An anti-migration campaign and its impact on public opinion: The Hungarian case

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 619-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Bajomi-Lázár
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Communication Campaign ◽  
Media Pluralism ◽  
Hungarian Case ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
Target Country

During the 2015 migration wave, Hungary was a transit, rather than a target, country for migrants fleeing from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe. In reaction to this, Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist government built a wall on the country’s southern border and launched an anti-migration communication campaign, portraying itself as the saviour of European, Hungarian and Christian values. This article reconstructs the messages and effects of this campaign. It finds that in a context of limited political and media pluralism, an anti-migration campaign may exert a significant impact on public opinion and political behaviour.

Party systems and ideological cleavages in the Middle East and North Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406881989429
Author(s):  
Abdullah Aydogan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Mena Countries

Previous studies have contrasted the political party systems in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with those in more democratic countries, raising three important points: (1) the religious–secular dimension, rather than the economic or social left–right, explains the underlying political party competition; (2) left-wing politics is relatively weaker than right-wing politics; and (3) parties that are traditionally known as rightist take left-leaning positions on numerous issue dimensions, and vice versa. Even though this particular literature on party politics in the MENA has greatly improved our understanding of political dynamics in the region, these studies have either lacked quantitative evidence to support these points or their evidence was limited to single-country cases. This study aims to address this issue by analyzing original expert survey data of the ideological positions of political parties in the MENA region. Results show that in addition to the religious–secular dimension, the economic left–right divide and the pace of political reforms are highly important dimensions. The study also provides numerous examples showing that the policy stances of leftist and rightist parties are significantly reversed when MENA countries are compared with more developed democracies.

scholarly journals Democratic disillusionment? Desire for democracy after the Arab uprisings

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 522-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Spierings
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Democratic Attitudes ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Case Comparison ◽  
Systematic Explanation

Have the Arab uprisings influenced the desire for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa? This study presents a systematic explanation of the different impact the uprisings had on people’s desire for democracy across the region. It applies the relatively new consequence-based theory of democratic attitudes, and integrates the notion of deprivation into it. The expectations derived from this framework are tested empirically by examining data from 45 public opinion surveys in 11 Middle East and North Africa countries (2001–2014) and combining them with a systematic country-level case comparison. The study shows that the desire for democracy drops mainly in countries of major protest and initial political liberalization, but no substantial democratization (e.g. Egypt, Morocco) indeed, and that a lack of major protest or initial reform (e.g. Algeria, Yemen) ‘prevents’ disillusionment. The seemingly exceptional Lebanese and Tunisian cases also show the mechanism holds for specific groups in society: Lebanese Sunnis and the poorest Tunisians.

Human rights amidst despair in the Levant and the West

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 613-623
Author(s):  
Micheline Ishay
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
Pendulum Swing ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Arab Spring

In 2019, protests in the streets of Algeria and Sudan, Lebanon and Iraq brought back the fragrance of the Jasmine revolution. Can the pendulum swing back towards democracy and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa region – and in Europe? What will it take to endure? I argue three points. First, I maintain that the human rights aspirations of the Arab Spring rippled across the West in 2011 as disenfranchised groups reacted to increasing social and economic grievances. Second, I contend that the failure to counter these problems has fed a vicious cycle of religious radicalism and right-wing nationalism. Third, I argue that despite widespread Western exhaustion and an inclination to disengage from turmoil in the Middle East, current circumstances make possible new international human rights initiatives, drawn from history, to advance civil liberties, economic progress, security and gender equality in the Middle East, the West and beyond.

Memes and the Moroccan Far-Right

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122199508
Author(s):  
Cristina Moreno-Almeida ◽  
Paolo Gerbaudo
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Political Landscapes

Facebook meme pages in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have flared-up in the past decade. Since 2017, some Moroccan pages have started sharing exclusively patriarchal, ultra- and ethnonationalist, misogynist, and racist content shaped to look in line with “alt-right” online aesthetics. Self-identifying as right-wing, these pages have memetized an entire ecosystem of scapegoats as enemies of the nation. Furthermore, they have rescued symbols from the past, such as the late King Hassan II or the Marinid flag, to formally establish the Moroccan Right. In view of this trend, this paper examines Moroccan Facebook meme pages that share ultranationalist content and build on a scapegoating strategy to understand how Far-Right ideologies have been adapted in the MENA. Through multimodal discourse analysis of memes posted since 2017 until April 2020, this paper studies the ways in which the revival of Far-Right tropes is contributing to reshaping local digital political landscapes and pushing toward an Arab Right. By examining a collection of over 1,600 memes, our paper argues that this new online Moroccan Far-Right discourse is adapting Far-Right views, particularly in terms of gender and race, to local politics. This research contends that internet memes are effectively acting as an entry point in the creation of a Moroccan Far-Right. As a newly formed trend, however, the Moroccan Far Right is still negotiating its main tenets.

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

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