Women's political action in the Middle East: Engagement and norms

                                                                        ABSTRACT

This study examines the williness of men and women to engage in political action in five Middle East nations (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Turkey).  It utilizes cross national data from the World Values Surveys from 2005 - 2008.  Middle East residents were more reluctant to participate in political activities than individuals in any other region of the world.  Moreover, the willingness of individuals to engage in political action varied substiantially in each of the five countries. Overall, women were less willing to engage in signing petititions, joining boycotts and participating in peaceful demonstrations than men in all five countries. 

We examined the structures of the five states to understand why. We developed explanatory models for men and women separately, based on their personal characteristics and their cultural and geo-political attitudes.  Findings demonstrated that geopolitical attitudes were the most important variables in explaining individuals' reluctante to engage in political action.  We did not find that personal characteristics, patriarchal norms, or high levels of religiosity were so important in predicting attitudes as prior research suggested.