A New Look at the Middle East, Milwaukee,
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1971, p. 13-15.
87
such generational-split, to measure the degree of value consistency among youth. Table 3.1
shows list of political orientations‟ parameters used in
subsequent sections based on obtainability of available data sets.
Table 3.1 Political Values‟ Indicators
WVS 2000 WVS 2008 AB 2011 WVS 2012 AB 2013
Interest in Politics X X X
Political Trust
X
Political
Efficacy
X X
X= used items
Interest in Politics
Measuring political and behavioral attitudes is a deep-rooted tradition when it
comes to assessing youth‟s political involvement, participation, and the reasons for their
social exclusion in the northern hemisphere of the world.
115
Generally, youth perceived to
be disinterested in politics and public affairs.
116
Previous explanations owe such findings
to the shared belief of irrelevance of politics to youngsters. Moreover, youth see no direct
attachment for politics to their direct material interests. In addition, other studies focus on
the complexity of the political phenomenon to young people to comprehend. Moreover, as
part of their rebellious nature, young people showed steadily low level of confidence in
governments and politicians. On the other hand, much of the research that challenges such
A. Richardson, Talking About Commitment, The Views of Young People on Citizenship and
Volunteering, London, Social and Community Planning Research, 1990
A. Furnham, and B Gunter, “Young people‟s political knowledge,” Educational Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1,
1987, pp. 91–104
88
deliberative alienated youth perceptions focuses mainly on their voluntary philanthropy
activities.
117
Hence and in the same line, following the 2011 events in Egypt, studies on
Egyptian youth involvement, accounted for the safe spaces “parallel spheres” that Egyptian
young men and women acted in to avoid authoritarian contexts.
118
In which prior to the
politicization of the Egyptian society as a post transitory effect, youth vocally expressed
their opinions through cyber space, social media platforms, and organized themselves
through non-profit organizations. Scholars believe that such lowpolitics engagements led
to the historic mobilization of January 2011. In this section, however we tend to discard the
common perception that Egyptian youth are detached from public affairs, and account for
the cohort differences in regards to political interest.
Thus, I hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 1: over the past decade, younger Egyptians are more interested in
politics and public affairs.
In order to test such claim, I use a common repeated item through in the WVS
surveys that asks respondent to show his/her degree of interest in politics on a scale from 1
to 4.
119
We reversed the item, thus more interest in politics tends to be at the positive pole.
Moreover, I use data from the WVS over a period of 11 years in Egypt comparing
generational differences and intra-generational cohort change as well. We use a bivariate
R. Kimberlee, “Politically apathetic youth: a new generation?,” Renewal, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1998, pp. 87–90.
Sherine El-Taraboulsi, “Spaces of Citizenship: Youth Civic Engagement and Pathways to the January 25
Revolution,” Youth Activism and Public Space in Egypt, Cairo, John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and
Civic Engagement, the American University in Cairo, 2011, pp. 10-13.
Question wording is in Appendix F
89
correlation matrix between the interest in politics variable and age categories, where age
cohorts where rounded by the CAPMAS weights mentioned above.
For better visualization, frequency distribution was converted into percentages as
shown in Table 3.2. It shows the levels of those who showed high or some interest in politics
divided by age categories. Results show that total percentages of interest in politics have
fluctuating over the past decade in Egypt to reach its maximum after the 2011 events
reaching 69.1% of total sample in 2012. Respondents of (16-30), showed the lowest level
of interest in politics in 2001; however their scores increased dramatically at
2012, when they became at the age of (31-40) to score 71.7% interest in public affairs.
Although Egyptian society has shown high level of politicization in general, and the
differences between cohorts are not blunt, yet those who are between 16 and 30 are among
the most politicized sections of the society with 68.2% at 2012. Life-cycle theories argued
before that interest in public affairs is a function of age, yet the high level of youth
politicization is remarkable and differs from other parts of the world. This assures our initial
assumption on the politicization of Egyptian youth during 2000s and in the post-2011
epoch. It shows how the 2011 events politicized the whole society, especially among youth
who are most interested in the fate of politics in their country.
Table 3.2 Interest in Politics by Age Categories
2001
2008
2012
%
Interested
in Politics
%
Interested
in Politics
%
Interested
in Politics
16-30
38.1
34.9
68.2
31-40
39.7
27.7
71.7
41-50
45
31.3
73.3
90
51-60
42.8
60.8
66.9
61+
50.6
28.6
64.5
Total
41.2%
32.7%
69.1%
Source: WVS (2001-2008-2012)
The high level of interest in politics in the Egyptian society signals convoluted
messages for the sake of analysis, thus table 3.3 shows the generational value change in
terms of politicization, it shows that Egypt‟s younger generation in 2012 are highly
interested in politics in relation to their older peers, while the youth of 2001 showed high
degree of change in their interest in politics over time by (-3.2+44=40.8%) reflecting a
higher propensity of intra-generational value change over the past decade in Egypt. One
important lesson to be drawn here regardless of the young interest in politics; is such scores
reflect a reaction to a certain stimuli and there is no guarantee that this will continue to be
the case in the near future.
Table 3.3 Change in Values of Political Interest
2001-2008 2008-2012
Age Categories Value Change136 Value Change
16-30 -3.2 +33.3
31-40 -12.5 +44
41-50 -13.7 +42
51-60 +18 +61
61+ -22 +35.9
Source: WVS 4, 5, and 6 (2001, 2008 and 2012)
Political Trust
Political trust as concept is different from trust in governing institutions; the latter
implies an evaluating perception of the performance of ruling institutions, while the former
entails confidence in policy outcomes. Political trust is a conviction that the political system
91
–as whole or part- would return ideal outputs, even in the case of it being untended.137 This
sentiment is one of the most important pillars of given regime‟s political stability. Political
trust reflects tangible attitudes rather than mere reactions towards certain policies.
Moreover, it provides a window for any given political system to
136 Value Change= T2-T1
137 S. Patterson, J. Wahlke and G. Boynton, "Dimensions of Support in Legislative Systems" in Alan
Kornberg (editor), Legislatures in Comparative Perspective, New York, McKay,1970, p. 273.
maneuver if faced different hardships with the credit of trust portrayed by its citizens.
Following the literature on “political trust,” there are two main broad themes in explain
such sentiments.
One is the rational choice theory that views it from cost-benefit analysis of political
actors‟ choices.
120
Although this perspective does not deny the role of values and norms in
shaping public‟s behavior, yet it does not regard it as sole controlling factor in explaining
political trust. Rational choice theories focus on governmental actions and behavior, where
the controlling independent factor is the ability of respective regimes for providing good
policies and the public perception of officials as good or bad people.
121
On the other hand,
cultural theories argue that short-term material calculations have little explanatory power
in predicting the outcomes of political trust. Although the public react to different stimuli,
however there is an interceding mechanism that ascribes meanings and values for it.
122
Thus, these interceding orientations make the actors react differently to the same events
based on number of stratifiers. On the other hand, culturalists do not overlook institutional
effects; however changes in value and norms are independent from the former. Values affect
Robert Jackman, and Ross Miller, "A Renaissance of Political Culture," American Journal of Political
Science, Vol. 40, 1996.
Richard Fenno, Home Style: House Members in Their Districts, Boston, Little Brown, 1978, pp. 240-41.
Ronald Inglehart, “Changing Values, Economic Development and Political Change,” International Social
Science Journal, No. 145, 1995, pp. 379- 384.
people‟s behavior and have considerable explanatory power in predicating political trust in
a given society.
123
Projecting the earlier review on the Egyptian case; studies on political trust as part
of democratic culture has not been thoroughly tested in the Egyptian case as part of a
general trend of overlooking such implications in the developing world. Political trust is
expected to be higher in authoritarian contexts as a given government presents itself as the
state guardian, protector of peoples‟ needs and most importantly using sentiments of
nationalism especially in the developing world.
124
Examples of the populist regimes are
various in the Arab world; Egypt under Nasser provides a clear example for such sentiments
and connotations. On the other hand, studies of civic and participatory culture suggest some
sort of political distrust, as a measure of keeping elected officials under the public‟s power
restraining them from power abuse and corruption.
125
In this section, we argue that political trust is of importance to be tested in the
Egyptian case reflecting generational divide. Data in hand -that reflects post-2011
circumstances- is expected to show such divide and even more fragmentation among the
Lucian Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority, Cambridge, Harvard
University Press, 1985, pp. vii-viii.
81
Jack Citrin,"Comment: The Political Relevance of Trust in Government," American Political Science
Review, Vol. 68, 1974, pp. 978-979.
Jeffrey Paige, "Political Orientation and Riot Participation," American Sociological Review, Vol. 36, 1971,
p. 976.
80
94
youth themselves. Much of the research done in the developed states, show that political
trust is a reaction towards governmental outputs rather than accumulated events. Moreover,
we expect the young to show more political distrust than their older counterparts. Part of
the explanation is that younger Egyptians who instigated the events feel that the political
system let them down and insensitive for their continuous hardships, while the elderly who
are affected by national sentiments of the post-independence regimes are expected to enjoy
more trust regardless of the relative failures of the Mubarak regime and its dissolution. This
I hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 1: younger generation is expected to show less political trust in
comparison to older cohorts
Hypothesis 2: Those who receive less income are expected to show less political
trust than those who receive more income per month in Egypt
In doing such task, we constructed Political Trust Index (PTI) from the Arab
Barometer data on Egypt at 2011. PTI serves as the main dependent variable in OLS
regression showing the effect of age and income on such parameter. It is constructed
through an additive scale ranging from -1.5 to1.5 constructed from 4 items as shown in
figure 3.1. Items included vary from supporting government decisions unconditionally,
government is aware of citizens‟ needs, political leaders care about public opinion, and that
government takes citizens‟ opinions into account.144 These items correlated on reliability
scale test at α= 0.753, where p-value< 0.01
Figure 3.1 Political Trust Index Items of the Arab Barometer 2011
Citizens must support the government‟s decisions even if they disagree with Reversed
them
Government employees are aware of citizens‟ needs
Reversed
Political leaders are concerned with the needs of ordinary citizens
Reversed
The government takes the opinions of citizens seriously
Reversed
Note: Arab Barometer Wave II
Also I check for interaction between low income receiving individuals below 300
pounds a month and younger generation defined as those are less than 35 years old, and I
144 Question Wording is in appendix G
96
expect to find highest level of political distrust among them. As for the independent
variables, we use age and income in continuous manners, while the latter is measured in
Egyptian pounds. Moreover, I use number of controls such as gender and place of residency
and education level ranging from illiterate to postgraduate degree, thus in the models below,
we insert independent variables and check for interactions while accounting for the various
controls.
Table 3.4 OLS Regression for Factors affecting PTI in Egypt at 2011
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Age
0.024***
0.021***
(0.007)
(0.006)
Income
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
Younger Generation
0.700***
(0.207)
Young and Low Income
-0.852***
(0.312)
Education
0.027
0.037
-0.024
-0.021
(0.054)
(0.042)
(0.052)
(0.053)
Urban
0.082
0.055
0.126
0.150
(0.200)
(0.158)
(0.202)
(0.198)
Gender (=female)
0.031
0.202
0.000
0.082
(0.217)
(0.152)
(0.219)
(0.219)
Intercept
9.413***
9.684***
10.511***
10.346***
(0.322)
(0.217)
(0.265)
R2
0.013
0.007
0.022
N
708
1159
708
708
Note: Standard Errors in Parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Wave II
Results from the OLS regression above in table 3.4 shows that only age accounts
for political trust as expected, however, it is of low magnitude, where in model increase in
PTI is a function of an increase of 0.021 years. It means as well that levels of political trust
97
are low among all Egyptians in general. Other controls did not yield significant correlations.
As for the interaction between those of who are below 35 years old and of low income was
statically insignificant. Thus, in this section, I can argue that overall level of political trust
is low and age provides little evidence on its salience. However, we do not dismiss the
effect of age in explaining low political trust.
Political Efficacy
Concept of political efficacy is of a major explanatory power in predicting political
behavior and participation mechanisms. Efficacy is the feeling that sociopolitical change is
possible and that one can play a vital role in this evolutionary process.
126
Great deal of
political efficacy implies empowered citizens, in which they feel that they can influence
outcomes and decisions of respective political systems.
127
It is argued that those who are
more confident in their ability to affect the political system are likely to support democratic
system. Since the 1950s, scholars such as David Easton, has incorporated the concept of
political efficacy into the studies of political support.
128
Easton and others based political
efficacy during the socialization process to be the potential pillar for active participatory
citizens in democratic systems.
145 A. Campbell, G. Gurin and W.
Miller, the Voter Decides, Illinois: Row, Peterson and Company, 1954, p. 187.
M. E. Morrell, “Survey and experimental evidence for a reliable and valid measure of internal political
efficacy,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 67, 2003, pp. 593-596.
David Easton and J. Dennis, “The Child‟s Acquisition of Regime Norms: Political Efficacy,” American
Political Science Review, Vol. 61, 1967, pp. 25-68.
98
One major pillar for political efficacy is the concept of “self-efficacy” where it is
defined as one‟s judgment of his/her competences to organize sequences of action to yield
certain types of enactments.
129
Thus, self-efficacy affects one‟s choices, efforts and
emotions related to the performance of a certain tasks. In his social cognitive theory,
Bandura argues that self-confident citizens have the belief that they can produce certain
effects through political actions.
130
He also distances between collective and personal
efficacy, where the latter or as termed “internal efficacy” might be influenced by adulthood
experiences. Thus, early democratic experiences are expected to have everlasting effects
on one‟s perception of his ability to influence and change his society in
post-adolescence periods.
131
In the case of Egypt‟s younger generation under study here, we aim to explore their
political efficacy attitudes especially in the post-2011 epoch based on number of stratifiers.
Little empirical research has been done to clarify such convoluted concept, whether young
Egyptians are politically confident in their abilities or not. We expect to find younger
generation more confident than their older peers especially in the post-2011, may be in
another circumstances such assumption might be invalid. However, such attitudes might
reflect certain reactive responses rather than profound beliefs.
A. Bandura, “Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational Psychologist,”
Vol. 28, No. 2, 1993, pp. 117-148.
A. Bandura, Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory, Englewood Cliffs,
Prentice-Hall, 1986, p. 483.
R. Niemi, S. Craig, and F. Mattei, “Measuring internal political efficacy in the 1988 national election
study” American Political Science Review, Vol. 85, No. 4, 1991, pp. 1407-1410.
99
Hypothesis 1: younger Egyptians are more likely to be confident in their political
leverage abilities
Hence, we predict political efficacy attitudes by age to measure its correlation and
figure out the main drivers behind such confident attitudes among young Egyptians.
Political efficacy as the main dependent variable is constructed from item in Arab
Barometer surveys on Egypt at 2011 and 2013, which indicates that politics is too
complicated for understanding.
132
We convert the original scale of this item from (1 to 4)
to (-1.5 to +1.5) then multiply the later by -1, thus the final version indicates more confident
in one‟s abilities towards the positive pole. Age is the main predictor factor that is used in
continuous terms, and I run the regression for each wave among those who are less than 35
years old as well. Moreover, we use number of controls including income, education,
gender and place of residency.
Table 3.5 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Political Efficacy in Egypt at 2011 and 2013
2011
Full Sample
Below 35
2013
Full Sample
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Model 1
Model 2
Age
-0.003
0.001
(0.002)
(0.002)
Income
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
0.012
0.017
0.029*
0.045**
(0.017)
(0.020)
(0.017)
(0.020)
Urban
0.100
0.092
0.058
0.038
(0.063)
(0.077)
(0.061)
(0.074)
Gender (=female)
-0.209***
-0.170*
-0.019
-0.076
(0.068)
(0.087)
(0.065)
(0.081)
Question wording is appendix H
100
Intercept
2.054***
1.814***
1.738***
1.744***
(0.124)
(0.078)
(0.138)
(0.093)
R2
0.020
0.015
0.006
0.015
N
708
439
759
464
Note: Standard Errors in Parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Waves II and III
Table 3.5 shows regression results for factors affecting political efficacy attitudes in
Egypt between 2011 and 2013. Our assumption that such attitudes are influenced by age
cannot be assessed as such correlation was very weak and insignificant. Among the control
variables, being female in 2011 decreases confidence in political abilities by 0.170 at 99%
confidence level among the younger generation; and this is a general remark in post-2011
that women were marginalized from politics with the rise of Islamist parties as result of the
political vacuum following the fall of Mubarak regime. Moreover, education is robust in
2013 in explaining confidence attitudes and such effect I believe is attributed to the effect
of urbanism as well.
To sum up, political orientations‟ parameters showed little support for age in
explaining much of its variance. High level of politicization in the Egyptian society in the
post-2011 settings decreases gaps among age cohorts, where political interest escalation is
due to intra-cohort change. As for political trust age was a weak predicator in explain
distrust among youth although reported, and the profile of low-income young Egyptian was
statistically insignificant to be proven. On the other hand, high education and masculinity
only proved to be relevant to explain political efficacy attitudes among
Egyptian youth in between 2011 and 2013.
101
3.2 Democratic Values
Almond and Verba in their historic book “Civic Culture” argued that stable
democracies come to existence through the equilibrium between acts of democratic
institutions and public expectations.
133
This influential school of thought has been always
dominant in the study of democratic attitudes and democratic stability in the developed
world. Consequently, many political scientists have proposed models for testing such
enduring hypothesis.
134
This assumption holds that democracy tend to stabilize, when
citizens‟ demand for democracy equates institutional supply of it. Scholars of political
culture holds that high level of support of democracy results in institutional breakthrough
and that such support is an integral ingredient for sustaining democracy.
135
However, such model of democratic supply and demand receives little empirical
support when empirically tested in cross-national studies developed through the WVS
successive surveys.
136
Moreover, the same trend is present when analyzing democratic
support in the Arab world, where high support for democracy did not result in
Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations,
Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1963.
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy, Op. Cit.
M. Bratton and R. Mattes, “Support for democracy in Africa: intrinsic or instrumental?,” British Journal of
Political Science, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2002, pp. 447-459.
Christian Welzel and H. Klingemann, “Evidencing and explaining democratic congruence: the perspective
of substantive democracy, World Values Research, Vol. 1, No. 3, 2008, pp. 57-59.
102
democratization or institutional change per se. Results from the AB I and II support such
earlier findings through the works of both Mark Tessler and Amaney Jamal.
137
In this section, I hold Lingling Qi and Doh Shin‟s assumption that democratic
demand is two-dimensional conception that comprises support and dissatisfaction with
democracy at the same time.
138
In this view skepticism towards democratic political system
is not a threat for democracy in principle. On the contrary, it can be perceived as a
qualification for improving democratic practices per se. However, in Egypt where
democracy was never tested for enough time to consider dissatisfaction with it as a mean
of its modification, I believe that such indicator serve to provide a comprehensive picture
of democratic attitudes among young Egyptians. Moreover, since demand for democracy
is procedural in MENA and in Egypt particularly, I detect the level of authoritarian support
as well.
Hence, in this section I start by analyzing levels of pro-authoritarian attitudes,
satisfaction with the political system and finally predict support for democracy based on
the earlier qualifications. As many scholars believed that the main derive for the 2011
uprising is youth‟s aspiration for freedom and democracy.
Pro-Authoritarian Support
To detect the generational differences regarding authoritarian support, I run
regression. In which, I use an additive scale of pro-authoritarian attitudes composing two
Amaney Jamal and Mark Tessler, “The Democracy Barometers: Attitudes in the Arab World (2008),”
Public Opinion in the Middle East, Op. Cit., pp. 108-124.
Lingling Qi and Doh Chull Shin, “How mass political attitudes affect democratization: Exploring the
facilitating role critical democrats play in the process?,” International Political Science Review, Vol. 32, No.
3, 2011), pp. 247-250.
103
variables from AB data on 2011 and 2013 conducted in Egypt. This scale included questions
on the inadequacy of democracy to protect civil liberties, and having rulers in power with
no elections.
139
Both items were associated on reliability check at α=0.529 at 2011 and
α=0.538 at 2013, at p<0.05. Questions were suited by reversing the item on rulers with no
elections, to indicate higher level of support for authoritarian attitudes at the positive pole.
The reason for choosing these kinds of measures is availability across the data sets for
comparison reason. Moreover, I ran regressions on two steps, one for the whole sample
explained by age, and other for those who ages less than 35 years old, controlling for other
factors. Controls are standardized across waves that portray demographic parameters such
as age, income, education and place of residency.
Table 3.6 shows a little association between age and pro-authoritarian attitudes in
the Egyptian society, where it only explains 0.004 decrease in it at 90% confidence level
Questions wording in appendix I
in 2011 with no evidence in 2013, while being female is important right after the revolution
for holding progressive anti-authoritarian values among ordinary Egyptian and the young
generation as well. Moreover, being Urban and young has a considerable impact on
decreasing authoritarian attitudes by 0.167 at 90% confidence interval at 2011. In 2013,
and during the Islamist reign in Egypt, urbanism still plays a robust predictor for less
support for democracy and its effect increases in the case of youth by 0.206 at 90%
confidence level if compared to the status in 2011. Other, education qualifies to explain
much of less support for such attitudes among all Egyptians in 2013.
Table 3.6 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Authoritarian attitudes in Egypt at 2011-2013
2011 2013
Full Sample
Below 35
Full Sample
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Model 1
Model 2
Age
-0.004*
0.003
(0.003)
(0.003)
Income
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
-0.013
0.011
-0.045*
-0.043
(0.020)
(0.024)
(0.025)
(0.030)
Urban
-0.029
-0.167*
-0.281***
-0.206*
(0.074)
(0.094)
(0.088)
(0.112)
Gender (=female)
-0.324***
-0.244**
0.056
-0.093
(0.081)
(0.105)
(0.095)
(0.124)
Intercept
3.132***
2.909***
3.469***
3.621***
(0.145)
(0.095)
(0.198)
(0.141)
R2
0.032
0.033
0.038
0.034
N
707
436
728
447
Note: Standard Errors in Parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Waves II and III
Satisfaction with Political System
In this section, we aim to show variation among Egyptians by generations in respect
to their confidence and satisfaction in the regimes performance at 2011 and 2013 through
an OLS regression. The two-items used in this scale deal with confidence of
91
Egyptians in their government, armed forces at the times in which the AB survey was
conducted.
140
The items correlated on the reliability scale at α=0.503 in 2011, p<0.01,
where the positive pole on the additive scale indicates more satisfaction with the political
system. The reason for choosing such items is their availability over waves, and because
both the military and government are considered to be direct cause for regime satisfaction
attitudes in respective literature. And we ruled out analysis for 2013, government at that
time represented an ideological government, and the army had its own independent position
from the ruling Islamists elite during the period in which the data was collected. Moreover,
I ran regressions on two steps, one for the whole sample explained by age, and other for
those who ages less than 35 years old, controlling for other factors. Controls are
standardized across waves that portray demographic parameters such as age, income,
education and place of residency.
Table 3.7 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Regime Satisfaction in Egypt at 2011
Full Sample
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Age
0.016***
(0.003)
Income
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
0.006
-0.016
(0.023)
(0.025)
Questions wording are in appendix J
90
106
Urban
-0.307***
-0.233**
(0.085)
(0.099)
Gender (=female)
-0.185**
-0.127
(0.092)
(0.110)
Constant
6.589***
7.398***
(0.167)
(0.099)
R2
0.067
0.025
N
709
440
Note: Standard Errors in Parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source AB Waves II
Results from table 3.7 for factors affecting regime satisfaction attitudes show that
age is positively correlated with high level of confidence in political system. Where it
explains increase in support by 0.016 in 2011, which is low indeed, yet it provides an insight
on the rule of thumb logic that as person ages, his satisfaction with the status quo increases.
Urbanism continue to be a decisive factor in the Egyptian case, where its robustness in
explain less degree of satisfaction with regime performance reaches 0.233 in explaining
such attitudes among youth. Gender shows negative association in 2011 which matches the
rule of thumb that women who face more structural hardships are more likely to show less
satisfaction with respective political system.
Democratic Support
In this section, I aim to test Lingling Qi and Doh Shin‟s argument on reasons behind
democratic support. Thus, I assume that lower levels of regime satisfaction and
authoritarian attitudes is direly related to the increase demand on democracy, and then test
such argument on Egyptian youth between in 2011.
Hypothesis 1: The less authoritarian attitudes, the higher democratic demand
Hypothesis 2: less levels of regime satisfaction is related to democratic demand
For regression, I constructed a democratic support additive scale from AB dataset
on Egypt at 2011, including questions on democratic performances in relation to economy,
marinating order, inclusivity and if it is the most preferred political system by
respondents.
141
Items correlated at α=0.919 at 2011 p<0.1. Items were reversed, thus
Questions wording in appendix K
108
positive pole indicates more democratic support. I use similar set of demographic controls
used in earlier sections.
Table 3.8 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Democratic Support in Egypt in 2011
Full Sample
Full Sample
Below 35
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Age
-0.002
-0.002
(0.007)
(0.011)
Pro-Authoritarian
0.395***
0.420***
(0.097)
(0.122)
Regime Satisfaction
-0.326***
-0.202*
(0.084)
(0.117)
Income
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
-0.010
-0.037
-0.037
-0.035
(0.052)
(0.064)
(0.060)
(0.062)
Urban
0.456**
0.460*
0.498**
0.404
(0.194)
(0.242)
(0.238)
(0.247)
Gender (=female)
-0.163
0.232
0.368
0.237
(0.214)
(0.273)
(0.270)
(0.279)
Intercept
8.306***
7.173***
5.811***
8.515***
(0.728)
(0.630)
(0.432)
(0.898)
R2
0.060
0.012
0.040
0.020
N
653
415
412
404
Note: Standard Errors in Parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01 Source:
AB Wave II
Table 3.8 shows factors affecting popular democratic demand among Egyptian
youth in post-2011 epoch, results are informative given the high level of political instability
the country has pushed through reflected on values. Results show that democratic support
is not a function of age across all models. Surprisingly, proauthoritarian attitudes explain
much of the support for democracy in full samples and among the youth. Democratic
support increases due to an increase of 0.42 in 2011 at 99% confidence level. This striking
finding stresses that democratic norms in Egypt still is different from the western societies,
109
moreover during the times in which the surveys was conducted both in June 2011, youth
failed to organize themselves and allied with conventional powers in the society which is
by virtue non-democratic. In another vein, regime satisfaction correlated negatively in
2011, which matches our original assumption. Other urbanism continues to be a robust
measure in explaining such attitudes.
Finally, I conclude this chapter by stating the findings aimed to be reached through
analyzing several political and democratic indicators of Egyptian younger generation.
Moreover, I believe this study is salient, as it presents for the first time different insights on
the degree of fragmentation with the holistic bloc “youth” treated by many scholars and
commentators. First, following the post-2011 events till the present moment, there is a high
degree of politicization of all segments of the Egyptian society. Most importantly, from
2001 to 2008, may of the young generation have been under process of political
socialization increased their interest in public affairs, which in part explains the 2011
uprising afterwards. However the post-uprising political attitudes are wed mainly to intra-
cohort changes rather than generational replacement.
Unlike the common logic that Egyptian youth feel more confident in their political
abilities, results showed that age does not explain much attitudes in post-2011, however,
higher levels of education and masculinity increaser the level of political efficacy. On the
other hand, political trust as expected which works mainly in authoritarian contexts is
negatively associated to attitudes shared by young Egyptians particularly in early 2013,
before toppling down the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) backed government by the army
during that summer.
110
Finally, democratic attitudes works among Egypt in dissimilar fashion like rest of
the world. However, it matches Amaney Jamal and Mark Tessler‟s earlier work on the
procedural democratic aspirations in the region. The main feature that determines
democratic demand among Egyptian youth is urbanism. I think it has to do with the
cosmopolitan nature of living in big cities and exposure to alien ideas other than the
traditional effects of conservative institutions in rural places. Moreover, support for
authoritarianism explains much for democratic support, and it matches earlier findings in
the region that democracy aspired in this part of the world is not liberal in the western sense
and reflects a polarized situation among youth between 2011.
111
CHAPTER IV
YOUTH RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL VALUES
Social scientists such as Weber and Durkheim have argued since the late nineteenth
century that conventional religious attachments are fading as result of modernization thus
to be regarded the central thesis of social inquiry during that period of time; however
MENA region along other parts of the world raised skepticism over the former thesis after
the “Six-Days” war of 1967 and “Yom Kippur” war 1973.
142
Much of the writings stemmed
from the Arab region regard the above mentioned events to be the base line of religious
revival in the Middle East after the successive secularization attempts carried out by post-
colonial regimes in the region such as Nasser in Egypt and Habib Bourguiba in Tunisia.
Moreover, since levels of socioeconomic development varied across the region and within
societies, I believe that it did not yield such universal trend of secularism as argued by
modernization theorists before.
In another vein, literature on the propensity towards religiosity in the Middle East
is descriptive and anecdotal; it does not attempt to produce systematic generalizable models
of explanation. In addition, it does not focus on the individual-level as basic unit of analysis
to explain difference and variations particularly within generations.
143
Moreover, less
writings focus on the interplay between religious attitudes and events of the Arab spring
2011. As Islam plays an important role in agitating and mobilization protests as part of
Steve Bruce, Religion and Modernization, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992, pp. 168-180.
Mark Tessler and Jodi Nachtwey , “Islam and Attitudes toward International Conflict: Evidence from
Survey Research in the Arab World,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 42, No. 5, 1998, pp. 621623.
112
decreasing the costs given the developed sense of religious solidarity among protestors.
144
Thus, the underlying assumption in this chapter that religion “Islam” plays an important
role in affecting people political and social attitudes in MENA and particularly in Egypt
and we expect to find a relationship between piety and political activism in Egypt.
Furthermore, drawing on our original thesis quest of generational value replacement in
Egypt, I aim to uncover such complicated thesis through assessing the degree in which
religion affects youth‟s political attitudes towards protesting, support for religious
movements and gender equality. As findings from earlier chapters that demographic
predictors is indeed in interplay with traditional influences and I believe that Islam plays
an important role in that sense.
4.1 Debating Religiosity
Despite the universality of the secularization thesis argued by many social thinkers
and modernization theorists since the beginning of the last century, the 1990s sparked a
continuing wave of criticism for the fade of religiosity thesis. Secularization thesis
depended heavily in its explanation on evidence from the developed western hemisphere
of the world, yet various anomalies within such part of the world mainly the United States
of America proved to be an attention-grabbing deviant case coupled revival of religious
spiritually in Europe and the rise of violent radical religious-based movements in the
Muslim World. New trends of right-wing voting in Europe and sectarian politics in MENA
further emphasize such skepticism over the decline of religion thesis prophecy advocated
during most of the past century. Several questions were raised after the 9/11 attacks to
Marc Lynch, the Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East, New York, Public
Affairs, 2012, pp. 91-92.
113
explain the “Bin Laden” phenomenon who was basically rich and well educated, still
managed to lead one of the most radical violent religious-based movement worldwide.
Socioeconomic factors failed to predict and explain such rich-based fundamentalism trend
in the Arab World which opens the door for more cultural-based explanations tracing
individual-level attitudes and the propensity for religious attachments.
There are two competing paradigms in explaining religiosity and its revival in
literature; one is “bottom-up” theories suggesting that societies regardless of their type of
religious attachments will lose interest in religion given the change in existential security
status as consequence of socioeconomic development.
145
On the other hand, “top-down”
explanations argue that demand for religion is cross-nationally constant at any given point
of time, what controls the level of religiosity is the supply from religious institutions and
leaders in which they maintain the spiritual attachments among individuals.
Drawing on the earlier distinction, Weber –an advocate of the secularization thesis-
developed a thesis on the loss of faith in religions based on the mounting rationality among
humans given the scientific advancements that confound religion in different aspects.
146
This Eurocentric vision of the redoing role of churches and priests is owed to the
technological advancements such as the Darwinism evolution thesis that challenges the
biblical interpretations.
147
Moreover, such view regards the mystical explanations of
religion is to lose its importance due to growing logical expansion of biology, quantum
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, New York,
Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 7- 13.
E. Larson and L. Witham, “Leading Scientists still reject God,” Nature, Vol. 394, 1998, pp. 320-3222.
Steve Bruce, God is Dead: Secularization in the West, Oxford, Blackwell, 2002, pp. 29-34.
114
physics and chemistry. However, Weberian thesis is hard to prove given empirical findings
and it did not account for the undeveloped parts of the world in which science is still at its
least status. Another related explanation is the “FunctionalReligion” theory that regards
religion not to be only sets of metaphysical beliefs and norms; rather it is a scheme of
activities that identifies one‟s identity and route in life from cradle to grave.
148
Durkheim
who laid the seminal foundations of religious functionalism see that religion primarily is
aimed at maintaining social cohesion and providing collective benefits in forms of
endowment and church-related services. However industrialized societies are marked by
functional differentiation where professions are devoted for providing social services,
health care and security thus to replace the conventional roles done by the churches. In his
description, such development is arguably to lead for the loss of purpose for religious
attachments and support.
Such western explanations for religious attachments have been criticized especially
in the past couple of decades from theories stemming from the same rational scheme of
thought as well. Scholars such as Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge argues in contrary
to Durkheim that religious plurality among Christianity led to fortifying religious
attachments as the demand for religion is constant among human beings.
149
The theory of
“Religious Markets” assumes that the more religious
Karel Dobbelaere, “Towards an Integrated Perspective of the Process related to the Descriptive Concept of
Secularization,” Sociology of Religion, Vol. 60, No. 3, pp. 235-238.
Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, “A Supply-Side Reinterpretation of the Secularization of Europe,”
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1985, pp. 233-239.
115
denominations are in rivalry, the more likely for religious institutions to exert more effort
to keep their followers and effect. Such theory is valid according to its origin in the
developed world that is predominantly Christian marked by different denominations and
history of church domination over the medieval ages, yet explaining religiosity in the Muslim
world and Middle East region –for me- is due to different set of reasons.
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart developed a secularization theory that is based
mainly on the level of existential security in given society, however it accounts also for the
persistence of cultural traditions in keeping religious faith in tact in different parts of the
world.
150
Their first core assumption lies on security in which richer nations are expected
to be more secure in terms of economic as well as direct material one. This has a direct
effect on the existential security that affects one‟s cognitive abilities to think and question
societal norms, thus in richer nations secular-rational norms tend to be the most dominant.
The other underlying axiom that Norris and Inglehart‟s theory depends on is cultural
traditions; according to this view accumulative value change is path dependent on contrary
to viewing it as an iron law applied to all universal cases. The latter universal view in
debating religion in societies is yet having never been tested in the underdeveloped world,
although it accounts for it. In the next section, I analyze the role of Islam in shaping values
and the symptoms of religiosity in Egypt especially among the youth and its expected
implications on supporting religious movements, political activism and gender equality.
4.2 Religious Revival in Egypt
During the 1960s, Egypt was on the track of modernism in the western sense that
included secularism highlighted with the confrontation between the state and religious
organizations mainly the MB and coupled with the nationalization of the Al-Azhar.
However the post-1967 war with Israel led to revisiting the Islamic influence in Egypt due
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Op. Cit., pp. 13-24.
011
to the loss of faith in secularism and the end of pan Arabism. Islamic revival was at its peak
in MENA and Egypt during much of the 1970s and 1980s.
151
Coupled with the state desire
to confront leftist-Nasserists, students become Islamized in which some took violent roots
heightened by the assassination of Egypt‟s president Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981. Girls starting
wearing veil in a contrasting feature to their mothers who did not adopt such custom during
much of the twentieth century.
152
Features of Islamization continued during much of the
twentieth century as result of the petrodollar effect coming from cultural remittances from
the ultra-conservative Gulf States.
Egyptian state as mentioned above has utilized religion in different ways to keep its
influence and sustain legitimacy in the post-colonial ear. Egypt scored 62.92 with the third
rank in the Middle East on the index of government involvement in religion (GIR).
153
This
index measures the degree of government involvement in religious affairs based on a
combined five factor scores of the official function of religion in a given state, state‟s
treatment for all religions, minority religious freedom, regulation of the majoritarian
religion, and the degree in which laws depends on religion. Moreover, one cannot explain
the religious revival without accounting for the transforming role of the historic Egyptian
main Islamic institution “Al-Azhar” and its clergy “Ulema.” Starting from 1961, the nature
Robert Lee and Lihi Ben Shitrit, “Religion, Society, and Politics in the Middle East,” The Middle East, Ellen
Lust (editor), 13th Edition, New Heaven, Yale University Press, 2013, pp. 220-221.
Kimberly Fausat and Rebecca Bach, “Mass Education, Islamic Revival, and the Population Problem in Egypt,”
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1991, pp. 329-330.
Robert Lee and Lihi Ben Shitrit, Op. Cit., pp. 222-223.
010
of education at Al-Azhar has been qualitatively and quantitatively under severe change.
154
First, introducing non-religious subjects led to changing the cognitive perception of the
Ulema to face the long-lasting controversy of science and religion and the need to deal with
such puzzle. Other through institutionalizing it to be a public university –with the
remarkable increase of student enrollment as showed in Table 4.1- led to delegitimizing its
sacred nature that Al-Azhar‟s Ulema have always utilized to keep their influence in the
society.
Table 4.1 Expansion of Al-Azhar‟s Institutions and Student Body
Year
Number of Institutes
Number of Students
1962-63
212
64,390
1972-73
1,265
89,744
1982-83
1,273
302,044
1987-88
2,053
517,968
1992-93
3,161
966,629
Malika Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of Al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State
(1952-1994),” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 31, 1999, p. 379
Moreover, modernization of Al-Azhar opened a venue for its political role
welcomed by the state during much of the 1960s and 1970s. Such political activism was
intensified with the rise of fundamental Islamism during the 1970s till the moment of
assassination of Sheik Al-Dahabi in 1977.
155
However since many other Islamist factions
challenged its legitimacy mainly the MB and fundamentalists, Al-Azhar Ulema became
more politically involved than ever during the 1970s; coupled with a divergence within its
clergy body itself. The presence of religious competition led to the creation of peripheral
Malika Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of Al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952-
1994),” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 31, 1999, pp. 371-379.
Malika Zeghal, Op. Cit., pp. 380-384.
Ulema apart from the official coopted ones, thus their political role diversified in
consequence as well. Some Al-Azhar clergy as well became radicalized and theorized
012
for terrorism as Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman who is currently under life imprisonment in the
U.S.
156
Another explanation for the rise of religiosity in Egypt among youth since the 1970s
that continue till this day is the malfunctioning nature Arab States. Nazih Ayubi argued that
Arab states are alien structures created by foreign powers rather than national bourgeoisies.
Hence, these post-colonial structures are over-stated in sense of the supremacy of the formal
apparatus in relation to other non-state actors; this hinders the role of intermediary
institutions such as civil society in fostering democracy.
157
Although in Egypt, President
Sadat in 1980 passed a constitutional amendment stating that Sharia (Islamic
Jurisprudence) is the main source of legislation as Islam is the official religion of the state,
to face the rising wave of Islamism in society. However, Egypt burdened with huge defense
public spending due to the successive wars with Israel abstained from its nation-building
Chris Hedges, “A Cry of Islamic Fury, Taped in Brooklyn for Cairo,” The New York Times, January 7,
1993, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/07/world/a-cry-of-islamic-fury-taped-in-brooklyn-for-cairo.html,
Retrived May 26, 2015.
Nazih N. Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, London, I.B. Tauris,
1995, p. 12.
tasks, and more importantly from building national consensus regarding controversial
foundations of the state.
158
Public space in Egypt following Sadat‟s “Manaber” plurality
conception integrated only state‟s coopted/loyal elites allowing no other venues for
opposition expect the grassroots social service work. In this sense, Islamists‟ role was
growing especially with recruiting the young who were attracted to the charitable work
coupled with “da‟wa” (preaching for Islam) in the absence of the state‟s role in providing
for social services.
159
In this context, Islamist grassroots movements have been functioning with an
attractive platform offering an alternative for the restrictive Egyptian regime. Following
the toppling down of Mubarak in 2011, the main Islamist opposition movement (MB) with
their long history of providing social services in marginalized areas capitalized such social
activism to a political power and won both parliamentary and presidential elections in 2011
and 2012. The logic behind such social activism is rooted in Islamist movements‟ doctrine,
according to the teachings of Hassan Al-Banna –MB founder- reforming society is a
lengthy process that has to start with preparing an Islamic individual, family and then
community.
160
Such doctrine attract young men who get education, spiritual and social
training through practicing Islam in wider sense.
Combating the un-Islamic state of Egypt, various Islamist movements from MB to
Azmi Bishara, A Contribution to the Critique of Civil Society, Ramallah, Muwatin, 1997, p. 241-242 (in
Arabic)
013
Yahya Sadowski, "The New Orientalism and the Democracy Debate," Middle East Report, July-August, 1993, p.
16.
Hasan Al- Banna, Five Tracts of Hasan al- Banna, Charles Wendell (translator), Near Eastern Studies, vol.
20, 1978, pp. 13-39.
Salafis or Sufis; focused on social work to gain support and recognition from ordinary
Egyptians and in particular the youth.
161
Islamic charity filled the diminishing role of the
indebted Egyptian state that adopted the IMF structural adjustment plan. For instance, it is
estimated that 2,457 Islamic charity organizations were in function in Egypt at 2003. This
trend of charitable work is very important in underrating religious revival in Egypt if taken
comprehensively in a wider context of the rise of political Islam.
162
Egyptian youth have been suffering from identity crisis since the 1967 defeat and
the fade of Pan-Arabism. As such Islamism provided a solution for those who are struggling
to define themselves as Muslims in the light of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement of
1978. Individual religiosity provided a compromise for young Egyptians coupled with
economic hardships due to the uneven socioeconomic distribution in the society.
163
The
ICT advancements and social networking helped in fortifying such sentiments as well; still
it is a hard exercise to map youth Egyptian religious attachments and whether it means a
break from the religious establishments or it still attached somehow to the pre-2011
Islamists movement‟s doctrine. Thus, my quest in the next sections to map attitudes
regarding supporting political Islam, participating in protests based on Islamic justification
and gender equality.
Robert Lee and Lihi Ben Shitrit, Op. Cit., pp. 232-236.
Robert Lee and Lihi Ben Shitrit, Ibid., p. 237.
014
Hani Awwad, “Religiously among the Youth: a Phenomenon Independent from the Ideological Establishment,”
Research Paper Series, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (Doha Institute), November 2011, pp. 17-
19.
015
4.3 Religious Effects
As mentioned above this central section in this chapter aims at mapping outcomes
of youth religious attitudes in Egypt and its implications on supporting political Islam,
mobilization/ political activism. All these aspects are theoretically challenged on religious
basis, and my aim here to map such claims and test it in relation to the post-2011 settings
especially among the youth in Egypt.
Propensity to Support Political Islam
Concept of political Islam is a theoretically debatable one; as there is no
comprehensive definition for its underlying components. Historically political Islam is
related to the rise of Islamist movements and parties that advocate the rule of Islamic
jurisprudence in their respective societies; a clear example for that is the Islamic revolution
regime in Iran in the post-1979 settings. One view to illuminate political Islam is treating
it as a set of ideas that explains all aspects of life including political interactions, and
societal rankings according to the laws of good “Shari‟a.”
164
Thus supporters of political
Islam have this universal belief that Islamic laws works for times and societies according
to the same sacred pattern. Other scholars define it procedurally as set of actions that help
political Islam supporters to provide a future imagination for a perfect Islamic community
through re-applying the basic traditions and principles of the virtue ancestors.
165
Sheri Berman, “Islamism, Revolution, and Civil Society,” Perspectives on Politics Vol. 1, No. 2, June, 2003,
pp. 257-258.
Jamal Al-Suwaidi, “Arab and Western conceptions of democracy: Evidence from a UAE opinion survey,” In
Democracy, war, and peace in the Middle East, D. Garnham and Mark Tessler (editors), Bloomington,
Indiana University Press, 1995, pp.83-85.
Another contending view is to define Islamist movements as the cradle of political
Islam we talk about in the sense of political activism. Identifying Islamist movements is yet
a hard task to be done, and the blurry lines between fundamentalists, traditionalists, and
Islamists are hard to draw. Even there is no clear definition for an Islamist, Muslim and
Islamic scholar, if ruling the political objective out. Thus, Bjørn Utvik argued that there are
three main key pillars for placing a movement into the Islamic category.
166
One is the
adherence to the ultimate rule of Shari‟a; other is identifying themselves as Islamists, and
lastly the institutionalized nature of their work towards their goal. According to this former
practical definition, many movements qualify to be considered as Islamist movement;
however my quest in this section is more comprehensive to test the propensity for
supporting goals of political Islam among young Egyptians in the aftermath of the 2011
events.
There are many reasons portrayed in the literature for supporting Islamist
movements, one must theoretically differentiate between sympathy/support and actual
casting votes for Islamist parties competing in pluralistic elections, if any. However, my
aim here to focus on support for political Islam, and I develop a causal claim around piety
and socioeconomic conditions that push ordinary citizens to support –at least sympathize-
with Islamist political movements. Orientalists in their scholarship of the Middle East, have
arguing that Islam provides a comprehensive instrument to explain and cope with different
societal and political conditions; anyone can counter throughout his lifetime.
167
This
Bjørn Utvik, “Islamism: Digesting modernity the Islamic way,” Forum for Development Studies, Vol. 2, pp.
198-201.
016
Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong?, New York, Perennial, 2003, pp. 1-2.
develops my first casual examination here that those who are more pious tend to support
political Islam as their conception of the unity of Islam, politics and social order intensifies
such feelings and conviction. Moreover, I expect to see such relationship among the pious
youth as well.
Hypothesis 1: young pious Egyptians tend to support political Islam more than non-
pious youth.
Another rational for supporting political Islamist movements is the socioeconomic
situation that individual face in his life. With profound history in charity, Islamist grassroots
organizations in Egypt have been active over the last three decades in providing
educational, health and financial support for different Egyptian stakeholders.
168
Thus, we
expect to find a trend among those who suffer economically to be more supportive for
Islamist movements based on the casual claim mentioned above, coupled with it we add a
control in the same sense that since the governments detained from providing for social
services, those who distrust government more are likely to support political Islam.
Hypothesis 2: young poor Egyptians are more likely to support political Islam.
Hypothesis 3: The more level of government distrust among young Egyptians, the more
likely to support political Islam.
Finally, another reason for supporting political Islam is the demographic nature of
youngsters. This hypothesis goes in both directions; the first is that the young, urban and
well-educated with a certain degree of western exposure are less likely to support political
Robert Lee and Lihi Ben Shitrit, Op. Cit., pp. 234.
017
Islam as Inglehart‟s theory of generational value change and its implications in
industrialized societies towards secular-rational kind of values. On the other hand, Oliver
Roy argues that among the proponents of militant Islamist movements are those who
comprise the young elite in the society, where those who are well-educated facing harsh
conditions to get recognition in the Egyptian society.
169
Thus, we believe that education
has dual effects.
Hypothesis 4a: young Educated Egyptians tend to support political Islam
Hypothesis 4b: young less-educated Egyptians tend to support political Islam
Moreover, in order to further test the relationship between education, income and
piety, I use set of interactions to control for the effect of piety on both income and education
and its outcome on supporting political Islam in Egypt among the youth.
The analysis below aims at examining youth support for political Islam at two
different points of time after the Arab Spring events in Egypt at 2011 and 2013 based on
the data available from the Arab Barometer waves II and III. The dependent variable used
to measure propensity for political Islam is an additive scale variable of three different
survey items as shown in figure 4.1, where the positive pole indicates more supportive
attitudes towards political Islam.190
Figure 4.1 Arab Barometer Items to measure Support for Political Islam
Religious leaders should not interfere in voters‟ decisions in elections
.
Your country is better off if religious people hold public positions in the state. Reversed
Oliver Roy, the Failure of Political Islam, London, I.B. Tauris, 1994.
018
Religious leaders should have influence over government decisions. Reversed
Note: AB Waves II and III (2011 and 2013)
The main independent variables used in this analysis are a continuous variable for
income measured in U.S dollars, and another for education categories, and a measure for
piety that uses number of times in which the person reads Qur‟an.191 The reason for
choosing this variable is its reasonability in measuring piety according the investigators of
the Arab Barometer.192 And finally, a measure for government distrust that indicates
respondents‟‟ distrust in government after reversing the original parameter.193
For interactions, low income level denotes those who belong to the bottom 25%
income quintile in respective datasets or in other words their income is less than 300
Egyptian pounds in 2011 and 600 in 2013. As for education, we account for those who
190 Questions wording is in appendix L
191 Question wording is in appendix M
192 Mark Tessler, Public Opinion in the Middle East, Op. Cit. pp. 108-115.
193 Question wording is in appendix N
019
hold above post-secondary degrees. Thus I multiply low income and high educated cases by
our measure for piety.
I use different set of controls including age as continuous and as category for those
who are less than 35 years old, controlling for it on the sample level in our regression as
this study‟s purpose is to account for youth political values in principal. Other, gender,
place of residency, unemployment, and political interest are used. Unemployment is an
additional control to help in predicting economic hardships and its effect on the outcome
variable, while political interest, gives an overall view on the degree of political exposure
to other ideas to see if it would effect on supporting political Islam.
Tables 4.2 and 4.3 below shows the OLS regression results for factors affecting
support for political Islam for Egyptian youth at both 2011 and 2013. It reflects high degree
of fragmentation in youth attitudes based on the political turbulences the country has gone
through in post-2011 epoch. As we find no explanatory power for age in explaining such
attitudes, I used a secondary step regression focusing only on the younger generation or
those below the age of 35 years old. Higher income levels related really low in 2013 in
explaining less support for political Islam.
As for interactions worked in our assumed propositions in 2011, yet it yielded
insignificant statistical correlations. In 2013, due to the high level of politicization of the
Egyptian society and divide among Islamists and secularists, such interactions worked in
souring way. By adding their coefficients, those who are pious and poor actually showed
less support for political Islam unlike our expectation by 1.14 at 99% confidence level; this
has to do with the perception of the MB in power and the decrease in their services
001
delivery. In a similar fashion, piety worked in different ways, while it explained 0.184
decrease in support for political Islam in 2011, it increased to explain 0.404 increase in
political Islam during March 2013. Again this is an obvious effect for the degree of
politicization and fragmentation among Egyptian youth prior to the 30th of June protests.
And the same goes for political interest which was robust measure across all models in both
waves, however started by predicting less support in 2011 to high support in 2013.
Thus, we can argue that high level of politicization and fragmentation among
Egyptian youth actually challenges existing narratives in the literature; we find evidence
for an interaction between low income and piety rather in showing less support for political
Islam in 2013 and the same for high education. However, piety in itself has different effects
in both cases. This we can assume that personal piety was a function of political
polarization when the MB ruled the country in mid-2012.
000
Table 4.2 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Support for Political Islam in Egypt in 2011
Full Sample
Below 35
Below 35
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Age
-0.002
(0.005)
Income
-0.001**
-0.001**
-0.001*
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
0.041
0.062
0.036
(0.041)
(0.049)
(0.050)
Post-Secondary
0.467
(0.515)
Post-Secondary and Pious
-0.069
(0.145)
Poor
0.417
(0.634)
Poor and Pious
-0.103
(0.191)
Individual Piety
-0.113
-0.184*
(0.079)
(0.102)
Gender(=female)
-0.021
-0.001
-0.035
0.014
(0.175)
(0.222)
(0.223)
(0.228)
Urban
-0.162
-0.147
-0.159
-0.215
(0.146)
(0.185)
(0.184)
(0.184)
Unemployed
0.005
0.096
0.076
0.085
(0.086)
(0.106)
(0.105)
(0.106)
Interest in Politics
-0.456***
-0.546***
-0.569***
-0.586***
(0.080)
(0.097)
(0.096)
(0.097)
Government Distrust
0.037
-0.029
-0.009
0.004
(0.078)
(0.106)
(0.106)
(0.106)
Intercept
7.883***
8.368***
7.877***
7.687***
(0.431)
(0.558)
(0.469)
(0.488)
R2
0.078
0.109
0.103
0.095
N
703
438
438
438
Note: Standard Errors in Parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Wave II
002
Table 4.3 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Support for Political Islam in Egypt in 2013
Full Sample
Below 35
Below 35
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Age
-0.008
(0.006)
Income
-0.001*
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
-0.037
-0.107**
-0.106**
(0.040)
(0.045)
(0.044)
Post-Secondary
-1.417**
(0.613)
Post-Secondary and Pious
0.269
(0.135)
Poor
-4.511***
(1.118)
Poor and Pious
1.043***
(0.245)
Individual Piety
0.377***
0.404***
(0.074)
(0.099)
Gender (=female)
0.271*
0.296
0.288
0.238
(0.158)
(0.194)
(0.198)
(0.196)
Urban
-0.189
0.054
-0.010
-0.005
(0.135)
(0.167)
(0.169)
(0.165)
Unemployed
-0.020
-0.072
-0.015
-0.045
(0.085)
(0.098)
(0.099)
(0.097)
Political Interest
0.187**
0.221**
0.208**
0.222**
(0.075)
(0.095)
(0.097)
(0.094)
Government Distrust
0.581***
0.549***
0.561***
0.593***
(0.069)
(0.083)
(0.084)
(0.082)
Intercept
3.181***
2.646***
4.213***
4.227***
(0.440)
(0.521)
(0.328)
(0.326)
R2
0.170
0.165
0.135
0.168
N
730
452
452
452
Note: Standard Errors in Parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Wave III
003
Political Mobilization
In this section, I aim to examine the role of religiosity and its effect on political
mobilization among Egyptian youth, mainly participating in protests in the light of the Arab
Spring events. Youth are considered the main agitator of the 2011 uprising and its
subsequent protests calling for political liberalization and social equality throughout the
last four years. The reason for such assumption is that in many of the Arab Spring states,
Islamists took over power either through elections or through violent confrontation with
the ancient regime. However, many commentators and scholars portrayed the Arab Spring
at its commencement to be a non-Islamic spring calling for liberal values away from the
religious and sub-national authoritarian settings of the Arab world.
170
On the other hand, other scholars such as Marc Lynch in his work on contentious
politics in Egypt suggested that mosques were a decisive factor in mobilizing Egyptians
especially the young to participate in the massive protests during January 2011.
171
Furthermore, following the 2011 events, Fridays were the main day for protests in Egypt
till the present moment, and this adds to the role that Islam plays in agitating protest
feelings. Thus, our aim to examine the Islamic component in political mobilization against
the authoritarian regime among Egyptian youth, hence to be able to provide an explanation
for the casual mechanisms behind the 2011 uprising in Egypt away from the direct
socioeconomic causality.
Ellen Knickmeyer, Op. Cit.
Marck Lynch, the Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East, Op. Cit., pp, 9092.
004
Taking our aim at the theoretical level, on the casual mechanism between protesting
as an outcome behavior and religion, several studies tackled such complicated linkage. One
aspect as Amaney Jamal describes it is the communal aspect of participating in religious
rituals, as it develops sense of homogeneity among religious denomination members
through developing a united sense of solidarity.
172
In the same sense, participation in
protests in authoritarian is physically and emotionally costly given the force used by the
incumbent regime, thus developing a religious spirit through communal participation is
explanatory to understand protest mechanism. In this view, individual piety is less
important than communal practices in explaining protesting behavior.
173
Another set of explanations are developed at the individual level on the effect of
religion on protesting and political mobilization. One of them is the different aspects of
religious participation on political engagement, while religious activism activates resources
for collective action, while individual piety develops interest in politics, and sense of
political distrust.
174
Michael Hoffman and Jamal identified several pathways in which
religion affect political mobilization.
175
One is through building network of trust among the
Amaney Jamal, “The Political Participation and Engagement of Muslim Americans Mosque
Involvement and Group Consciousness," American Politics Research, Vol. 33, No. 4, 2005, pp. 542-543.
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York, Simon and
Schuster, 2000, pp. 73-75.
Frederick Harris, “Something Within: Religion as a Mobilizer of African-American Political Activism."
Journal of Politics, Vol. 56, No. 1, 1994, 63-65.
Michael Hoffman and Amaney Jamal, “Religion in the Arab Spring: Between Two Competing Narratives,”
The Journal of Politics, 2014, Vol. 76, pp. 598-600.
members of same religion or members of the same religious community through charitable
services and continuous participation in religious rituals, which allow more political
engagement. Another mechanism is through the joint prayers as the case of “Friday”
prayers in Islam that provides resources form collective action. And lastly, the nature of
religious teachings itself, as all religions have a utopian conception of society that affects
one‟s imagination of the society, thus open pathways for political engagement.
Capitalizing on the discussion above and in order to examine the link between
religiosity and political involvement in Egypt among youth, I developed number of
hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1: the more pious young Egyptians are likely to be politically active
Hypothesis 2: attending religious communal practices increases the likelihood of
political activism among Egyptian youth
Hypothesis 3: the more the support of political Islam among Egyptian youth the more
politically active they are.
Building on that, the dependent variable measures political activism during the post-
2011 epoch. Items are shown in fgure 4.2 where added up together to form a continuous
variable since logistic regression.200
Figure 4.2 Items measuring Political Activism during Arab Spring in 2013
During the past three years, did you attend a meeting to discuss a subject or sign a petition?
During the past three years, did you participate in a protest, march or sit-in?
Note: AB Wave III (2013)
005
As for the central independent variables, I use the same variables of individual piety
and support for political Islam used in the previous section, in addition to a measure for
communal religious practice, asking individual if they attend Friday prayers on a scale
200 Questions wording is in appendix O
006
order, the scale were reversed to indicate more communal practices towards the positive
pole.
176
Other control variables does not differ that much from the last section to include
gender, education, income, unemployment and political interest, while age is inserted as
continuous then control for the younger generations in the OLS regression models.
Table 4.4 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Political Activism in Egypt in 2013
Full Sample
Below 35
Below 35
Below 35
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Model 5
piety
-0.140***
-0.114**
-0.060
(0.043)
(0.057)
(0.050)
Political Islam
0.014
(0.019)
0.036
(0.024)
0.026
(0.024)
Communal Practice
0.089*
0.079
0.028
(0.046)
(0.056)
(0.050)
Gender (=female)
-0.039
-0.099
-0.093
-0.152
-0.063
(0.088)
(0.109)
(0.097)
(0.102)
(0.105)
Education
0.088***
0.105***
0.101***
0.106***
0.102***
(0.020)
(0.024)
(0.023)
(0.024)
(0.023)
Income
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Unemployed
-0.066
-0.035
-0.040
-0.042
-0.053
(0.043)
(0.051)
(0.049)
(0.051)
(0.050)
Urban
0.119*
0.185**
0.186**
0.221***
0.209**
(0.070)
(0.086)
(0.082)
(0.085)
(0.083)
Question wording is in appendix P
007
Political Interest
0.167***
0.093*
0.119**
0.099*
0.121**
(0.040)
(0.050)
(0.048)
(0.051)
(0.049)
Intercept
-0.398*
-0.452*
-0.193*
-0.516**
-0.527**
(0.231)
(0.286)
(0.219)
(0.201)
(0.235)
R2
0.140
0.141
0.137
0.139
0.142
N
724
450
476
454
474
Note: standard errors in parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Wave III
Results from table 4.6 suggest that our main independent variables including
political Islam do not explain much of the variation in regard to examining the relation
between religiosity and political activism for the youth in Egypt. Only individual piety
explains the outcome of political activism at its highest of (-0.114) at 95% confidence level
when it comes to those who are younger than 35, however it goes against our original
hypothesis that individual piety affects political activism in positive manner. Moreover,
communal practices scores relatively low at the full sample at (0.089) at 90% confidence
level with high standard error of 0.046, thus the precision of such explanation is under
question in explaining political activism during the Arab spring events in Egypt. Other
control variables as rules of thumb suggests explain much of the reasons to be politically
active in a robust way. Higher education levels increases the propensity for youth political
activism. Moreover, urbanism is another robust measure that explains much of youth
activism; with no other controls it explains 0.185 involvement at 95% confidence level.
4.4 Youth and Gender Equality
Samuel Huntington along with other orientalists stressed on the incompatibility of
Islam with democracy and related values. His “Clash of Civilization” thesis mapped this
perception on Islam and its utility in regard to democracy and gender equality that is invalid
among Muslims.
177
On the other hand, scholars from the Middle East stressed on the
tolerant nature of Islam, especially when it comes to protecting women rights. This gave
rise to the appearance of Islamist feminism line of thought; Heba Raouf argued that western
orientalists tend to portray Islam an obstacle for gender tolerance, yet there is a grey area
adopting that Islam can be compatible with democracy and gender equality in its heart.
178
Within these competing paradigms this section evolves in its attempt to explain gender
equality attitudes among Egyptian youth based on religious explanatory factors. Taking
into consideration the modernization stances on the linkage between low levels of socio-
economic development and gender tolerance or democratic attitudes; this section aims at
assessing the religious factors that affect gender tolerance as a measure of democratic
support among Egyptian youth in post-2011 settings.
As mentioned above, the cultural school argues that Islam is not compatible with
granting women rights, as the values of Muslims and the west are totally different from one
another. In that sense, some scholars argue that Islamic teachings provide structural
hindrances for women rights and equality within Muslim communities.
179
Moreover, as
Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, “The True Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Policy, Vol. 34, No.2, 2003,
pp. 71-74.
008
Heba Raouf, “Islam and Feminism: Towards a Democratic Overlapping Consensus,” Contestations, Issue 1,
http://www.contestations.net/issues/issue-1/the-first-issue-response-1/, Retrived June 2, 2015.
J. Lincove, “Growth, Girls‟ Education, and Female Labor: A Longitudinal Analysis,” The Journal of
Developing Areas, Vol. 41, No. 2, 2008, pp. 56-57.
Huntington argued other cultures than the western one denounces human individualism to
focus on the collective aspect of society, thus freedom in general is an inferior concept
including women in their respective society.
180
On the other hand, Muslim scholars stressed that actually Islam emancipated
women historically from the Jahlia or ignorance before its arrival in the Arabian Peninsula.
Islam favored gender equality, for instance constraints on “polygamy,” mentioned in Quran
are hard to overcome when it comes to reality. And for women inheritance which is half to
male siblings was very liberating at the time of revelation in contrast to the Arabian pre-
Islamic context.
In post-2011, many Egyptian women movements voiced out gender inequality, and
organized several campaigns against “sexual harassment,” such as “HarrasMap” and
“Women‟s Revolution in the Arab World.” Hence, my aim in this section is to test if
religion is linked to gender tolerance. Thus to assume that when public opinion support for
a certain cause; institutional breakthrough is likely to take place as result, as in the cases
of environmentalism in Northern Europe. Thus, I use two aspects of piety, as used in earlier
sections, one I related to the individual level of religiosity and the other is related to
supporting Islamist movements. We expect to find a negative relationship between piety
and the support for gender equality.
Hypothesis 1: More pious young Egyptians less supportive for gender tolerance.
Samuel P. Huntington, Op. Cit., p.40.
009
Hypothesis 2: More support for Islamist movements means less support for gender
tolerance.
Another aspect that I want to test is the effect of western value system and its effect
on young Egyptian attitudes towards gender equality. Most of the political rhetoric on
promoting gender tolerance in the Muslim world and Egypt originated by western
governments; different western international donors condition their aid to Egypt based on
empowering women in society. Thus, those who see gender equality ideas as western
021
form of neo-colonialism other than traditional military invasion are expected to be more
reluctant to accept ideas related to gender tolerance.
181
Hypothesis 3: the more anti-western feelings the less support for gender tolerance
In order to test such hypotheses, I use OLS regression to predict the religious factors
explaining gender tolerance at both 2011 and 2013. The dependent variable as figure 4.3
shows is constructed on a scale based on additive scale from the Arab Barometer survey at
2011 and 2013, where more support for gender equality is directed towards the positive
pole of the scale.
182
Figure 4.3 Arab Barometer Items measuring Gender Equality in Egypt in 2011 and 2013
H. Rizzo, A. Abdel-Latif, and K. Meyer, “The Relationship between Gender Equality and Democracy:
A Comparison of Arab Versus Non-Arab Muslim Societies,” Sociology, Vol. 41, No. 6, 2007, pp. 11631165.
Questions Wording is in appendix Q
A married woman can work outside the home Reversed
In general, men are better at political leadership than women
University education for males is more important than university education for females
Note: AB Wave II and III
As for central independent variables, I use the same variables used to measure piety
and support political Islam, while for anti-western feelings, I use an item that asks
respondent to show their opinion regarding violent acts against the U.S as result of their
interference in the Arab world.
183
Other controls, do not differ that much from the earlier
sections to include gender, education, income, unemployment and political interest, while
age is inserted as continuous then control for the younger generations in the OLS regression
models.
020
Table 4.5 OLS Regression for Factors affecting Gender Equality in Egypt in 2011
Full Sample Below 35 Below 35 Below 35 Below 35
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5
Age
-0.002
(0.005)
Political Islam
-0.053
-0.038
-0.041
(0.038)
(0.050)
(0.049)
Individual Piety
0.167**
0.071
0.112
(0.079)
(0.105)
(0.103)
Anti-Americanism
-0.293***
-0.342***
-0.334***
(0.072)
(0.092)
(0.092)
Question wording is appendix R
Income
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
0.008
-0.010
0.006
0.003
-0.014
(0.042)
(0.051)
(0.050)
(0.050)
(0.050)
Gender (=female)
1.850***
1.683***
1.645***
1.575***
1.686***
(0.181)
(0.236)
(0.225)
(0.225)
(0.235)
Urban
0.066
0.240
0.272
0.224
0.264
(0.148)
(0.193)
(0.187)
(0.187)
(0.190)
Political Interest
0.241***
0.326***
0.267***
0.304***
0.382***
(0.083)
(0.105)
(0.101)
(0.098)
(0.099)
Unemployed
-0.025
-0.056
-0.011
-0.052
-0.066
(0.088)
(0.110)
(0.107)
(0.108)
(0.110)
Constant
6.533***
6.468***
5.873***
5.200***
6.290***
(0.513) (0.645) (0.486) (0.408)
Note: standard errors in parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Wave II
022
Table 4.6 OLS Regression for Religious Factors affecting Gender Equality in Egypt in 2013
Full Sample
Below 35
Below 35
Below 35
Below 35
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Model 5
Age
0.013*
(0.007)
Political Islam
-0.081*
-0.102*
-0.141***
R2
0.225
0.204
0.158
0.199
N
679
423
446
452
425
(0.044)
(0.062)
(0.052)
Individual Piety
-0.129
-0.166
-0.148
(0.092)
(0.131)
(0.118)
Anti-Americanism
0.034
-0.029
-0.082
(0.083)
(0.111)
(0.113)
Income
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Education
0.039
-0.032
0.000
0.009
-0.024
(0.050)
(0.061)
(0.053)
(0.054)
(0.062)
Gender (=female)
0.848***
0.663**
0.581**
0.534**
0.611**
(0.196)
(0.259)
(0.229)
(0.232)
(0.265)
Urban
-0.127
-0.002
0.186
0.186
0.051
(0.163)
(0.216)
(0.190)
(0.195)
(0.220)
Political Interest
0.096
0.034
0.102
0.061
-0.042
(0.094)
(0.127)
(0.112)
(0.113)
(0.130)
Unemployed
-0.094
0.088
0.039
-0.025
-0.011
(0.107)
(0.131)
(0.114)
(0.117)
(0.134)
Constant
8.029***
9.269***
8.467***
8.326***
8.500***
(0.541)
(0.667)
(0.449)
(0.521)
(0.490)
R2
0.043
0.039
0.036
0.020
0.020
N
634
381
460
481
396
Note: standard errors in parentheses
* p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01
Source: AB Wave III
Results from tables 4.8 and 4.9 shows that religious factors works in different ways
among Egyptian youth at 2011 and 2013 due the polarization taking place in the society in
the post-2011 events; for instance piety explains supporting gender equality by 0.167 at
95% confidence level in 2011 in contrast to our original hypothesis, while it has no effect
in 2013. Anti-American sentiments explain less support for gender equality in
023
2011. Anti-American sentiments are very robust especially among the youth, if no other
independent factor was added, while it provides no significance in 2013.
Support for political Islam is a robust measure to explain about 0.14 less support
for gender tolerance if no other independent factor is added in 2013 at 99% confidence
level. This has to do with the changing nature of the Egyptian political formula at the time
in which the survey was conducted. During the MB rule, they showed less support for
women empowerment in society and their share in shaping public policies. Other, being
female and showing political interest is robust factors across all models for the whole
sample and the younger generation to explain more support for gender equality at 99%
confidence level in 2011 and in 2013, it robustly explains much of the support, while age
works in dissimilar way, as those who are old more supportive for gender equality, when
controlling for education and income in 2013. This provides a surprising fact that being
young does not mean necessarily adopting liberal values reflected in gender equality.
To conclude this chapter, I state the main remarks we can draw from this chapter. It
provides an interplay on youth social, activism and religious values in the post-2011 epoch
in Egypt. Earlier chapters prove that Egyptian youth fall behind international and rather
regional trends in terms of adopting values on the postmaterialist standardized index. I
hypothesized that religion plays a salient role in predicting such attitudes. Thus, I draw
some conclusions that I believe worth highlighting and open the door for future research
beyond the scope of this thesis. As presented, Egyptian youth with doubt can be considered
as one liberal bloc in the western sense. Youth in Egypt ere historically involved in the
waves of Islamic revival since the early 1980s and the rise of violent
024
militant Islamic groups. Assassination of Egypt‟s late president Sadat is an example for
that. Exploring the propensity for young Egyptians to support Islamist movements in the
post-2011 settings, I find no evidences for deprivation motives, may be it can be related to
voting behavior that was not assessed in this study, where actually the interaction between
low income and piety yields less support for political Islam. It entails that there is separation
between Islam in the public and private spheres. However, Egyptian youth who showed
support for political Islam are divided based on the effect of higher education levels even
if they are pious and the same holds for distrusting governments, which I think is chronic
symptom of the post-independence Egyptian state. Other effects were dismissed from
analysis due to data availably such as the effect of transnational petro-dollar from the Gulf
States that I think explains much of the religious revivalism in the Egyptian society.
Other, participating in the 2011 uprising and its subsequent waves of protest and
political activism among youth during the last four years is not explained by piety. In part
communal practices such as mosque attendance explain part of such mobilization, yet not
in a very coherent way. On the other hand, youth demographics determine much of such
activism which typically includes urbanism and interest in politics. Finally, age actually
works in an opposite direction in explain gender tolerance as one of the most liberal value
as argued by many scholars. Thus, youth show an overall level of traditionalism when it
comes to supporting gender equality. Moreover, young Egyptians who hold anti-western
feelings in 2011 and support the MB and related Islamist movements in 2013 show higher
degree for gender intolerance.
025
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
The aim of this concluding chapter is to present findings from previous sections and
chapters in relevance to the study‟s main quest of tracing generational value differences in
Egypt and its explanatory power in relation to the 2011 uprising. In doing such task, I start
by drawing features of youth fragmentation and then account for the role of generational
value change in relation to the Arab spring.
5.1 Fragmentation of Egyptian Youth
We started the analysis contesting the common assumption that youth in Egypt
cannot be rendered one holistic bloc, yet it encompasses different parts. Moreover, this
study challenged claims on youth features in MENA to be liberal and secular, thus those
who agitated the 2011 uprising were actually angry youth facing different structural
hardships as argued by several scholars such as John Esposito. This study aimed to explore
youth values in Egypt in relation to both its international and regional milieu as well.
Given the salience of worldwide youth activism, and the rise of different protest
movements over the past decade, ranging from toppling down authoritarian regimes in East
Europe to the Arab spring to occupy movements in the western developed part of the world;
Inglehart since the 1970s argued that there is a sweeping generational value change towards
postmaterialist values of self-expression, quality of life and belonging given the changing
nature of societies, where economic security deceases much of the constraints on human
minds, thus opting for post-material sort of values. Hence, values
026
of gender and sexual equality in addition to the rise of environmentalism were expected to
take place all over the world.
Assessing the current status of such values, I constructed a world values map from
2010 and 2014 to detect such growing trend based on Inglehart‟s earlier work started in
early 2000s. However, my analysis used a geographical categorization rather than
Inglehart‟s cultural zones units. Geographically, such values are present in the developed
northern hemisphere of the world. Following North America and Western Europe, South
East Asia provides support for such changing context of world values. However the Middle
East scores least on Inglehart‟s dimensions (Secularism and Self-Expression), even below
many Latin American and African states.
Egypt as part of the Middle East as showed in both world and regional maps falls
among the lowest scoring countries on dimensions of postmaterialism, although there is
some deviant cases like Tunisia, Iraq, and Lebanon. This part of the world still raises
Inglehart‟s concerns with persistence of cultural traits and its relative singularity.
Projecting such thesis on the Egyptian case, we find little support for such thesis. Other
than being one of the lowest scoring countries in the world and the region on preferring
such values, Egyptian emphasis on postmaterialist values are moving backward since early
2000s. This in part has to do with economic stagnation the country is facing following the
2011 uprising, but also shed the light on the uneven distribution of income within the
country even during economic growth by the mid-2000s. Such fining opens the door for
investigating long-term versus short-term effects of economic progression on value change
in developing states such as Egypt.
027
Egyptian youth give more emphasis on postmaterialism in relation to older cohorts,
thus there some evidence on existing cohort differences, however their international and
regional peers particularly following the Arab spring reflects more solid emphasis on such
new values according to Inglehart‟s scholarship. High income and education levels explain
the propensity for such values among Egyptian youth. Other evidences for cohort
differences are found when analyzing basic political and social attitudes such as political
efficacy and gender tolerance, however much of these emphases are due to intra-cohort
changes, rather than generational replacement per se.
During the past four years in Egypt, attitudes are found fluctuating, thus it needs
more time and surveys to detect profound generational value differences employing
longitudinal analysis technique. I believe that although results show little support for
Inglehart‟s thesis, one cannot disregard its effects, as Egyptian youth proved through the
analysis to be fragmented based on different predictors, mainly demographic ones. Results
of postmaterialism regression showed that such values are function of high education and
income and masculinity.
Other, youth according to the study above are divided based on different social, political
and demographic factors. Urbanism is the prevalent factor that explains much of the liberal
attitudes in Egypt, where being urban means showing more support for democracy and
gender equality, and it means less support for political Islam and authoritarian attitudes.
Being a male explains support for democracy, with more confidence in one‟s political
leverage, and support for postmaterialist values, expect for the case for gender equality that
is mainly supported by females. Education plays an important role in giving more emphasis
among youth on postmaterialism and political activism during the past
028
years following the 2011 uprising. Other religious values like piety explains propensity
among youth for political Islam in various ways over different waves in Egypt. However,
we draw a distinction between individual religiously and communal religious practices in
explaining political activism in Egypt during the post-2011 epoch, where the latter is found
to have more power in explaining political activism. These findings further support our
doubt on the homogenous nature of Egyptian youth and their related liberal nature as many
of Middle East democracy scholars argued before. Hence, features of post-2011 political
polarization and organization might be explained by our earlier mentioned findings on the
fragmented nature of Egyptian youth.
5.2 Arab Spring and Value Change
This section aims to project the study‟s findings on Arab Spring events and related
value change. Scholars and commentators have been emphasizing the liberal and tolerant
nature of current Egyptian youth who led the popular mobilization against Mubarak in
2011, resulting in his step down. Results actually cast doubt regarding the progressive
nature of current Egyptian youth. However, other findings provides an insight on the
illiberal and less secular nature of politically active Egyptians who may be have been
underestimated by foreign commentators when it comes to describe Egyptian youth.
Adding double-faced dimensions from factors affecting political activism and political
efficacy values, I can argue that the model for Egyptians who have been politically active
over the past years following the 2011 events are marked by urbanism, high education,
interested in politics and less piety. It actually matches many of the arguments of the young
generation portrayed in western circles, however their leverage in the society is what we
cast doubt for.
029
Moreover, results from previous chapters with little evidence shows that young
Egyptians are more dissatisfied with their respective political regimes, with a low degree
of political trust. Thus, indicating a general trend of dissatisfaction with the status quo and
urge for political change, however, pious young Egyptians show more support for political
Islam which in turn means less support for democracy, and gender equality. Moreover,
young pious Egyptians showed higher levels of political interest and efficacy, thus the scope
of change towards liberal settings in post-2011 arrangements requires additional
investigation. This is related to the MB rule in Egypt for while the AB III survey was being
collected in early 2013.
Moreover, and most surprisingly pro-authoritarian attitudes explains much of the
support for democracy among Egyptian youth in post-2011 settings. It means that
democracy in the western conception in terms of rotation of power through elections is not
fully shared by young Egyptians . This takes back to Jamal, Tessler and Hoffman‟s
conception of illiberal democracy spread in MENA. Empirical evidence from the AB has
showed repeatedly that democracy for Arabs is procedural rather than normative per se.
Thus, I can argue that young Egyptians who were active through social media and
led protests on the eve of 25th of January reflects that type of liberal politically active young
people and show postmaterialist propensities as well as Juan Cole and Esposito argued
before. However those who took over the scene afterwards hold different set of traditional
values as Religion proved to explain much of the variance in relation to democracy and
gender equality. Different features of social and political conservatism were there in post-
2011 and arguably supported by Egyptian youth. One example is the election of MB
members both for parliament and presidency. However, this study did not
031
account for the role of Islamist youth in particular in post-Tahrir arrangements. This study
is different, as it provides an empirical insight on youth changing values in the Middle East
and Egyptian society. It opens the door for democracy scholars to study this historic bulge
from a generational point of view rather than treating them as one bloc. Moreover, it shows
that conservatism is a growing trend in the region and it explains much of the variance in
regards to conservational issues and basic human rights and freedom. Moreover, it allows
for qualitative study on the profiles of different Egyptians, thus treating the January 25th
events in isolation from the January 28th supporters and later forms of youth political
associations. It takes democratic aspirations in the region to ground, thus exploring other
questions that might be actually center to the future of Egypt and the Middle East, most
importantly the question of political Islam.
030
Appendix A
Traditional versus Secular-Rational Values
World Values Survey: Wave 6 (2010-2014)
1- How important is God in your life? Please use this scale to indicate. 10 mean
“very important” and 1 means “not at all important.”
2- Here is a list of qualities that children can be encouraged to learn at home. Which,
if any, do you consider to be especially important? Please choose up to five,
where 1=mentioned, 0=not mentioned
- Independence
- Determination and perseverance
- Religious faith
- Obedience
3- Please tell me for each of the following actions whether you think it can always be
justified, never be justified, or something in between: “Abortion” on a scale from
1-10. 10 means always justifiable
4- How proud are you to be (Nationality), on a scale from 1-4, 1 means very proud
5- I'm going to read out a list of various changes in our way of life that might take
place in the near future. Please tell me for each one, if it were to happen, whether
you think it would be a good thing, a bad thing, or don't you mind? (Greater respect
for authority) on scale from 1-3, where 3 is bad.
Appendix B
032
Survival versus Self-Expression Values
World Values Survey: Wave 6 (2010-2014)
1- Materialism/Postmaterialism 4-Item Index:
If you had to choose, which one of the things on this card would you say is most
important? (Two choices; first and second)
- Maintaining order in the nation (M)
- Give people more say (PM)
- Fighting rising prices (M)
- Protecting freedom of speech (PM)
2- Taking all things together, would you say you are happy? Scale on 1-4, 1 means
very happy.
3- Please tell me for each of the following actions whether you think it can always
be justified, never be justified, or something in between: “Homosexuality” on a
scale from 1-10. 10 means always justifiable
4- Now I‟d like you to look at this card. I‟m going to read out some forms of
political action that people can take, and I‟d like you to tell me, for each one,
whether you have done any of these things, whether you might do it or would
never under any circumstances do it “Signing Petition,” 1= did, 2= might do,
3=would never do
5- Would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful
in dealing with people? 1=most people can be trusted, 2=need to be very careful
Appendix C
033
World Cultural Map at 2000
Source: Inglehart, Ronald and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change and
Democracy: The Human Development Sequence, Cambridge: University Press,
2005, p. 63.
Appendix D
034
Appendix D
Table: Mean Scores of Countries on Dimensions of Cultural Variations Sorted by
Highest Loads on Survival/ Self-Expression Values
World Values Survey: Wave 6 (2010-2014)
Country
Survival /Self-Expression
Traditional /Secular-Rational
N
Sweden
2.0291
0.542
1022
Netherlands
1.6132
0.4113
1610
Australia
1.4983
-0.0694
1389
New Zealand
1.4093
-0.0021
459
Germany
1.0534
0.5435
1761
Japan
0.9758
0.926
1395
Slovenia
0.9472
0.6313
762
Spain
0.9058
0.3345
976
United States
0.833
-0.1699
2032
Uruguay
0.6676
0.0024
705
Singapore
0.5529
0.0896
1962
Estonia
0.3183
1.1317
1223
Chile
0.3014
0.0405
852
Taiwan
0.2869
0.952
1080
Mexico
0.271
-0.9201
1933
South Korea
0.2649
0.7647
1138
Belarus
0.1911
0.5854
1300
China
0.1707
0.9127
1452
Uzbekistan
0.1505
-0.8609
1334
Poland
0.1256
-0.0567
786
Cyprus
-0.0076
0.0677
915
Philippines
-0.0314
-0.5622
1177
Colombia
-0.0366
-0.9486
1442
Peru
-0.0777
-0.3507
1039
Qatar
-0.1254
-1.2734
1046
Russia
-0.1436
0.7208
1751
Lebanon
-0.1869
0.3061
1059
Ecuador
-0.2278
-0.815
1192
Kazakhstan
-0.234
0.2967
1494
Trinidad &Tobago
-0.2546
-0.9264
927
035
Country
Survival /Self-Expression
Traditional /Secular-Rational
N
Rwanda
-0.334
-0.3677
1521
Ukraine
-0.3458
0.8502
1336
Kyrgyzstan
-0.3657
0.1132
1414
Algeria
-0.3751
-0.0918
899
Turkey
-0.3936
-0.2496
1415
Malaysia
-0.4092
-0.2122
1282
Romania
-0.4231
0.2291
1289
Pakistan
-0.4504
-0.3016
1174
Nigeria
-0.4715
-0.3892
1758
Zimbabwe
-0.5386
-0.3928
1493
Libya
-0.5968
-0.5777
1790
Armenia
-0.6101
0.0197
927
Azerbaijan
-0.6525
0.0884
1000
Palestine
-0.681
-0.0655
899
Ghana
-0.6962
-0.7684
1550
Iraq
-0.7304
0.038
1070
Yemen
-0.7543
-0.254
609
Morocco
-0.8698
-0.0581
915
Tunisia
-0.8824
0.0326
1028
Jordan
-0.915
-0.3479
1162
036
Appendix E
Materialist/Postmaterialist 12-item Value Index
World Values Survey: Waves 4, 5, 6 (2001- 2008- 2012)
1- Materialism/Postmaterialism 4-Item Index
2- People sometimes talk about what the aims of this country should be for the next
ten years. On this card are listed some of the goals which different people would
give top priority. Would you please say which one of these you, yourself, consider
the most important? (Two choices; first and second):
- A high level of economic growth (M)
- A strong defense forces (M)
- People have more say about how things (M)
- Trying to make our cities more beautiful (PM)
3- Here is another list. In your opinion, which one of these is most important? (Two
choices; first and second) :
- A stable economy (M)
- Progress toward a less impersonal and more humane society (PM)
- Ideas count more than money (PM) - The fight against crime (M)
037
Appendix F
Table: Mean Scores of (16-30) age category by Materialist/Postmaterialist 12-item Index
during 2010 and 2014 by Country Sorted by Highest Loads on Mean Column
Source: World Values Survey: Wave 6 (2010-2014)
Country
Mean
Sample Size
Sweden
2.81
213
Germany
2.76
175
Slovenia
2.71
157
Chile
2.68
244
Spain
2.47
244
Uruguay
2.45
229
South Korea
2.43
231
Philippines
2.42
235
Colombia
2.39
326
Japan
2.32
105
Poland
2.32
212
Mexico
2.3
416
Netherlands
2.3
92
Romania
2.21
226
Singapore
2.21
254
Turkey
2.18
296
New Zealand
2.17
92
Ecuador
2.14
364
United States
2.14
221
Estonia
2.11
237
Australia
2.1
229
Peru
2.1
344
Lebanon
2.08
339
Zimbabwe
2.08
453
Algeria
2.07
349
Nigeria
2.01
600
Taiwan
2
236
Qatar
1.98
326
Malaysia
1.96
296
Belarus
1.95
249
038
Country
Mean
N
Cyprus
1.93
332
Azerbaijan
1.9
335
Ukraine
1.88
252
Palestine
1.78
401
Trinidad and Tobago
1.78
249
Libya
1.77
445
Morocco
1.73
352
Iraq
1.68
375
Kyrgyzstan
1.68
341
Russian Federation
1.68
249
Ghana
1.64
581
Uzbekistan
1.59
270
Kazakhstan
1.55
348
Rwanda
1.55
466
China
1.51
234
Armenia
1.5
217
Jordan
1.41
313
Yemen
1.16
427
Egypt
1.08
396
Tunisia
1.07
403
039
Appendix G
Interest in Politics
World Values Survey: Waves 4, 5, and 6
(2001, 2008, and 2012)
- How interested would you say you are in politics? Are you (read out and code one
answer):
1- Very interested
2- Somewhat interested
3- Not very interested
4- Not at all interested
Appendix H
Political Trust Index (PTI)
Arab Barometer Wave II: Egypt 2011
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “Citizens
must support the government‟s decisions even if they disagree with them”?
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Government employees
are aware of citizens‟ needs
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Political leaders are
concerned with the needs of ordinary citizens
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
041
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? the government takes the
opinions of citizens seriously
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
Appendix I
Political Efficacy
Arab Barometer Wave II: Egypt 2011
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Sometimes, politics are
so complicated that I cannot understand what is happening
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
Appendix J
Pro-Authoritarian Attitudes
Arab Barometer Waves II: Egypt 2011
- I will describe different political systems to you, and I want to ask you about your
opinion of each one of them with regard to the country‟s governance – for each
one would you say it is very good, good, bad, or very bad? A democratic political
system (ensures public freedoms, equality in political and civil rights, devolution
of authority, and accountability and transparency of the executive authority)
1- Very Good
2- Good
3- Bad
4- Very Bad
- I will describe different political systems to you, and I want to ask you about your
opinion of each one of them with regard to the country‟s governance – for each
one would you say it is very good, good, bad, or very bad? A political system with
an authoritarian president (non-democratic) who is indifferent to parliament and
elections (Reversed)
1- Very Good
2- Good
3- Bad
4- Very Bad
040
Appendix K
Satisfaction with Political System
Arab Barometer Waves II: Egypt 2011
- I will name a number of institutions, and I would like you to tell me to what extent
you trust each of them: the Armed Forces-Reversed
1- I trust it to a great extent
2- I trust it to a medium extent
3- I trust it to a limited extent
4- I absolutely do not trust it
- I will name a number of institutions, and I would like you to tell me to what extent
you trust each of them: The government (the cabinet)-Reversed
1- I trust it to a great extent
2- I trust it to a medium extent
3- I trust it to a limited extent
4- I absolutely do not trust it
Appendix L
Pro-Democratic Orientations
Arab Barometer Waves II and III: Egypt 2011 and 2013
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Under a
democratic system, the country‟s economic performance is weak (Reversed)
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Democratic
regimes are indecisive and full of problems (Reversed)
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
042
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
Democratic systems are not effective at maintaining order and stability (Reversed)
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? A
democratic system may have problems, yet it is better than other systems
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
Appendix M
Support for Political Islam
Arab Barometer Waves II and III: Egypt 2011 and 2013
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Religious
leaders (imams, preachers, priests) should not interfere in voters‟ decisions in
elections
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Your
country is better off if religious people hold public positions in the state -Reversed
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
043
- To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Religious
leaders (imams, preachers, priests) should have influence over government
decisions-Reversed
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
Appendix N
Piety Measure
Arab Barometer Waves II and III: Egypt 2011 and 2013
- Do you “Listen to or read the Quran”? -Reversed
1- Always
2- Most of the time
3- Sometimes
4- Rarely
Appendix O
Government Distrust
Arab Barometer Waves II and III: Egypt 2011 and 2013
- I will name a number of institutions, and I would like you to tell me to what extent
you trust each of them: The government-Reversed
1- I trust it to a great extent
2- I trust it to a medium extent
3- I trust it to a limited extent
4- I absolutely do not trust it
044
Appendix P
Arab Spring Political Activism
Arab Barometer Waves III: Egypt 2013
- Here is a set of activities that citizens usually take part in. During the past three
years, did you attend a meeting to discuss a subject or sign a petition? (Reversed)
1- Once
2- More than once
3- I have never participated
- Here is a set of activities that citizens usually take part in. During the past three
years, did you participate in a protest, march or sit-in? (Reversed)
1- Once
2- More than once
3- I have never participated
Appendix Q
Islamic Communal Practice
Arab Barometer Waves III: Egypt 2013
- Do you “Attend Friday prayer”? -Reversed
1- Always
2- Most of the time
3- Sometimes
4- Rarely
Appendix R
Gender Equality
Arab Barometer Waves II and III: Egypt 2011 and 2013
- I will read a set of statements that relate to the status of women in our society to
you in order to gauge the extent of your agreement or disagreement with each
statement: “A married woman can work outside the home” –Reversed
1- I strongly agree
2- I agree
3- I disagree
4- I strongly disagree
045
