IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/revinw/v64y2018is1ps5-s25.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Broken Social Contract, Not High Inequality, Led to the Arab Spring

Author

Listed:
  • Shantayanan Devarajan
  • Elena Ianchovichina

Abstract

During the 2000s, expenditure inequality in Arab countries was low or moderate and, in many cases, declining. Different measures of wealth inequality were also lower than elsewhere. Yet, there were revolutions in four countries and protests in several others. We explain this so‐called “inequality puzzle” by first noting that, despite favorable income inequality measures, subjective well‐being measures in Arab countries were relatively low and falling sharply, especially for the middle class, and in the countries where the uprisings were most intense. The increasing unhappiness, reflected in perceptions of declining standards of living, was associated with dissatisfaction with the quality of public services, the shortage of formal‐sector jobs, and corruption. These sources of dissatisfaction suggest that the old social contract, where government provided jobs, free education and health, and subsidized food and fuel, in return for the subdued voice of the population, was broken. The Arab Spring and its aftermath indicates the need for a new social contract, one where government promotes private‐sector jobs and accountability in service delivery, and citizens are active participants in the economy and society.

Suggested Citation

  • Shantayanan Devarajan & Elena Ianchovichina, 2018. "A Broken Social Contract, Not High Inequality, Led to the Arab Spring," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(s1), pages 5-25, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:64:y:2018:i:s1:p:s5-s25
    DOI: 10.1111/roiw.12288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12288
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/roiw.12288?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:64:y:2018:i:s1:p:s5-s25. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iariwea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.