James Zogby’s Column
In conjunction with a media poll done for Abu Dhabi TV, Zogby International (ZI) has conducted a detailed survey of the opinions of individuals in five Arab states (Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE). This comprehensive multi-nation survey has revealed a great wealth of information that should be studied for a better understanding of some contemporary Arab world realities.
Some of what comes through in the poll validates what is known anecdotally. For example, there is widespread and deep support for the Palestinian cause and substantial public support for Arab regional cooperation. On the other hand, the survey also reveals a divergence of opinion on the prospects for a comprehensive Middle East peace.
The groundbreaking study by Abu Dhabi TV and Zogby International also lays the basis for establishing an Arab world economic confidence index, by providing measurements in each of the countries that describe individual attitudes toward their current status and confidence in future economic advancement.
What follows is but a sample of the results obtained in the ZI poll.
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I. Arab World Issues
Table 1.
How optimistic or pessimistic are you that there will be a comprehensive Middle East peace in the next five years?
Saudi Arabia Egypt Lebanon UAE Kuwait
Optimistic
43 68 28 32 28
Pessimistic
41 30 70 61 61
Table 2.
How optimistic or pessimistic are you that the Arab world will achieve greater regional cooperation within the next five years?
Saudi Arabia Egypt Lebanon UAE Kuwait
Optimistic
52 76 50 56 59
Pessimistic
34 21 49 38 36
Table 3.
How optimistic or pessimistic are you with the prospects for Arab regional economic cooperation?
Saudi Arabia Egypt Lebanon UAE Kuwait
Optimistic
50 NA 30 46 48
Pessimistic
34 NA 68 38 39
Table 4.
How important to you personally is the Palestinian cause (asked in cooperation with the Anwar Sadat Center at the University of Maryland?
Saudi Arabia Egypt Lebanon UAE Kuwait
The most important
63 79 63 59 58
Top three issues
20 12 24 27 30
Top five issues
9 4 7 10 7
Commentary
As Table 1 demonstrates, recent developments have taken a dramatic toll on the confidence that Arabs have in the prospects for Middle East peace. With the exception of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, there appears to be a great degree of pessimism that the region will soon see a settlement. Only in Egypt is there optimism. In the UAE, Kuwait and Lebanon, opinion is decidedly pessimistic.
With or without peace, Arab opinion appears optimistic that regional cooperation can be established among the Arab nations (see Table 2). Here, too, Egyptian opinion is the most optimistic. But there is also strong support for such an outcome in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. Only in Lebanon is opinion divided on the likelihood of this regional cooperation.
There is somewhat less optimism for the prospects for Arab-wide economic cooperation (Table 3). Only in Lebanon is there a decidedly contrary view, with almost seven in ten pessimistic that such cooperation will develop.
As Table 4 explains establishes, support for the Palestinian cause is quite strong in all the Arab countries surveyed, with Egyptians indicating the strongest degree of support. Views in Lebanon, UAE, Kuwait and Said Arabia are still quite high and remarkably similar, with an average of three in five saying the Palestinian cause is their most important concern.
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II. Personal Economic Confidence and Satisfaction
Table 5.
Are you better off financially than your parents were?
Saudi Arabia Egypt Lebanon UAE Kuwait
Yes
61 NA 40 38 57
No
38 NA 58 40 33
Table 6.
Do you expect your children to be better off than you are?
Saudi Arabia Egypt Lebanon UAE Kuwait
Yes
55 NA 30 46 49
No
16 NA 31 6 12
Table 7.
Are your household finances better or worse than they were four years ago?
Saudi Arabia Egypt Lebanon UAE Kuwait
Better
41 NA 12 55 24
Worse
34 NA 53 18 43
Same
17 NA 34 22 27
Commentary
Since these questions were not asked in our Egyptian survey, we can only compare Lebanon to the three Gulf countries included in our study. And the contrast is, of course, striking. There is a degree of economic discontent among the Lebanese that is clear from the results found in tables 5, 6, and 7. On the other hand, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE there is a significant degree of both satisfaction in current status and confidence in the future. Both Saudis and Kuwaitis, for example, feel substantially better off than their parents and both share an extraordinarily high degree of confidence that this economic growth will continue. Emiratis are divided as to whether they are better off than their parents, but like their Gulf neighbors have great confidence in the future.
When looking at their personal economic progress for just the past four years, Emiratis again demonstrate a high degree of satisfaction. Attitudes are also positive in Saudi Arabia, but less so in Kuwait. Only in Lebanon are attitudes very negative, with more than one-half of all Lebanese saying that they have lost ground in the past four years.
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While these are only a few of the results from the ZI comprehensive poll, they are a good idea of the type of data that cam be available to researchers and policy makers in the region. With these numbers forming a benchmark, future surveys can be used to create an index measuring the change in attitudes over time.
While the effort was, admittedly not perfect, it nevertheless represents a first. The bottom line is that now it is possible to measure Arab opinion, and the importance of taking that first step is immeasurable.
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Professional teams working with ZI in each of five countries conducted the poll. It is, no doubt, more difficult to conduct such a poll in the Arab world then in the United States. Given local conditions in each of the countries, methodological adjustments had to be made. While in the United States random phone calling is the standard procedure, in most of the five countries, personal face-to-face interviews had to be done to supplement phoning. In only one country was it necessary to delete some questions.
In all, almost 2,600 were surveyed: in Egypt 700, in Lebanon 500, in Saudi Arabia 700, in the UAE 300 and in Kuwait 400. Results were weighted and tabulated to correspond to known demographic information.
