The Tumultuous Decade: Arab Public Opinion and the Upheavals of 2010–2019
JAMES ZOGBY
Arab
Public Opinion and the Upheavals of 2010–2019
STEUBEN PRESS 2020
September 4,
2020 James M. Dorsey
James Zogby’s The Tumultuous Decade: Arab Public Opinion and the Upheavals of 2010–2019 (Steuben Press, 2020) takes the reader on a decade-long tour of the Middle East as the region reverberates from popular revolts that toppled long-standing dictators, civil and proxy wars that sparked some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, foreign interventions and seemingly intractable power struggles.
It does so through
the eyes of ordinary Arabs, Iranians, and Turks rather than the region’s
political elites. Zogby’s ability to tease out a sense of public opinion in a
part of the world in which freedom of expression and freedom of the media are
rare quantities constitutes an important contribution to the literature and
understanding of a region that often seems too complex and intricate to easily
wrap one’s head around.
In a world of
autocracy, repression and conflict, polls often offer ordinary citizens a rare
opportunity to express an opinion. Zogby demonstrates that autocratic and
authoritarian leaders frequently ignore public opinion but track it closely and
at times are swayed by what the public thinks and wants. Years of polling also
demonstrates that failure to understand public sentiment and/or take it
into account produces misinformed and misguided policies not only by rulers in
the region but also governments like that of the United States.
Zogby’s discussion
of Iraq since the 2003 US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein illustrates the
point. So does his analysis of polling of attitudes over several years in
countries that overthrew their leaders during the 2011 popular Arab revolts as
well as of perceptions of Iran and Palestinians incapable of wresting
themselves from Israeli occupation. Zogby’s book offers a different look at the
Middle East, one that offers fresh insights on the basis of citizens’
aspirations rather than what authoritarian and often corrupt elites would like
the world to believe.
James Zogby is director
of Zogby Research Services, a firm that has conducted groundbreaking surveys
across the Middle East, and the founder and president of the Washington,
DC-based Arab American Institute.
Click here to listen to the
podcast
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the National University of
Singapore’s Middle East Institute. He is the author of the syndicated, column,
blog and podcast, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer
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