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Voting Islamist or voting secular? An empirical analysis of voting outcomes in Egypt’s “Arab Spring”

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  • May Elsayyad
  • Shima’a Hanafy

Abstract

This paper studies empirically the voting outcomes of Egypt’s first parliamentary elections after the Arab Spring. In light of the strong Islamist success at the polls, we explore the main determinants of Islamist versus secular voting. We identify two dimensions that affect voting outcomes at the constituency level: socioeconomic profile and the electoral institutional framework. Our results show that education is negatively associated with Islamist voting. Interestingly, we find significant evidence suggesting that higher poverty levels are associated with a lower vote share for Islamist parties. Exploiting the sequential voting setup, we show that later voting stages have not resulted in stronger support for the already winning Islamist parties (i.e., there is no bandwagon effect). Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

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  • May Elsayyad & Shima’a Hanafy, 2014. "Voting Islamist or voting secular? An empirical analysis of voting outcomes in Egypt’s “Arab Spring”," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 109-130, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:160:y:2014:i:1:p:109-130
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-014-0173-3
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    Cited by:

    1. Hillman, Arye L. & Metsuyanim, Kfir & Potrafke, Niklas, 2015. "Democracy with group identity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 274-287.
    2. Nelly El-Mallakh, 2017. "Did the Egyptian protests lead to change? Evidence from Egypt's first free Presidential elections," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01625199, HAL.
    3. Fourati, Maleke & Gratton, Gabriele & Grosjean, Pauline, 2019. "Render unto Caesar: Taxes, charity, and political Islam," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 114-146.
    4. Nizar Becheikh, 2021. "Political stability and economic growth in developing economies: lessons from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt ten years after the Arab Spring," Insights into Regional Development, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 3(2), pages 229-251, June.
    5. El-Mallakh, Nelly, 2020. "How do protests affect electoral choices? Evidence from Egypt," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 299-322.
    6. Ziad Koussa, 2023. "Revolution, Change, and Democratic Transition in Egypt Since 2011: A Critical Political Economy Approach," Contemporary Review of the Middle East, , vol. 10(2), pages 165-187, June.
    7. Xavier Cuadras Morató & Toni Rodon, 2017. "The dog that didn’t bark: on the effect of the Great Recession on the surge of secessionism," Economics Working Papers 1569, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    8. Maleke Fourati, 2018. "Envy and the Islamic Revival: Experimental Evidence from Tunisia," Working Papers 1235, Economic Research Forum, revised 10 Oct 2018.
    9. Shane Sanders & Justin Ehrlich & James Boudreau, 2024. "Rule selection invariance as a robustness check in collective choice and nonparametric statistical settings," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 199(1), pages 7-26, April.
    10. Nizar Becheikh, 2021. "Political stability and economic growth in developing economies: lessons from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt ten years after the Arab Spring," Post-Print hal-03583934, HAL.
    11. Fourati, Maleke, 2018. "Envy and the Islamic revival: Experimental evidence from Tunisia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1194-1214.
    12. May Attallah, 2015. "The Economic Determinants of Political Islam: an Empirical Investigation of the Arab Spring in Egypt," Working Papers 939, Economic Research Forum, revised Sep 2015.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting outcomes; Arab Spring; Political Islam; Sequential voting; Strategic voting; D72; D78; O53; P26; Z12; Z13;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
    • P26 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Property Rights
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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