This spring, major protests swept through Jordan over economic grievances and subsidy reforms. In July, protestors took to the streets in the south of Iraq, demanding that the government address persistent unemployment, underdevelopment, and corruption. Meanwhile, earlier in 2018, Tunisians launched a wave of protests to oppose tax hikes on basic goods and increased cost of living. Such highly politicized responses to social policy concerns are the norm rather than the exception across the Middle East and North Africa.

Unemployment among university graduates is widespread in a number of Arab countries and was heralded as one of the major factors fuelling mobilization during the Arab uprisings. However, this issue has been at the forefront of social policy issues in the region since neoliberalization efforts of the 1980s drastically decreased the guaranteed employment opportunities previously available to graduates.

A Middle East Initiative Research Fellowship Working Paper by 2015-2016 MEI Research Fellow Dina Bishara. Part of the MEI Research Series.

The concept of "ignoring" refers not only to actions by regime officials but also captures protesters’ perceptions of those actions. Examples of ignoring include not communicating with protesters, issuing condescending statements, physically evading protesters, or acting with contempt toward popular mobilization. Existing conceptual tools do not adequately capture these dynamics. By integrating protesters’ perceptions of the behavior of the targets of mobilization, not just of the security forces, the concept of “ignoring” helps explain protesters’ reactions and their future mobilization, in a way that conventional concepts such as tolerance cannot capture.