Democratic Change in the Arab world by Eric Chaney

8/2/2019 Democratic Change in the Arab world by Eric Chaney

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Democratic Change in the Arab World, Past andPresent

Eric Chaney

March 10, 2012

Abstract

Will the Arab Spring lead to long-lasting democratic change? To explore

this question I examine the determinants of the Arab worlds democratic decit

in 2010. I nd that the percent of a countrys landmass that was conquered

by Arab armies following the death of the prophet Muhammad statistically

accounts for this decit. Using history as a guide, I hypothesize that this

pattern reects the long-run inuence of control structures developed under

Islamic empires in the pre-modern era and nd that the available evidence is

consistent with this interpretation. I also investigate the determinants of the

recent uprisings. When taken in unison, the results cast doubt on claims that

the Arab-Israeli conict or Arab/Muslim culture are systematic obstacles to

democratic change in the region and point instead to the legacy of the regions

historical institutional framework.

Department of Economics, Harvard University. This paper was prepared for the Brookings

Panel on Economic Activity, March 22-23, 2012. I thank George Akerlof, Pol Antrs, Lisa Blaydes,

Edward Glaeser, David Romer, Andrei Shleifer and Justin Wolfers for helpful discussions and

comments. I also thank Gallup for sharing their data. Any remaining errors are mine.

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a possible explanation for why countries such as Azerbaijan, Chad, Iran, Tajikistan,

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan share the Arab Leagues democratic decit today

whereas Muslim-majority countries such as Albania, Bangladesh, Guinea, Indone-

sia, Malaysia or Sierra Leone do not. I hypothesize that the former countries were

more exposed to the control structures that developed following the Arab conquests

than the latter. These historical arrangements, in turn, have had enduring eects

that help explain the geographic clustering of non-democracies detailed in gure 1.

To investigate the empirical relevance of this hypothesis, I calculate the percent-

age of a countrys landmass that was conquered by Arab armies in the centuries

following the death of the prophet Muhammad. I then show that from a statistical

standpoint this variable accounts for the Arab Leagues democratic decit today.

This empirical pattern is interesting, in part, because it provides an opportunityto distinguish between a number of competing theories regarding the determinants of

the Arab worlds democratic decit on the eve of the recent uprisings. For example,

the fact that the Arab worlds democratic decit is shared by 10 non-Arab countries

that were conquered by Arab armies casts doubt on the importance of the role of

Arab culture in perpetuating the democratic decit. Hypotheses stressing the role of

Muslim theology also do not receive empirical support. Once one accounts for the 28

countries conquered by Arab armies, the evolution of democracy in the remaining 15

Muslim-majority countries since 1960 largely mirrors that of the rest of the developing

world.

Alternative views attribute the regions democratic decit to the eects of oil

or to the Israeli-Palestinian conict. But if one omits oil exporters and countries

that are in close geographic proximity to Israel the results are almost identical to

those obtained when these countries are included. Consequently, my reading of the

evidence provides little support for these hypotheses.

A nal group of hypotheses, which I believe provides the best explanation for the

empirical patterns I document, is the institutional persistence hypothesis (Ace-

moglu et al. 2001, 2002; Nunn 2008, 2009; Dell 2010). Many scholars maintain thatthe roots of the Arab worlds democratic decit are to be found in the regions history

of unrelieved autocracy (Lewis 1993b) which date[s] back to the early ninth cen-

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tury (Khashan 1998). This view builds on a distinguished line of scholarship going

back at least to Montesqueiu (1989 [1748]) suggesting that historical developments

in the Islamic Middle East have made the region particularly prone to autocratic

rule.

If the Arab Leagues democratic decit today can be traced to the long-term ef-

fects of the regions institutions, what institutional developments following the Arab

conquests had such enduring an enduring impact? Although data limitations pre-

clude an investigation of the precise channel(s) of causality generating this empirical

relationship, I use history and recent scholarship as a guide (Blaydes and Chaney

2011, Kuran 2011, Chaney 2012) to suggest that this pattern reects the long-run

inuence of control structures developed under Islamic empires in the pre-modern

era. This literature suggests that these historic control structures have left a legacyof weak civil societies where political power is concentrated today in the hands of

military and religious leaders that work to perpetuate the status quo. One empirical

prediction that arises from this literature is that the governments share of GDP

should be higher in areas conquered by Arab armies. One would also expect regimes

in these areas to prevent the emergence of independent centers of political power

and to undermine the inuence of trade unions. I nd that the available data is

consistent with these predictions.

Have the numerous structural changes over the past century (Rauch and Kostyshak

2009) helped lessen the weight of history, making Arab states fertile ground for sus-

tained democratic change? Since data limitations again preclude a systematic in-

vestigation of the channels through which the regions autocratic institutions have

persisted, my strategy in this section is simply to investigate the characteristics of

countries that experienced uprisings in 2011. The most robust nding that emerges

is that countries that experienced uprisings witnessed signicantly lower levels of

self-reported well being in the year before the uprisings. This result suggests that

the Arab Spring shares characteristics with other popular movements that have led

to stable democratic institutions (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006).On the one hand, the results provide reasons to be cautiously optimistic that the

Arab Spring will lead to sustained democratic change. For example, they cast doubt

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on claims that Muslim theology, the Israeli-Palestinian conict or Arab culture are

systematic obstacles to democracy. On the other, they provide sobering evidence

that the regions democratic decit has deep historical roots. While such impedi-

ments to democratic change may have been weakened by structural changes over the

past decades, it is also possible that they remain in place today. In this sense, the

interpretation that I believe best explains the empirical patterns I observe echoes

recent studies suggesting that the regions democratic decit is more a product of its

unique political equilibrium than its cultural, ethnic or religious characteristics (e.g.

Stepan and Robertson 2003, Jamal and Tessler 2008).

Inasmuch as the regions institutional history is useful for forecasting the future, it

suggests that democracy is less likely to emerge where political power remains largely

divided between religious leaders and the military (e.g. Egypt or Yemen). Wherepopular support for secular and religious leaders is more balanced (e.g. Tunisia)

Islamist groups may play an important role in sustaining democratic institutions by

constraining (and being constrained by) rival political groups. Since recent history

suggests that Islamists are just as likely to establish autocratic rule as other groups

in the absence of checks on their power, popular support for Islamists may undermine

democratic eorts if such groups are not checked by other contenders for power.

Finally, it is important to stress that while this paper provides new empirical evi-

dence for the reasons behind the Arab worlds democratic decit, our understanding

of the determinants of democracy in the region remains incomplete. This provides

both an impetus for future research and reasons to be cautious about the evidence

we have regarding democratic change in the Arab world, at least as a guide for future

policy decisions.

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1 Arab Conquest and Democracy: the Empirical

Evidence

This section presents the main results.3 To measure the extent to which countries

were persistently exposed to the institutional framework developed in the early Is-

lamic world I dene the variable ArabConquest as the proportion of a country that

was ruled by Muslim dynasties in the year 1100 CE, interacted with dummy equal

to one if at least half of the countrys landmass was controlled by Muslim dynasties

in both 1500 and 1900 CE.4 This interaction term removes countries such as Spain

that lost the relevant institutional framework centuries ago. Since the majority of

the lands under the control of Muslim dynasties in 1100 CE were conquered by Arab

armies, for expositional simplicity I use Arab conquest to refer to early incorporationinto the Islamic world throughout the paper.5

In table 2 I investigate the extent to whichArabConquest can statistically account

for the democratic decit in the Muslim world in general and the Arab League

specically. To do this I estimate a regression of the form:

Democracyic = 1Muslimic+2ArabLeagueic+3ArabConquestic+0X+"ic (1)

where Democracyic is the normalized polity score of country i on continent c in 2010

(where the normalized polity score lies on the interval [0,1] with higher values denot-

ing more democratic institutions), Muslimic is an indicator variable equal to one if

at least half of a countrys population is Muslim, ArabLeagueic is an indicator equal

to one if a country is a member of the Arab League, ArabConquestic is as dened

above and X is a vector of covariates including continent dummies and an indicator

equal to one if Rauch and Kostyshak (2009) dene a country as fuel-endowed.6

3 For expositional ease I leave the description of the majority of the data used in the paper to

the appendix.4

In addition, I set the variableArabConquest

equal to zero for Israel.5 The results presented in the paper are robust to a variety of alternative measures of early

incorporation into the Islamic world.6 The Arab League is dened in Rauch and Kostyshak (2009, p. 165) as consist[ing] of all

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In column (1) of table 1 I provide an estimate of 1

omitting all other covari-

ates. The point estimate shows that Muslim majority countries are 0.31 normalized

polity points (over one standard deviation) less democratic than the rest of the world.

Throughout table 2 heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors are given in parenthe-

ses whereas standard errors clustered by UN regions are given in brackets to address

potential concerns of spatial correlations in the error terms.7 In column (2) I add an

indicator variable equal to one if the country was a member of the Arab League in

2010. When this indicator is added, the coecient on Muslim decreases in absolute

value although it remains negative and statistically signicant. The coecient on

ArabLeague is also negative and statistically signicant. These results are consistent

with previous studies that have found both Arab and Muslim democratic decits.

In column (3), I add the variable ArabConquest. When this variable is added, thepoint estimates on the variables Muslim and ArabLeague drop sharply in absolute

value and become statistically insignicant. In column (4) I add continent dummies

and a dummy variable equal to one if the country is fuel-endowed. The results do

not qualitatively change and show that from a statistical standpoint ArabConquest

explains both the Arab and Muslim democratic decits found in previous studies.

In columns (5)-(8) I limit the sample to Muslim majority countries. In columns

(5)-(7) I use all countries who have Muslim population shares greater than or equal

to 0.5. These results show that within the Muslim-majority world, the Arab Leagues

democratic decit is shared by countries that were conquered by Arab armies. In

column (8) I show that the result continues to hold when one increases the cuto to

only include countries whose Muslim shares exceed 0.8.

countries in which (a dialect of) Arabic is the spoken language of the majority. See table 1 for a

list of the member states of the Arab League in 2010.7 Since the clustered standard errors and heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors are almost

identical throughout the paper, in subsequent tables I only report the heteroskedasticity-robust

standard errors. The UN regions are: Eastern Africa, Middle Africa, Northern Africa, Southern

Africa, Western Africa, Caribbean, Central America, South America, North America, Central Asia,

Eastern Asia, Southern Asia, South-Eastern Asia, Western Asia, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe,Southern Europe, Western Europe, Australia/ New Zealand and Melanesia. The countries in each

of these regions are detailed at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm

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1.1 The Emergence of the Democratic Decit

The evidence presented so far documents that countries conquered by Arab armies

experienced a democratic decit in 2010. When did this decit emerge? To examinethis question, gure 2 plots the average polity score by countries in three groups

since 1960 (before this date, small sample sizes limit the analysis). The rst group

contains countries conquered by Arab armies. The second group contains Muslim

majority countries that were not conquered by Arab armies. The third group contains

developing countries that neither possess Muslim majorities nor were conquered by

Muslim armies.8

In the year 1960 -when the majority of the developing world had been decolonized-

both Muslim-majority non-Arab conquest and non-Muslim developing countries had

(normalized) polity scores of roughly 0.4. The scores in countries that were conquered

by Arab armies were signicantly lower at around 0.2. Until around 1990 this gap

of around 0.2 points remained roughly constant. After 1990 the non-Muslim devel-

oping world experienced a wave of democratization that was followed by the non-

Arab-conquest Muslim countries with a lag of roughly ten years. Although countries

conquered by Arab armies have seen a slow trend towards increasing political open-

ness since 1990, the levels of democracy in this region in 2010 remained well below

that of the rest of the developing world.

In sum, the democratic decit of countries that were conquered by Arab armiesdates back at least to 1960. Although systematic statistical analyses are not possible

before this date, the average normalized polity score remains approximately constant

prior to 1960 in the two Arab-conquest countries where these scores go back to 1800.9

This result is consistent with the claim that the regions democratic decit has deep

historical roots.

8 I dene developing countries as those that were not members of the OECD before 1980. The

qualitative implications of the analysis are robust to alternative denitions.9 These countries are Iran and Turkey.

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2 Hypotheses and Explanations for the Arab Worlds

Democratic Decit

In this section I examine the extent to which existing hypotheses for the Arab worlds

democratic decit on the eve of the Arab Spring are consistent with the empirical

evidence presented above.

2.1 The Culture Hypothesis

The culture hypothesis claims that the Arab Leagues democratic decit is a prod-

uct of the regions culture. One version of this hypothesis is that Arab culture is

inimical to the emergence of democratic institutions (Sharabi 1988, Noland 2008).

The empirical evidence presented so far is not consistent with this hypothesis. Of

the 28 countries that were conquered by Arab armies in the sample, 18 are members

of the Arab League today whereas 10 are not. Within countries conquered by Arab

armies, there is no evidence that member states of the Arab League have systemati-

cally lower polity scores. Since membership in the Arab League is generally used as

a proxy for Arab culture, this result casts doubt on the importance of Arab culture

in perpetuating the observed democratic decit.

Results in table 3 demonstrate this point in a more formal manner (that com-

plements the inclusion of the Arab dummy in the previous section). In column (1) Ipresent regression output from a regression similar to equation (1) using the entire

sample. In column (2) I run the same regression omitting the member states of the

Arab League. The results show that the omission of the Arab League states has al-

most no eect on the point estimate on the variable Arab conquest. In other words,

the eect of Arab conquest on democratic outcomes today seems to be independent

of Arab culture.

Another version of the culture hypothesis suggests that Muslim religious beliefs

are responsible for the regions democratic decit (Huntington 1996, Lako 2004).In column (3) I omit all countries that were conquered by Arab armies. When this

is done, the results show that the coecient on Muslim majority is small and not

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statistically signicant. This result is not consistent with claims that Muslim theol-

ogy or gender norms in the Islamic world are responsible for the regions democratic

decit (Fish 2002).10

Have Islamic religious beliefs put down stronger roots in the areas that were

conquered by Arab armies? To investigate this hypothesis, I gather data on alcohol

consumption across the world. If stronger religious beliefs are driving the result, one

would expect the inclusion of per-capita alcohol consumption to signicantly aect

the point estimate on Arab conquest when limiting the sample to Muslim countries

since Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol. Results in column (4) show that

this is not the case. In the appendix I provide additional evidence showing that

religious beliefs do not seem to be abnormally strong in regions conquered by Arab

armies. Together with the ndings presented in column 3, these results cast doubton Islam as the primary obstacle to democracy.11

2.2 The Conict/Resource Curse Hypotheses

Another group of studies stresses the importance of the Arab-Israeli conict (Stepan

and Robertson 2003; El Badawi and Makdisi 2007; Diamond 2010). Such studies,

however, explicitly claim that any negative eects on democratic outcomes should be

limited to the Arab world. However, as I have shown above, the regions democratic

decit extends to a sizeable number of countries outside of the Arab League. Inaddition, in column (5) of table 3 I present results omitting Israel and the neighboring

Arab counties (i.e. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria). Since these countries have

experienced the conict most directly, one would expect these countries to drive the

conict results if they existed. However, the results in column (5) show that the

point estimates are almost identical when these countries are removed. Thus, when

taken in unison these results cast doubt on the importance of the Arab-Israeli conict

as a systematic obstacle to democratic change across the region.

10 In the appendix I provide additional evidence supporting this claim.11 And thus echo the conclusions of recent analyses such as Stepan and Robertson (2003) or Jamal

and Tessler (2008).

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Another inuential literature argues that large amounts of oil wealth are inimical

to the development of democratic institutions (Ross 2001). Are the results driven by

oil rich countries? To investigate this possibility, I have included a dummy variable

denoting fuel-endowed countries as dened in Rauch and Kostyshak (2009) in the

regressions above and shown that the inclusion of this variable does not qualitatively

aect the results. As a further robustness check, in column (6) of table 3 I present

the results of regression (1) omitting all fuel-endowed countries. Again, the omission

of these countries does not aect the point estimate on ArabConquest in a signicant

way. In other words, the data do not support the hypothesis that oil wealth drives

the Arab Leagues democratic decit.12

2.3 The Institutional Persistence Hypothesis

The institutional persistence hypothesis attributes the Arab Leagues democratic

decit today to the long-term inuence of the control structures developed in the

centuries following the Arab conquests. The view that the region has a propensity

toward autocratic institutions that is rooted in historical events goes back at least

to Montesqueiu (1989 [1748]) and was echoed by prominent Arab thinkers in the

19th century (Hourani 1962). Following decolonization, many saw the failure of the

parliamentary-democratic form of government as the legacy of the regions historical

institutional framework (Issawi 1956, p. 27). More recently, scholars such as BernardLewis (1993b) and Kedourie (1994) have emphasized that a unique set of institutions

developed in the areas conquered by Arab armies and that these historical institutions

have had enduring political impacts.

Historical evidence supports the notion that an abnormally autocratic political

equilibrium developed in the Arab-conquest regions. In the ninth century, rulers

12 I do nd evidence later in the paper, however, consistent with the claim that popular pressures

for democratization are more muted in oil-rich counties. Consequently, the results in the paper

are not inconsistent with the hypothesis that oil wealth discourages the emergence of democratic

institutions. Rather, they suggest that oil wealth cannot account for the entire regions democratic

decit.

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across this region began to use slave armies -as opposed to native populations- to

sta their armies. Blaydes and Chaney (2011) argue that the widespread use of

these slave armies allowed rulers to achieve independence from local military and

civilian groups and helped remove constraints on the sovereign in pre-modern Islamic

societies. In this autocratic environment, religious leaders emerged as the only check

on the power of the sovereign (Chaney 2011).

The historic division of power between the military (i.e. the sovereign backed

by his army of slaves) and religious leaders did not produce democratic institutions.

Instead, both religious and military elites worked together to develop and perpet-

uate a classical institutional equilibrium. This institutional framework -which is

often referred to as Islamic law- seems to have been designed with the interest of

both military and religious leaders in mind (Kuran 2011, Chaney 2012). Althoughreligious leaders devised equilibrium institutions to protect the interests of the

general population to a degree, both the military and religious elites worked to resist

the emergence of rival centers of political power such as merchant guilds that could

have facilitated institutional change (Lapidus 1984, pp. 103-104). Concentration of

political power in the hands of a few groups and weak civil societies are thought to

be the long-term legacy of this historical institutional framework (e.g. Kuran 2011,

p. 301).

Areas incorporated into the Islamic world after the era of Arab conquests had

ended did not adopt this classical framework in its entirety (Lapidus 1988, p. 252).

For example, in regions conquered by non-Arab Muslim armies such as India and

the Balkans, local elites remained in power and perpetuated previous institutional

arrangements (Lapidus 1988, pp. 247-248). Where Islam spread by conversion (e.g.

Indonesia, Malaysia or sub-Saharan Africa) institutions were shaped by a local

elite which preserved its political and cultural continuity (Lapidus 1988, p. 249).

Consequently, an institutional divide arose within the Muslim world between areas

that had been incorporated into the Muslim world by Arab conquest and those that

were incorporated in later periods.These institutional divisions within the Islamic world have proven remarkably

resilient. For example, although Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in

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1517 CE, remnants of the local elite eventually reestablished themselves and contin-

ued to rely on slave armies to support their positions until the arrival of Napoleon

in Egypt in 1798 CE. Despite the many changes that Arab-conquered regions have

undergone over the subsequent 200 years, both colonizers and native rulers follow-

ing independence seem to have worked to perpetuate the historic concentration of

political power in the hands of the ruler. This point is stressed by Bernard Lewis

(1993b) who notes that [m]odernization in the nineteenth century, and still more in

the twentieth, far from reducing this [historic] autocracy, substantially increased it.

Contemporary observers have also noted that the present day political equilibrium

bears more than a passing resemblance to the historical equilibrium. For example,

some Arab critics have called their rulers Mamelukes, alluding to the slave-soldiers

who exercised unrestrained and arbitrary power in those countries (Kedourie 1994,p. 92) and Sonbol (2000, p. xxvi) notes that that the military [in Egypt...] prac-

tice[s] prerogatives similar to those enjoyed by the [slave soldiers]. This autocratic

environment has led religious leaders to again emerge in their historical role as the

primary check on the power of the state (al-Sayyid Marsot 1984, Chaney 2011).

2.3.1 Institutions or Geographic Endowments?

Is the Arab Leagues democratic decit today a product of institutional persistence?

An alternative explanation for the empirical patterns I observe is that countriesdominated by desert terrain selected into Arab conquest and that the results are

picking up the long-run eects of desert institutions (Haber and Menaldo 2010) or

even a direct eect of desert terrain on democracy today.

To investigate this possibility, in the upper graph of gure 3 I detail the re-

lationship between desert terrain and democracy in the entire sample. Although

the negative relationship between desert terrain and democratic outcomes in 2010

is striking, it is entirely driven by countries conquered by Arab armies (which are

denoted with grey boxes). Once these countries are removed from the sample, the re-

lationship between desert terrain and democracy is no longer statistically signicant

and is given in the lower graph.

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In columns (7)-(9) of table 3 I demonstrate this point in a more formal manner.

In these specications I add controls for desert terrain to regression (1). In column

(7) I use the percent of a countrys current landmass that is occupied by desert

terrain. In columns (8) and (9) I use the logarithm of a countrys average rainfall

in both a linear and cubic specication as suggested by Haber and Menaldo (2010).

Although the roughly 50% increase in the standard errors is a product of the fact that

Arab conquest and desert terrain are highly correlated, the point estimates on the

variable Arab conquest do not substantially change when measures of desert terrain

are added to the regression and these estimates remain statistically signicant. The

coecients on desert terrain, in turn, are small in absolute value and statistically

insignicant. Thus, the available evidence provides little support for the hypothesis

that desert terrain has eects on democratic outcomes today that are independentof Arab conquest.13

If the only way desert terrain impacts democratic outcomes today is through

institutional developments that followed Arab conquest, then desert terrain should

be a valid instrument for Arab conquest in equation (1). In table 4, I present results

instrumenting for Arab conquest with desert terrain. I do this for two reasons.

First, if Arab conquest is a noisy measure of treatment with the relevant historical

institutions then IV results can help address biases caused by this measurement error.

Second, overidentication tests provide an additional test of the hypothesis that

desert terrain only inuences democratic outcomes today through Arab conquest.

Why do I expect desert terrain and Arab conquest to be statistically related?

It is well known that Arab armies had signicant military advantages in areas that

were dominated by desert terrain. Bernard Lewis sums up this point by noting

that [t]he strategy employed by the Arabs in the great campaigns of conquest was

determined by the use of desert-power [...] [t]he desert was familiar and accessible to

the Arabs and not to their enemies (1993a, p. 54). Similarly, Kennedy (2007, p. 371)

notes that bedouin armies were particularly able in the barren and inhospitable

milieus that constituted much of the territory conquered by Arab armies, while Hill13 In the appendix I provide further evidence in support of this claim.

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(1975) suggests that the Arab use of the camel greatly facilitated conquest on or

near desert terrain. Consequently, areas with desert terrain should have been more

likely to select into conquest by Arab armies.14

In table 4 I present the relevant results in four panels. In panel A I present the

IV (2SLS) estimates. In panel B I present the rst-stage for Arab conquest. In

panel C I provide the OLS results and in panel D I provide the p-value from the

overidentication tests when relevant. The rst three columns use the entire sample

and the nal three columns limit the sample to countries with Muslim majorities.

In columns (1) and (4), I instrument for Arab conquest with the distance of

the geographical center of a country (i.e. its centroid) from Mecca. Panel B shows

that there is a strong rst stage relationship between distance from Mecca and Arab

conquest. In both specications the point estimates and standard errors on Arabconquest roughly double.

In columns (2) and (5), I instrument for Arab conquest using desert terrain.

The rst-stage results show that there is also a strong relationship between desert

terrain and Arab conquest. In panel D I present the p-value testing that the IV

coecients obtained using Mecca and Desert as instruments are equal. I cannot reject

the hypothesis that they are equal at conventional levels of statistical signicance.

In columns (3) and (6), I instrument for Arab conquest using the logarithm of a

countrys average rainfall. Again, I cannot reject the null hypothesis that the IV

coecients obtained using Mecca and rainfall as instruments are equal.

The overidentication tests are useful since they are a direct test of the exclusion

restriction that desert terrain only aects democratic outcomes today through Arab

conquest. Although it should be noted that such tests may not lead to a rejection

if all instruments are invalid but still highly correlated with each other (and thus

should be treated with some caution), the data support the exclusion restriction

implied by my approach. Thus, the evidence is consistent with the claim that desert

terrain aects democratic outcomes today through institutions developed following

14 See Michalopoulus et al. (2010) for a related discussion of how desert terrain and unequal agri-cultural endowments may have aected the selection of countries into the classical institutional

framework.

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Arab conquest and not through channels that are unrelated to Arab conquest.15

2.3.2 Government Share of GDP, Access to Credit, Trade Unions and

Arab Conquest

I now turn to the channels through which Arab conquest may continue to aect

institutional outcomes today. I view this analysis as preliminary and exploratory,

as data limitations make it dicult to pin down the precise channels underlying

the observed empirical patterns with any reasonable degree of certainty. Instead,

I examine the extent to which the available data are consistent with the historical

evidence.

The main prediction of the institutional persistence hypothesis as developed above

is that political power should be abnormally concentrated in areas conquered by Arab

armies and that civil societies in the region should be unusually weak. Since I do not

have direct measures of either, I instead use as proxies government share of GDP,

the extent to which existing institutions facilitate access to credit and the number

of trade unions normalized by GDP.

The logic behind the use of the governments share of GDP metric is rooted in

the regions economic development over the past 60 years. After the end of the

colonial era, governments worked to impede the emergence of autonomous social

groups in Arab-conquered regions. For example, the state stymied the emergence ofpolitically powerful merchant groups (Pamuk 2004, Malik and Awadallah 2011). As

a consequence, government today should be directly involved in an abnormally large

share of economic production in Arab conquered regions (Kuran 2011, p. 301).

In table 5 I present results investigating the empirical relevance of this prediction.

In columns (1)-(3) I present results from a regression similar to equation (1) using

governments share of GDP in 2010 as the dependent variable. Results in column (1)

show that countries conquered by Arab armies have government GDP shares that are

7 percentage points higher than in areas that were not conquered by Arab armies.

15 In this sense, the results complement recent studies that nd that geography inuences present-

day outcomes through historical events (e.g. Nunn and Puga 2012).

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In column (2) I show that this result is not driven by the regions democratic decit.

In column (3) I show that although there is not much evidence that Arab League

countries are dierent from non-Arab League countries, the results on Arab conquest

lose statistical signicance when one introduces an Arab League dummy.

In columns (4)-(6) I examine the extent to which governments in Arab-conquered

areas continue to resist the development of autonomous social groups today. To do

this, I use the World Banks Strength of Legal Rights Index as the dependent

variable. I normalize this index to range from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating

that the legal system is better designed to expand access to credit. I expect the legal

system in countries conquered by Arab armies to be inimical to the expansion of

credit since the regions historical institutions have both endowed ruling elites with

unusual levels of political power and have left civil society groups such as merchantsabnormally weak. The results are consistent with this prediction. Namely, the legal

systems in countries that were conquered by Arab armies are between 0.21 and 0.29

points (or roughly one standard deviation) less hospitable to the expansion of credit

than legal systems in other regions.

Finally, in columns (7)-(9) I present the number of trade unions normalized by

GDP (measured in billions of dollars). To measure the number of trade unions, I

use the number of trade unions aliated with the International Confederation of

Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) per country. The point estimates on Arab conquest

in columns (7)-(9) shows that areas conquered by Arab armies have between 0.28

and 0.35 fewer trade unions per billion dollars of GDP (or just over one standard

deviation). These results do not seem to be driven either by the regions democratic

decit or by membership in the Arab League. They are, however, consistent with

the prediction that civil societies are abnormally weak in Arab-conquest areas.

In sum, although it is dicult to measure the extent to which political power

is abnormally concentrated and civil societies are weak in areas conquered by Arab

armies, in this subsection I have presented evidence that is largely consistent with

this prediction.

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3 The Arab Spring: Past as Prologue?

The ndings presented in this paper suggest that the democratic decit in the Arab

League on the eve of the Arab Spring had deep historical roots. However, thisresult does not imply that the Arab Spring will not lead to sustained democratic

change. Indeed, the numerous structural changes over the past 50 years (Rauch and

Kostyshak 2009) may have helped to lessen the weight of history, rendering many

Arab states fertile ground for sustained democratic change today.

3.1 Advances in Education

While space considerations limit the extent to which I am able to investigate the

evolution of the many available indicators in the Arab League over the past decades,in this section I detail the evolution of average education in the region over the past

60 years. I concentrate on this indicator because a large literature views high levels

of educational attainment as a prerequisite for democracy.16 In gure 4 I present the

evolution of the average years of education since 1950 for three groups of countries:

i. Non-Muslim, developing countries, ii. Muslim, non-Arab conquest countries and

iii. countries that were conquered by Arab armies. The results show the tremendous

increases in average education in the countries conquered by Arab armies over the

past 60 years. They also show that while dierences in education do not seem to

explain the democratic decit from a statistical standpoint in these countries (see

the appendix for these results), educational attainment in countries conquered by

Arab armies has largely converged to the non-Arab-conquest Muslim average.17

What do such structural changes imply for the future of democracy in the Arab

world? Unfortunately, data limitations have prevented a systematic investigation of

the channels through which history continues to aect democratic outcomes today.

Consequently, it is hard to know the extent to which structural changes have helped

16 See Acemoglu et al. (2005) for an overview of this literature and Glaeser et al. (2007) for one

causal mechanism through which higher levels of education may lead to more democratic outcomes.17 In a recent working paper Campante and Chor (2011) argue that such structural changes have

made political protests more likely and pressures for democratization more acute.

18


19/35

to remove the historical impediments to democratic change. However, if the litera-

ture stressing the importance of education for democratization is correct, the large

increases in education in the Arab conquest countries over the last 60 years suggest

that the prospects for democracy in the region are brighter today than at any time

in its history.

3.2 A Democratic Dawn?

At some level it is obvious that the structural changes the region has undergone

over the past 60 years have made the Arab world more fertile ground for sustained

democratic change today than at any time in the past. For example, the widespread

protests that swept across the region in 2011 have no precedent in the regions history.

However, the political equilibrium in many states in the Arab League resembles

the equilibrium that has accompanied autocratic institutions for centuries. Namely,

political power appears to be concentrated in the hands of military and religious

leaders in many areas.

The regions institutional history suggests that democratic change is less likely

where political power remains concentrated in such a manner. Although I do not

observe the extent to which political power is concentrated in the hands of military

and religious leaders, I do observe popular support for Sharia implementation. To

the extent that religious leaders derive political power from popular support, supportfor Sharia implementation may be a good proxy for the relative power of religious

leaders across countries. Thus, I use popular support for the Sharia as a measure of

the extent to which political power remains concentrated in the hands of religious

leaders across the Arab world today.18

Average support for Sharia implementation over the years 2005-2010 in the mem-

18 The use of this metric is supported by recent election results in Tunisia and Egypt. Although

Islamist parties won majorities in both countries, these groups seem on the whole less moderate

and to wield more political power in Egypt than in Tunisia. This is consistent with the results

from surveys presented in table 6 showing that a larger share of the populace support Sharia

implementation in Egypt than in Tunisia.

19


20/35

ber states of the Arab League is presented in column (1) of table 6. In table 6,

countries that experienced unrest in 2011 are marked in bold. The results show that

in countries such as Egypt and Yemen popular support for Sharia implementation

is high. In countries such as Syria and Tunisia it is much lower. However, with the

exception of Lebanon nowhere in the Arab League does popular support for Sharia

implementation approach the low levels of Turkey which is widely seen as a demo-

cratic model for the region. These results suggest that religious leaders will wield

greater political power in countries such as Yemen and Egypt than in others such

as Tunisia. History suggests that the emergence of stable democratic institutions is

less likely in areas where religious leaders face fewer political rivals.

3.3 Measuring the Propensity for Unrest

One prominent model of democratic change links economic downturns and popular

discontent with democratizations (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006).19 To both inves-

tigate and quantify the extent to which popular discontent helped drive the Arab

spring, in columns (2)-(4) of table 6, I detail the evolution of self-reported well-being

in the Arab world in 2009, 2010 and 2011 using Gallups World Poll data. In each

column, I provide the mean number of respondents who were self-reportedly thriv-

ing by countries. The level of self-reported well-being in 2010 is the only variable I

have found that robustly predicts unrest in 2011 from a statistical standpoint.This result suggests that the level of subjective well-being in 2011 may help

predict the propensity for further unrest across the Arab League. To the extent that

this is the case, oil-rich gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the United

Arab Emirates seem unlikely to experience widespread unrest in the near future. It

should be noted, however, that the sharp drop in well-being in Bahrain between 2009

and 2011 from a relatively high base suggests that even countries with high levels of

self-reported well-being may be more susceptible to unrest than the results in table

6 suggest.

While the regions history reminds us that democratizations might prove eeting

19 For a recent empirical investigation of this hypothesis, see Brckner and Ciccone (2011).

20


21/35

in the absence of competing interest groups, the results also show that popular

discontent with the status quo helped drive the protests. This result suggests both

that the Arab Spring seems to share important characteristics with other successful

democratizations and that such discontent seems to have helped to unify protestors

in pursuit of change.

4 Conclusion

In this paper I have provided evidence suggesting that the Arab Leagues democratic

decit on the eve of the Arab Spring has deep historical roots. These results cast

doubt on claims that Muslim theology, Arab culture, the Arab-Israeli conict or

oil wealth are systematic obstacles to democractic change. Instead, the availableevidence suggests that the regions democratic decit is a product of the long-run

inuence of control structures developed under Islamic empires in the pre-modern

era.

Will the Arab Spring end the regions long history of autocratic rule and usher in

long-lasting democratic change? Unfortunately, data limitations prohibit a detailed

investigation of the channels through which the regions historical institutional equi-

librium continues to aect outcomes today. Consequently, I am unable to measure

the extent to which these channels continue to aect political developments.

Despite these limitations, at some level the structural changes the region has

undergone over the past 60 years have made the Arab world more fertile ground

for sustained democratic change today than at any time in the past. Indeed, the

widespread protests that swept across the region in 2011 have no precedent in the

regions history. That having been said, in some countries of the Arab world (e.g.

Egypt or Yemen) the present-day political equilibrium seems more similar to the

historical equilibrium that has accompanied autocratic institutions than in others

(e.g. Tunisia). In this sense, history suggests that democracy is less likely to emerge

in the former group of countries than in the latter.What, then, are the implications of the preceding analysis for the current policy

21


22/35

environment? Although the results suggest that the Arab Leagues democratic decit

on the eve of the Arab Spring has deep historical roots, this decit does not appear

to be rooted in religious beliefs. However, the regions institutional history shows

that overwhelming popular support for Islamists may undermine democratic eorts

by concentrating political power in the hands of these groups. Indeed, the recent past

shows that Islamists are just as likely to establish autocratic rule as other groups

in the absence of checks on their power. Thus, unless other interests groups -such

as labor unions or commercial interests- check their power, Islamists may replace

secular rulers and usher in a new wave of autocracy in some Arab countries.

In closing, it should be stressed that these conclusions are largely based on an

implicit model of the regions institutional history. While this conceptual framework

might be consistent with the available data and may help explain the past, if therehas been a regime shift (statistically speaking) predictions based on this framework

will be poor. Thus, there are many reasons to be cautious about using the evidence

we have regarding democratic change in the Arab world as a guide for future policy

decisions.

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Figure 1: Arab Conquest and Democracy in 2010More democratic countries are shaded grey and the persistent boundaries

of the Islamic world in 1100 CE (i.e. Arab conquest) are outlined in black.Democracy data for 2010 are missing for cross-hatched countries.


27/35

0.2.4.6.8StandardizedPolityScore

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

ArabConquest

Non

Muslim

Muslim,

Non

ArabConquest

Figure 2: Arab Conquest, Muslim Countries, Developing non-Muslim Countries and Democracy since 1960


28/35

AZE

MLI

MRT

NER

TCD

SOM

MAR

DZA

TUN

L

BY

IRN

T

UR

IRQ

EGY

SYR

LBN

JOR

SAU

Y

EM

KW

T BHR

Q

ATA

RE

OMN

TKM

TJK

UZBP

AK

USA

CAN

CUB

HTI

DOM

JAM

TTO

MEX

GTM

HND

SLV

NIC

CRIPAN

COL

VEN

GUY ECU

PER

BRA

BOL

PRY

CHL

ARG

URY

GBR

IRLNLD

BEL

FRAC

HE

ESP

PRT

DEU

POL

AUT

HUN

CZE

SVK

ITAALB

SRB

MKD

HRV

MON

SVN

GRC

CY

P

BGR

MDA

ROM

RUS

EST

LVA

LTU

UKR

BLR

ARMG

EO

FINSWE

NOR

DNK

CPV

GNB

GNQ

GMB

SEN

BEN

CIV

GIN B

FA

LBR

SLE

GHA

TGO

CMR

NGA

GAB

CAF

COG

ZAR

UGA

KEN

TZA

BDI

RWA

DJI

ETH

ERI

AGO

MOZ

ZMB

ZWE

MWI

ZAF

NAM

LSO

BWA

SWZ

MDG

COM

MUS

SDN

ISR

KGZ

KAZ

CHN

MNG

TWN

PRK

KOR

JPN

IND

BTN

BGD

MMR

LKA

NPL

THA

KHM

LAOVNM

MYS

SGP

PHL

IDN

AUS

PNG

NZL

SLB

FJI

0.2.4.6.81NormalizedPolityScore

0

.2

.4

.6

.8

1

PercentDesert

[N=160;b=0.51;se=0.06]

USA

CAN

CUB

HTI

DOM

JAM

TTO

MEX

GTM

HND

SLV

NIC

CRIPAN

COL

VEN

GUY ECU

PER

BRA

BOL

PRY

CHL

ARG

URY

GBR

IRLNLD

BEL

FRAC

HE

ESP

PRT

DEU

POL

AUT

HUN

CZE

SVK

ITAALB

SRB

MKD

HRV

MON

SVN

GRC

CY

P

BGR

MDA

ROM

RUS

EST

LVA

LTU

UKR

BLR

ARMG

EO

FINSWE

NOR

DNK

CPV

GNB

GNQ

GMB

SEN

BEN

CIV

GIN B

FA

LBR

SLE

GHA

TGO

CMR

NGA

GAB

CAF

COG

ZAR

UGA

KEN

TZA

BDI

RWA

DJI

ETH

ERI

AGO

MOZ

ZMB

ZWE

MWI

ZAF

NAM

LSO

BWA

SWZ

MDG

COM

MUS

SDN

ISR

KGZ

KAZ

CHN

MNG

TWN

PRK

KOR

JPN

IND

BTN

BGD

MMR

LKA

NPL

THA

KHM

LAOVNM

MYS

SGP

PHL

IDN

AUS

PNG

NZL

SLB

FJI

0.2.4.6.81NormalizedPolityScore

0

.2

.4

.6

.8

1

PercentDesert

[N=132;b=0.14;se=0.17]

Figure 3: Democracy, Arab Conquest and DesertCountries conquered by Arab armies are denoted with grey boxes. The top

graph includes the entire sample whereas the bottom graph omitscountries conquered by Arab armies.


29/35

024681940

1960

1980

2000

2020

ArabConquest

Non

Muslim

Muslim,N

on

ArabConquest

Figure 4: The Evolution of Years of Education since 1950Average years of education in Arab Conquest, Muslim and developing

non-Muslim countries since 1950.


30/35

Table1:CountryCodes,theArabLeague,ArabConquestandMuslimMajority

Code

Country

Code

Country

Code

Country

Code

Country

AGO

Angola

ECU

Ecuador

LAO

Laos

QAT

Qatar

ALB

Albania

EGY

Egypt

LBN

Lebanon

ROM

Romania

ARE

UnitedArabEmirates

ERI

Eritrea

LBR

Liberia

RUS

Russia

ARG

Argentina

ESP

Spain

LBY

Libya

RWA

Rwanda

ARM

Armenia

EST

Estonia

LKA

SriLanka

SAU

SaudiArabia

AUS

Australia

ETH

Ethiopia

LSO

Lesotho

SDN

Sudan

AUT

Austria

FIN

Finland

LTU

Lithuania

SEN

Senegal

AZE

Azerbaijan

FJI

Fiji

LVA

Latvia

SGP

Singapore

BDI

Burundi

FRA

France

MAR

Morocco

SLB

SolomonIslan

ds

BEL

Belgium

GAB

Gabon

MDA

Moldova

SLE

SierraLeone

BEN

Benin

GBR

UnitedKingdom

MDG

Madagascar

SLV

ElSalvador

BFA

BurkinaFaso

GEO

Georgia

MEX

Mexico

SOM

Somalia

BGD

Bangladesh

GHA

Ghana

MKD

Macedonia

SRB

Serbia

BGR

Bulgaria

GIN

Guinea

MLI

Mali

SVK

Slovakia

BHR

Bahrain

GMB

Gambia,The

MMR

Myanmar(Burma)

SVN

Slovenia

BLR

Byelarus

GNB

Guinea-Bissau

MNG

Mongolia

SWE

Sweden

BOL

Bolivia

GNQ

EquatorialGuinea

MON

Montenegro

SWZ

Swaziland

BRA

Brazil

GRC

Greece

MOZ

Mozambique

SYR

Syria

BTN

Bhutan

GTM

Guatemala

MRT

Mauritania

TCD

Chad

BWA

Botswana

GUY

Guyana

MUS

Mauritius

TGO

Togo

CAF

CentralAfricanRepublic

HND

Honduras

MWI

Malawi

THA

Thailand

CAN

Canada

HRV

Croatia

MYS

Malaysia

TJK

Tajikistan

CHE

Switzerland

HTI

Haiti

NAM

Namibia

TKM

Turkmenistan

CHL

Chile

HUN

Hungary

NER

Niger

TTO

Trinidadand

Tobago

CHN

China

IDN

Indonesia

NGA

Nigeria

TUN

Tunisia

CIV

IvoryCoast

IND

India

NIC

Nicaragua

TUR

Turkey

CMR

Cameroon

IRL

Ireland

NLD

Netherlands

TWN

Taiwan

COG

Congo

IRN

Iran

NOR

Norway

TZA

Tanzania,UnitedRepublicof

COL

Colombia

IRQ

Iraq

NPL

Nepal

UGA

Uganda

COM

Comoros

ISR

Israel

NZL

NewZealand

UKR

Ukraine

CPV

CapeVerde

ITA

Italy

OMN

Oman

URY

Uruguay

CRI

CostaRica

JAM

Jamaica

PAK

Pakistan

USA

UnitedStates

CUB

Cuba

JOR

Jordan

PAN

Panama

UZB

Uzbekistan

CYP

Cyprus

JPN

Japan

PER

Peru

VEN

Venezuela

CZE

CzechRepublic

KAZ

Kazakhstan

PHL

Philippines

VNM

Vietnam

DEU

Germany

KEN

Kenya

PNG

PapuaNewGuinea

YEM

Yemen

DJI

Djibouti

KGZ

Kyrgyzstan

POL

Poland

ZAF

SouthAfrica

DNK

Denmark

KHM

Cambodia

PRK

NorthKorea

ZAR

Zaire

DOM

DominicanRepublic

KOR

SouthKorea

PRT

Portugal

ZMB

Zambia

DZA

Algeria

KWT

Kuwait

PRY

Paraguay

ZWE

Zimbabwe

Notes:Cou

ntriesmarkedinboldwerememberso

ftheArabLeaguein2010.Countries

markedwiththesymbol

hadatleasthalf

oftheirlandmassconqueredbyArabarmies,whilethosewithMuslim

majoritiesared

enotedby

.Underlinedcountriesarenon

ArabLeagu

emembersthathadatleasthalfoftheirlandmassconqueredbyArabarm

ies.CountriesthathaveMuslim

majo

rities

butwereno

tconqueredbyArabarmiesandarenotmembersoftheArabLeaguein20

10areinitalics.Seetextfordetails.


31/35

Table2:Demo

cracy,IslamandArabConquest

DependentVariable:NormalizedPolityScorein2010

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

Mu

slim

-0.3

1

-0.2

0

-0.0

6

0.0

5

(0.05)

(0.07)

(0.07)

(0.07)

[0.10]

[0.10]

[0.07]

[0.07]

ArabLeague

-0.2

1

-0.0

4

-0.0

1

-0.2

3

-0.0

5

-0.0

2

-0.0

5

(0.09)

(0.10)

(0.10)

(0.09)

(0.10)

(0.10)

(0.10)

[0.10]

[0.10]

[0.11]

[0.11]

[0.10]

[0.10]

[0.08]

ArabConquest

-0.3

9

-0.3

2

-0.3

8

-0.2

8

-0.4

0

(0.11)

(0.12)

(0.11)

(0.12)

(0.13)

[0.11]

[0.11]

[0.11]

[0.12]

[0.18]

N

160

160

160

160

43

43

43

32

Co

ntrols?

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Sample

World

World

World

World

Muslim

Muslim

Muslim

80%

Notes:Thedependentvariableisthepolityscorein2010normalizedtolieonthe

interval[0,1](highervaluesindicate

more

democratic

institutions).Muslim

isanindicator

variableequaltooneifatleasthalfofthecountryspopulationisMuslim.

Arab

LeagueisanindicatorvariableequaltooneifthecountrywasamemberoftheArabLeaguein2010.ArabConquesti

sthe

percentage

ofacountryslandmassthatwasper

sistentlycontrolledbyIslamicEmpiressinceatleast1100CE.Controlsinclude

continentd

ummiesandadummyvariableequa

ltooneifthecountrywasafuel-en

dowedeconomyasdefinedinRauch

and

Kostyshak

(2009).Thesamplelabeled80%

limit

sthesampletocountrieswhoseMuslim

populationsharesaregreaterthan

80%.

Robuststa

ndarderrorsaregiveninparentheses

whereasstandarderrorsclusteredby

regionaregiveninbrackets.Seetex

tfor

details.


32/35

Table3:PossibleExplanations:Culture,Conflict,O

ilandDesert

NormalizedPolityScorein2010

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

ArabConquest

-0.3

2

-0.3

3

-0.3

5

-0.3

4

-0.3

1

-0.2

9

-0.2

9

-0.3

0

(0.09)

(0.15)

(0.09)

(0.10)

(0.10)

(0.15)

(0.14)

(0.14)

Muslim

0.0

5

0.0

5

0.0

3

0.0

5

0.0

5

0.0

9

0.0

5

0.0

5

(0.07)

(0.11)

(0.07)

(0.07)

(0.07)

(0.10)

(0.07)

(0.07)

ln(AlcoholConsumption)

-0.0

7

(0.02)

%Desert

-0.0

5

(0.15)

ln(Rain)

2.0

2

0.0

1

(1.97)

(0.04)

[ln(Rain)]2

-0.3

1

(0.34)

[ln(Rain)]3

0.0

2

(0.02)

N

160

139

132

43

155

147

160

158

158

Controls?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Sample

World

Non-

Non-

Muslim

Non-

Non-

World

World

World

Arab

Conquest

Conflict

Oil

Notes:ArabConquestisthepercentageofacountryslandmassthatwaspersistentlycontrolledbyIslamicEmpiressin

ceat

least1100

CE.Muslim

isanindicatorvariable

equaltooneifatleasthalfofthecountryspopulationisMuslim.ln(Alcohol

Consumpti

on)isthelogarithm

ofaverageper-capitaalcoholconsumption.%Desert

isthepercentageofacountrysland

mass

thatiscoveredbydesertterrain.ln(Rain)isthelogarithm

ofacountrysaveragerainfall.Controlsincludecontinentdum

mies

andadum

myvariableequaltooneifthecountrywasafuel-endowedeconomyasdefinedinRauchandKostyshak(2009).

The

Non-Arab

sampleomitsmembersoftheArabL

eague,theNon-Conquestsampleom

itsArab-conquestcountries,theMuslim

samplerestrictstheanalysistocountrieswithatleast50%

Muslim

populationshares,theNon-ConflictsampleomitsEgypt,

Israel,Jord

an,LebanonandSyriaandtheNon-

Oilsampleomitsthecountriesdefine

dasfuel-endowedinRauchandKosty

shak

(2009).


33/35

Table 4: IV Regressions: The Impact of Arab Conquest on Demo-cratic Outcomes in 2010

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Panel A: Two-Stage Least SquaresArab Conquest -0.56 -0.36 -0.35 -0.51 -0.47 -0.59

(0.30) (0.14) (0.14) (0.16) (0.12) (0.10)

Muslim 0.16 0.07 0.07(0.15) (0.09) (0.09)

Panel B: First-Stage for Arab ConquestMecca -0.46 -1.13

(0.12) (0.28)

%Desert 0.67 0.85(0.11) (0.15)

ln(Rainfall) -0.17 -0.29(0.02) (0.03)

Panel C: Ordinary Least SquaresArab Conquest -0.32 -0.32 -0.32 -0.29 -0.29 -0.29

(0.09) (0.07) ((0.07)) (0.10) (0.10) (0.10)

Muslim 0.05 0.05 0.05(0.07) (0.07) (0.07)

Panel D: Overidentification Tests

[p-value] [0.50] [0.63] [0.82] [0.65]

N 160 160 158 43 43 43

Sample World World World Muslim Muslim M uslim

Notes: The dependent variable in panels A and C is the polity score in 2010 normal-ized to lie on the interval [0,1] (higher values indicate more democratic institutions).The dependent variable in panel B is Arab Conquest: the percentage of a countryslandmass that was persistently controlled by Islamic Empires since at least 1100 CE.Muslim is an indicator variable equal to one if at least half of the countrys popula-tion is Muslim. Mecca is the distance of the countrys centroid to Mecca measuredin tens of thousands of kilometers. %Desert is the percent of a countrys landmassthat is covered by desert terrain. Arab League is an indicator variable equal to one ifthe country was a member of the Arab League in 2010. ln(Rainfall) is the logarithm

of average annual rainfall in the country. Controls include country dummies and anindicator equal to one if the country was a fuel-endowed economy as defined in Rauchand Kostyshak (2009). Robust standard errors are presented in parentheses.


34/35

Table 5: Governments Share of GDP, Access to Credit, TradeUnions and Arab Conquest

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

Govt. Share of GDP Access to Credit Trade UnionsArab Conquest 7.37 9.26 4.53 -0.29 -0.21 -0.24 -0.29 -0.28 -0.35

(2.73) (3.29) (3.68) (0.10) (0.09) (0.10) (0.13) (0.12) (0.18)Muslim -5.20 -5.46 -5.89 -0.02 -0.03 -0.00 0.21 0.21 0.20

(2.55) (2.58) (2.47) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08) (0.11) (0.11) (0.10)

Fuel-Endowed 7.42 8.28 6.16 0.02 0.07 0.04 0.00 0.01 -0.02(3.50) (3.93) (3.24) (0.07) (0.07) (0.08) (0.04) (0.05) (0.05)

Democracy 5.83 0.28 0.03(5.56) (0.08) (0.07)

Arab League 5.48 -0.09 0.12(3.50) (0.07) (0.16)

N 158 158 158 152 152 152 160 160 160

Notes: The dependent variable in columns (1)-(3) is 100 times the governments share

of GDP in 2011. In columns (4)-(6) the dependent variable is the World Banksstrength of legal rights index normalized to lie on the interval [0,1] (higher valuesindicate legal systems that greater facilitate access to credit). In columns (7)-(9) thedependent variable is the number of trade unions normalized by GDP measured inbillions of dollars. Arab Conquest is the percentage of a countrys landmass thatwas persistently controlled by Islamic Empires since at least 1100 CE. Muslim is anindicator variable equal to one if at least half of the countrys population is Muslim.Fuel-Endowed is an indicator variable equal to one if the country is a fuel-endowedeconomy as defined in Rauch and Kostyshak (2009). Democracy is the countrys polityscore normalized to lie on the interval [0,1]. Arab League is an indicator variable equalto one if the country was a member of the Arab League in 2010. All regressions includecontinent dummies. Robust standard errors are presented in parentheses.


35/35

Table6:SupportfortheSharia,Well-BeingandtheArabSpring

(1)

(

2)

(3)

(4

)

Sharia

Well-Be

ing(2009)

Well-Being(2010)

Well-Being(2011)

Somalia

75.37

18.25

12.47

6.51

(1.41)

(0

.89)

(0.76)

(0.81)

SaudiArabia

71.62

37.73

44.56

51.57

(1.38)

(1

.15)

(1.19)

(1.67)

Egypt

71.15

13.80

11.64

9.13

(0.77)

(0

.80)

(0.80)

(0.73)

Qatar

69.87

48.87

55.70

51.35

(1.51)

(1

.25)

(1.77)

(1.68)

Yemen

66.07

17.81

13.04

10.22

(1.12)

(0

.90)

(0.81)

(1.09)

Jordan

64.10

34.50

30.43

27.12

(0.93)

(1

.11)

(1.11)

(1.50)

UAE

56.79

52.30

56.27

60.94

(1.63)

(1

.18)

(1.18)

(1.64)

Palestine

51.27

13.90

16.25

16.26

(0.74)

(0

.82)

(0.88)

(1.26)

Djibouti

47.37

11.59

18.97

14.56

(1.64)

(0

.74)

(1.31)

(1.19)

Kuwait

45.99

46.29

47.03

50.70

(1.64)

(1

.17)

(1.15)

(1.64)

Comoros

42.13

3

.19

4.32

4.46

(1.63)

(0

.41)

(0.48)

(0.68)

Libya

41.93

24.11

14.17

(1.25)

(1

.62)

(1.18)

Algeria

37.51

21.97

20.99

20.00

(1.10)

(0

.96)

(0.94)

(1.31)

Mauritania

36.19

6

.99

13.35

18.11

(1.12)

(0

.63)

(0.79)

(1.28)

Iraq

34.98

9

.80

13.70

14.15

(1.60)

(0

.73)

(0.84)

(1.21)

Morocco

32.58

13.80

11.99

16.52

(1.54)

(0

.80)

(0.75)

(1.23)

Syria

29.49

22.64

6.27

2.98

(1.14)

(1

.02)

(0.61)

(0.56)

Tunisia

25.51

16.32

14.23

17.12

(1.01)

(0

.87)

(0.80)

(1.24)

Sudan

21.00

10.46

11.05

10.53

(1.36)

(0

.71)

(0.73)

(1.01)

Lebanon

13.94

24.39

22.76

18.63

(0.58)

(1

.05)

(1.02)

(1.33)

Bahrain

38.67

28.69

8.19

(1

.14)

(1.06)

(0.97)

Oman

52.17

(1.67)

Turkey

10.05

13.27

16.57

(0.55)

(1

.13)

(1.25)

Notes:Column(1)providetheaverageproportion

ofindividualsbetween2005and201

1answeringthatShariamustbethe

only

sourceofleg

islationinresponsetothequestion

ShariaisanArabicwordwhichmea

nsIslamsreligiousprinciples.Ingeneral,

whichofthesestatementscomesclosesttoyourow

npointofview?Incolumns(2)-(4)

Ipresenttheproportionofindividuals

who

wereself-rep

ortedlythriving(i.e.doingwell)in

theyears2009,2010and2011respectively.Countriesmarkedinboldwitnessed

uprisingsin

2011.Robuststandarderrorsarepres

entedinparentheses.

Documents

Democratic Change in the Arab world by Eric Chaney