Springer Islamism, Arab Spring, and the Future of Democracy: World System and World Values Perspectives (Perspectives on Development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region)

This book provides an in-depth analysis of public opinion patterns among Muslims, particularly in the Arab world. On the basis of data from the World Values Survey, the Arab Barometer Project and the Arab Opinion Index, it compares the dynamics of Muslim opinion structures with global publics and arrives at social scientific predictions of value changes in the region. Using country factor scores from a variety of surveys, it also develops composite indices of support for democracy and a liberal society on a global level and in the Muslim world, and analyzes a multivariate model of opinion structures in the Arab world, based on over 40 variables from 12 countries in the Arab League and covering 67% of the total population of the Arab countries. While being optimistic about the general, long-term trend towards democracy and the resilience of Arab and Muslim civil society to Islamism, the book also highlights anti-Semitic trends in the region and discusses them in the larger context of xenophobia in traditional societies. In light of the current global confrontation with radical Islamism, this book provides vital material for policy planners, academics and think tanks alike. From the Back Cover This book provides an in-depth analysis of public opinion patterns among Muslims, particularly in the Arab world. On the basis of data from the World Values Survey, the Arab Barometer Project and the Arab Opinion Index, the author compares the dynamics of Muslim opinion structures with global publics and arrives at social scientific predictions of value change in the region. Using country factor scores from a variety of surveys, the author also develops composite indices of support for democracy and a liberal society on a global level and in the Muslim world, and analyzes a multivariate model of opinion structures in the Arab world, based on over 40 variables from 12 countries in the Arab League and covering 67% of the total population of the Arab countries. While being optimistic about the general, long-term trend towards democracy and the resilience of Arab and Muslim civil society against Islamism, the author also highlights anti-semitic trends in the region and discusses them in the larger context of xenophobia in traditional societies.  About the Author Leonid E. Grinin, Ph.D. is research professor and the director of the Volgograd Center for Social Research, as well as the deputy director of the Eurasian Center for Big History & System Forecasting and senior research professor at the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Age of Globalization (in Russian), as well as a co-editor of the international journals Social Evolution & History and the Journal of Globalization Studies. Dr. Grinin is the author of more than 360 scholarly publications in Russian and English, including 25 monographs.  Andrey V. Korotayev, Ph.D. is head of the Laboratory for Destabilization Risk Monitoring of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, senior research professor of the Oriental Institute and Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, senior research professor of the International L aboratory for Political Demography of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, as well as a professor at the Faculty of Global Studies of the Moscow State University. He has authored and co-authored over 300 scholarly publications.  Arno Tausch, Ph.D. is adjunct professor of political science at Innsbruck University and associate professor of economics, Corvinus University, Budapest. He also served as an Austrian diplomat abroad and was counselor for labor and migration at the Austrian Embassy in Warsaw, 1992–1999. He authored or co-authored books and articles for major international publishers and journals, among them 18 books in English, two in French, eig