SGER: Political Views of Middle East Citizens Following Western Military Intervention

Ohio State University Research Foundation -Do Not Use, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

SES-0300072 Katherine Meyer Ohio State University In recent years, Western military intervention in the Middle East, for example, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinian has garnered political, journalistic and popular attention. Such intervention impacts citizens of the involved countries and becomes part of the cultural context that shapes their views towards democratic government, the West, the Arab World, and the Middle East. If growing resentment of the West follows military intervention, it is not just a matter of political, but also scholarly concern since citizen opinion is a critical component in understanding nation-building and peacekeeping efforts. It is a basis for the legitimacy of regimes, particularly those with democratic structures and procedures. This Small Grant for Exploratory (SGER) examines the public opinion of citizens in the Middle East in the ten years after the Gulf War in two ways. First, it explores the views of Kuwaiti citizens toward democracy, the West, the Arab World and the Gulf Coast countries using survey data gathered at three points in time during the 1990s. It investigates questions made salient to Middle Eastern populations by Western military intervention in the war; namely, is democracy increasingly legitimated as a form of government; have citizens' political identities become more Westernized or more specific to their region and history, as in some Asian nations; and are changes in attitudes distributed evenly across the Kuwaiti population or do they reflect differences among status groups, such as gender, social class, religious sect, class of citizenship, residency, and other variables that stratify populations in the Middle East? Second, this project extends beyond Kuwait by capitalizing on the discourse among scholars who are knowledgeable about the spread of democratic views and the development of political identity among Middle Eastern populations. From their vantage points, what changes in public opinion have scholars of the Middle East and Arab World observed regarding democratic governance, the West, the Arab World and the region in the decade since the end of the Gulf War? The project has the potential to increase our understanding of the development of public opinion in the Middle East, and the globalization of democracy within the cultural context not only of Islam but also Western military intervention.