The Evaluation And Application Of Survey Research In The Arab World

Mark Tessler, Monte Palmer, Tawfic E Farah, Barbara Ibrahim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000301182
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

At a time when survey research is increasingly being conducted in the Arab world, there is also growing concern about the degree to which research assumptions and methods developed in the West are appropriate for use in the study of Arab society. This book assesses the application and limits of survey research performed in the Arab world, reviews the surveys currently being used to study public attitudes and behavior patterns, and discusses epistemological, methodological, and ethical issues associated with these studies. Readers are alerted to normative and empirical considerations bearing on the quality of survey research and given practical suggestions for innovation in the design and execution of survey research and in the analysis of survey data. The book raises intellectual issues of concern to all who seek to better understand Arab society and provides extensive information about attitudes and behavior in the Arab world.

Introduction: Survey Research in Arab Society

Mark A. Tessler

Survey research, which involves administration of a questionnaire or interview schedule to a sample of respondents and subsequent analysis of the data collected, is one of the most important instruments of systematic social inquiry in the United States and Europe.¹ It is the foundation of most studies of individual attitudes and behavior, and it is also widely used to acquire information about social aggregates.

Although in recent years survey research has become common in the Arab world and in other developing areas, its use is still in an early stage and there are many obstacles to its full and proper employment. The present book deals with the ways that surveys can and should be utilized to study social reality in the Arab world. Its goal is to contribute to more and better quality survey research in the future, and it examines the kinds of problems that must be solved if such research is to achieve its potential. Relevant problems are present in areas related to methodology, epistemology, cumulativeness, ethics, and the general context of social research in the Arab world. In addition, the book explores the limits as well as the applicability of survey research as an investigatory tool for the study of Arab society. As elsewhere, surveys conducted in the Arab world can be and sometimes have been of poor quality. Thus, this book discusses not only the ways that surveys can be used productively but also the conditions under which they are unlikely to produce findings that are relevant or accurate.

Survey research often needs to be combined with other research procedures to be maximally useful. Further, on occasion, surveys should be eschewed entirely in favor of methodologies better suited to the investigation of a particular topic. Nevertheless, survey research is establishing itself as a standard and widely used tool in the research arsenal of social scientists practicing their craft in the Arab world. The frequency of surveys is increasing, and many have been carried out with care and have produced important results. Such studies demonstrate that survey research can contribute meaningfully to the twin goals of understanding Arab society better and providing information that will assist in solving practical problems and achieving development-related goals.

Maximizing these kinds of contributions and reducing the amount of poor quality or irrelevant survey research were the goals of twenty-four Arab and U.S. social scientists who met at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, in June 1983. During the six-day conference they explored many aspects of the evaluation and application of survey research in the Arab world, and their contributions constitute the foundation of this book. This introduction deals with the following topics: (1) the contribution that survey research can make to the study of the Arab world and other developing areas; (2) problems associated with the conduct of survey research in Arab society; (3) the structure and content of the Bellagio conference; (4) the contents and organization of the present book; and (5) the various audiences to which this book is addressed.

The Contribution of Survey Research

To appreciate the potential contribution of survey research we must understand the importance of studying individual attitudes and behavior patterns in the Arab world and other developing societies. There are important connections between individual orientations on the one hand and societal development on the other. Such connections are found in the political, economic, and social realms, and in each there are many substantive and theoretical issues that deserve study not only by those seeking to understand development and change but also by those with responsibility for managing the evolution and transformation of their societies. In these areas, knowledge about the distribution, determinants, and consequences of various patterns of thought and action can make both a scientific and a practical contribution. Much more research is needed in order to gather and analyze the data from which this knowledge may be derived, however. Information about individual attitudes and behavior patterns is usually best collected by survey research, often in conjunction with other research methodologies and sometimes as the only appropriate investigatory tool.

The important relationship between individual orientations and societal development is recognized by political leaders as well as scholars. The chief executive of one Arab state depicted this relationship when describing his country's development program, saying that "underdevelopment in the final analysis stems from intellectual causes. It is man's mind which is the driving force in improving the human condition, and . . . a psychological revolution is therefore necessary to assure the success of our national development plan."² Other Arab regimes have also made the transformation of popular attitudes and behavior patterns a major preoccupation. Although attempts to effect a radical and wholesale transformation of traditional norms and behavioral codes are certainly not the only approach to national development, a country's character and potential are greatly influenced by the way its citizens think and act. Development may require social-structural change and the establishment of appropriate national institutions. In addition, however, development can be neither understood nor pursued unless attention is also paid to problems and processes operating at the individual level of analysis.

One area in which this conclusion emerges with particular clarity, and which is thus useful for illustrative purposes, concerns population growth and family planning. Popular attitudes toward family size and birth control are of critical concern in most developing countries because unchecked population growth has the potential to wipe out development gains. These attitudes and the behavior patterns to which they lead are shaped by government policies and by the aggregate social and economic environment within which people reside. At bottom, however, they are microlevel phenomena, whose character and variation can best be understood through investigations conceived and executed at the individual level. Survey research has thus been widely employed in studies related to fertility, family planning, and population dynamics. Indeed, it may be in this substantive area that survey research has been employed with the greatest frequency and effectiveness in the Arab world.

More and better quality survey research is needed in order to understand the causes and consequences of many critical political, economic, and social attitudes and behavior patterns. In the political arena, for example, it is important to investigate political participation, including levels of political interest and knowledge and citizen concern with civic affairs beyond the local level. Among the many economic orientations relevant for societal development are attitudes toward work and occupational status, norms about achievement and productivity, and receptivity to economic innovation. In the social realm, the course of societal development is shaped by values pertaining to childrearing and to relations between the sexes, by patterns of language use and conceptions of ethnicity, and by attitudinal and behavioral norms associated with religion.

These kinds of individual orientations not only influence the ability of a people to achieve its collective goals, they are also consequences of change at the societal level. In other words, they are significant and deserve study as responses to social change and societal development, as well as developmental stimuli. Individual opinions, beliefs, and patterns of conduct define the evolving political, economic, and social ethos of a society, and they are thus among the most important ways that society's normative order is changing as a result of development processes operating at the system level. In addition, attitudes and behavior patterns at the individual level give meaning to a changing present and an emerging future. They define the lifestyle and culture of a national community. They also express its identity, ideology, and collective spirit.

Although the importance of individual-level orientations for system-level development processes is generally recognized, two legitimate caveats are often expressed by students of development. First, it would be erroneous to assume that change is synonymous with Westernization, Attitudes and behavior patterns derived from a people's own traditions may be no less conducive to societal development than social codes imported from the West or elsewhere. Also, conversely, social change and societal development do not necessarily involve the replacement of indigenous norms with foreign values and patterns of behavior. As both a stimulus and a response to macrolevel change, emerging normative configurations are likely to reflect a balance of traditional and nonindigenous elements, the precise nature and distribution of which can be determined only through empirical investigation.

Second, aspects of underdevelopment derive from the international political and economic order, such that development usually cannot be achieved solely by seeking to inculcate suitable values among a country's people and by creating correspondingly appropriate national institutions. Restructuring international relationships to increase equity and enhance the autonomy of developing countries parallels domestic needs (at both the individual and the system level) as a critical arena for development efforts.

These observations place inquiries about the relationship between individual orientations and societal development into proper perspective. They in no sense reduce the importance of this relationship for developing societies, however: The attitudes and behavior patterns of a country's citizens remain essential ingredients in the process of development. Individual orientations are affected by change at the societal level and constitute a vital link in the interactive chain by which systemic policies and institutions make their influence felt and produce conditions that in turn shape the evolution of the entire society. These orientations are also critical inputs, determining the kinds of issues to which political leaders and development planners devote attention and either facilitating or constraining development initiatives at the systemic level. In short, societal development cannot take place, or be properly understood, without attention to the nature, causes, and consequences of popular attitudinal and behavioral configurations.

No single overarching theory integrates all relevant Individual orientations and unites them with other aspects of development in a comprehensive, compelling, and generally accepted analytical model. Nor is such a theory attainable at present. But progress can be and is being made at the level of middle-range theory. The result is a growing understanding of how many political, economic, and social orientations affect and in turn are affected by the character, performance, and evolution of a society's institutions and policies. A partial list of the issue areas that can be profitably pursued at the level of middle-range theory is given below. In each area, both scientific and practical knowledge can be acquired by conducting survey research with a view toward discovering the determinants and consequences of individual level norms and behavior patterns, and thereafter toward establishing the distribution over space and time of generalizable variable relationships.

There has already been a considerable quantity of survey research dealing with a few of these issues in the Arab world. Examples of such surveys and their findings will be presented later in this book. In most instances, the amount of knowledge thus far acquired is much more limited. The purpose of the present discussion is neither to summarize findings nor identify gaps, however; it is to illustrate the kinds of political, economic, and social issues that are amenable to investigation through survey research and from whose importance the significance of this investigatory technique is derived.

The Political Realm

Whatever its form of government, a country cannot be considered politically developed if its people possess little information about or attachment to the national political system, if the bulk of its citizens neither consider themselves united in a political community nor are tied in any meaningful fashion to national Institutions. The emergence of appropriate citizen orientations, which tend to covary and constitute a syndrome often referred to as participant citizenship, is thus a major concern in most developing countries. Governments frequently devote substantial resources to programs of socialization and political education, designed to inculcate positive and participatory norms among the populace. Survey research can shed light on the extent and locus of participant citizenship in developing countries, as well as on associated dimensions of mass political culture. It can also provide valuable information about the conditions and experiences that either promote or retard the growth of this important aspect of political development.

Religions, communalism, and ideological diversity are sources of conflict in many developing countries, including a number of Arab states. Divisions based on these factors reflect competing views about how society should be organized and how the boundaries among political communities should be drawn. They also frequently differentiate among groups that compete for political and economic resources, thus giving rise to tensions based on instrumental as well as expressive considerations. The playing out of these conflicts, as well as their evolution and ultimate resolution, will determine the structure and the policies of many political systems in future years. Survey research can provide data with which to analyze the social underpinnings of normative differences based on religion, communal identity, and ideology. It can shed light on the tensions that often flow from competing political identities and values, and it can produce insights that may help to limit the severity of such conflicts.

Students are the most volatile population category in many developing countries. Because their schools are concentrated in the major political centers of the state, students' protests and demonstrations have become a source of grief to numerous governments. Indeed, it has become commonplace for leaders in the Arab world and elsewhere to close universities during periods of political turmoil. However, today's students are tomorrow's leaders. The political values of the young men and women enrolled in a nation's universities and colleges will soon be carried into the highest levels of government. Today's students constitute a new political generation, whose arrival on the political scene a few years hence will have the potential to alter radically the character of the nation's elite. Survey research can investigate the underlying causes of student unrest and trace the link between student discontent and present-day tensions. It can also suggest how today's students may affect the nation in the future, in such important domains as political leadership and ideological change.

The Economic Realm

Established hierarchies of professional status and prevailing attitudes about the kinds of jobs that are desirable not only shape the career decisions of individuals; they also affect the ability of a developing society to meet its human resource needs. Further, popular orientations toward economic life are a major component in the success or failure of development initiatives and economic reforms. The interface ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• About the Book and Authors
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Survey Research in Arab Society
• Appendix A: Participants in the Bellagio Conference
• About the Authors and Contributors