From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. Gholipour Fereidouni et al. For instance, although access to free public health and education improved dramatically over the years, teacher and doctor absenteeism became a severe problem hurting learning outcomes and forcing people to pay out of pocket for better quality private‐sector services (Brixi et al., 2015; Devarajan and Ianchovichina, ). From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. How Important is Methodology for the Estimates of the Determinants of Happiness? First, we test for the presence of heteroskedasticity. The findings suggest a significant, negative association between life satisfaction levels and each of the main perceived grievances voiced during the 2011 uprisings—dissatisfaction with the standard of living, poor labor market conditions, and corruption in the form of nepotism or cronyism. The answer to the question: “Is corruption widespread within government?” could be that the level of corruption within government is limited, recorded as 0, or widespread, recorded as 1. These include: (1) limited freedom and voice in predominantly autocratic states; (2) dissatisfaction with the standards of living; (3) unhappiness with persistently high unemployment and lack of high‐quality jobs; and (4) dissatisfaction with corruption and cronyism, which have constrained the opportunities for economic growth of those who work hard. Similarly, Morocco’s score decreased from 4.7 to 3.4 during the same period. According to Graham and Pettinato (2004), the economic growth in Arab countries may have been accompanied by the rise of a middle class consisting of “frustrated achievers”. Accordingly, “happiness” is often used interchangeably with “well‐being” or “quality of life” and in this case denotes both individual and social welfare. This section explores the degree to which each of these factors has contributed to the change in life satisfaction in the period 2009‐10, immediately preceding the Arab Spring, using a procedure known as the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition (Blinder, By continuing to browse this site, you agree to its use of cookies as described in our, I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of Use, The ‘Unhappy Development’ Paradox in Developing Arab Countries, Major Factors Behind Life Dissatisfaction in Developing MENA Countries, Sample Statistics on Life Satisfaction in Developing MENA Countries, Determinants of Life Satisfaction in MENA: Weighted Least Squares Estimates, Determinants of Life Satisfaction in MENA: Lewbel Estimates, Reasons for the Arab Spring according to the People in Developing MENA, Key Characteristics of Employment Regulation in the Middle East and North Africa, A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region, Financial Distress and Happiness of Employees in Times of Economic Crisis, A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World, 1950–2010, Why has Happiness Inequality Increased? You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. How happy people are depends on objective conditions and subjective factors, including perceptions and expectations. Thus, the Arab Spring transitions of 2011 took most economists, political scientists, and policymakers by surprise (Gause, 2011; Goodwin, 2011; Bellin, 2012; Bromley, 2015). Accordingly, the concept of “happiness” has been defined as “the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his/her own life‐as‐a‐whole favorably” (Veenhoven, 1984, Chapter 2). Despite this finding, our results may underestimate the importance of the corruption domain relative to the other domains, especially given that part of the non‐response might be due to fear from the government. (2013). Within developing MENA, the mean life satisfaction scores vary by country, ranging from 4.66 in the Republic of Yemen to 6.23 in Jordan (Table 1). These domains of life reflect the most important human needs as identified by Maslow (1943). Learn more. Why We Were Surprised (Again) by the Arab Spring, Inequality and Happiness: Insights from Latin America, Paradox and Perception: Measuring Quality of Life in Latin America, Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economies, Happiness and Health in China: The Paradox of Progress, Wealth and Happiness Revisited‐Growing National Income Does go with Greater Happiness, Measuring and Understanding Subjective Well‐Being, The Changing Tolerance for Income Inequality in the Course of Economic Development: With a Mathematical Appendix, Eruptions of Popular Anger: The Economics of the Arab Spring and Its Aftermath, Inequality, Uprisings, and Conflict in the Arab World. From out there on the moon. Completed four years of education beyond high school and/or 4‐year college degree. (2013) obtained no significant relationship between voice and accountability and happiness in developing MENA countries. Libya and Tunisia were ranked 111th and 118th of 177 countries, respectively, and so they appeared among the stronger and less fragile countries in the world (Goodwin, 2011). This question should be addressed in future research. Dissatisfaction definition, the state or attitude of not being satisfied; discontent; displeasure. An overview of all variables included in the analysis (including descriptive statistics) and variance inflation factor analysis are provided in Appendices B1, B2, and B3. Individuals who obtain “material benefits” in exchange for political support may initially express dissatisfaction with their standards of living rather than with the system responsible for their deterioration. However, in the Arab Spring countries dissatisfaction emerged not only because a higher percentage of population became poorer, unemployed and dissatisfied, but also because some areas of concern became more important in people’s life satisfaction function (Figure 6). The global economic crisis of 2008 put additional stress on the MENA economies. Naming a thing is an indication that the thing so named is set. It covers entire countries including rural areas except for unsafe or inaccessible regions in few countries.1818 In Algeria, some sparsely populated areas of the south, home to 10 percent of the population, were excluded. Our analysis possibly suffers from endogeneity bias, although we have no indication that the variables are endogenous. Democracies are, on average, happier than autocracies (Frey and Stutzer, 2000), but the effect of democracy on happiness is stronger in countries with established democratic traditions (Dorn et al., 2007). From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. Public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest level for a decade despite Theresa May’s £20.5bn-a-year funding boost and the enthusiasm created by the service’s 70th birthday.. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. The decline in life satisfaction on the eve of the Arab spring was associated primarily by an increase in the percentage of people dissatisfied with worsening standards of living, labor market conditions, and elite capture. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The people who are still stuck initially feel hope as the end of the traffic jam seems to be in sight. Dissatisfaction is a fable. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Employment’s Role in Enabling and Constraining Marriage in the Middle East and North Africa. The Impact of Democracy and Culture on Happiness, Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? 'They seem so helpless': Hongkongers flock to aid besieged protesters Protesters form a human chain to pass items to the frontline during clashes with police as … In Egypt, for instance, average life‐evaluation levels plunged on a 0–10 scale44 The two extreme ends of the range capture worst possible life (0) and best possible life (10). All specifications include country and time dummies. To our knowledge, we are the first to examine empirically the relative importance of different explanations provided for the declining life satisfaction in developing MENA on the eve of the Arab Spring. The paper adds to the literature in three ways. Several results stand out. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. 575 Likes, 11 Comments - Vaibhav Bundhoo (@vaibhav.bundhoo) on Instagram: ““You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with…” “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. By 2005 for the first time in history, more than half of the world's population was living in democracies. where ε is the vector of residuals from the “first‐stage regression” equation (2b) of each endogenous regressor on all exogenous regressors, including a constant vector. Distribution of Life Satisfaction Scores in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2009–10. Life satisfaction in many MENA countries was below the average for the group of countries at a similar level of development (Figure 1a) and had dropped significantly in the years prior to the Arab Spring events (Figure 1b). Against prevailing perceptions in the West, Arab women are on average happier than men. First, although dissatisfaction with freedom to choose what one does with his or her life has a negative and significant effect on life satisfaction (model 2, Table 2), this effect disappears after controlling for other perceptions (model 7, Table 2). In sum, despite economic and human development progress in the prior two decades, a decline in life satisfaction from already relatively low happiness levels preceded the Arab Spring uprisings—a situation described as “unhappy development” paradox. A look at the universal conditions for happiness, as presented in cross‐country studies focusing on life satisfaction, provides limited understanding of the factors behind the low levels of life satisfaction in the Arab world. However, our introversion can also be a source of great anguish. Why did development in MENA not translate into higher levels of subjective well‐being? In the Arab world, the “tunnel effect” may have been felt by the middle class, in particular, as reforms implemented to boost economic growth benefited instead a happy few, especially those with connections to the regimes in power. Finally, model 8 replicates model 7 with a reduced sample of Arab Spring countries where the uprisings were most intense. The country dummies capture time‐invariant, country‐specific factors, such as the size of the country, culture, language, distance to markets and the structural features of the political and economic environment. With regard to employment status, we distinguish between individuals who are paid employees (reference category), self‐employed, underemployed, unemployed, or out of the workforce. Unsuccessful Subjective Well-Being Assimilation Among Immigrants: The Role of Faltering Perceptions of the Host Society. For instance a discrete change from 0 being satisfied with standards of living to 1 being dissatisfied decreases life evaluation by 0.26 points in developing MENA and by 0.27 points in the Arab Spring countries. It is worth noting that when expectations do not meet reality, a person with high expectations is more likely to be dissatisfied with his life than a person with low expectations. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a m ion miles out and say. which did not generate enough formal jobs (Ianchovichina, 2018). In this model, LS, the overall life satisfaction of individual j in country i in year t, depends on a vector of Individual_Perceptions about social conditions and domain satisfactions of individual j in country i in year t, a vector of objective Personal_Characteristics of individual j in country i in year t, a vector εi of country dummies to control for time‐invariant country‐specific characteristics, a vector λt of month‐year dummies1616 The month‐year of data collection for most countries are generally concentrated in two periods, the first quarters of 2009 and 2010 and the last quarters of 2009 and 2010. capturing time‐related shocks common for all countries in the developing MENA region, and a residual error μjit. The results of this empirical analysis are presented in Section 4. The First World War and its aftermath readied the ground for the rise of the Bolshevik, Fascist and Nazi movements. According to Layard (2011), objective factors such as gender, age, marital and education status, financial situation, and health determine to a large extent life satisfaction, but subjective factors associated with perceptions and expectations about family relationships, work, community and friends, personal freedom, institutional quality, and personal values are also imperative to individual happiness. The answer to this question is coded as 0 if satisfied or 1 if dissatisfied. Employment in the informal private sector offered little protection at old age and limited access to quality healthcare and benefits, such as paid maternity and annual leave (Angel‐Urdinola and Kuddo, 2010; World Bank, 2014a). After some time, though, if their lane remains blocked, hope will give way to envy and frustration. Just like how Twilight isn't a book about vampires, so to speak, but a book about how vampires affect people. Do Governance Factors Matter for Happiness in the MENA Region? The results show that the test statistic is significantly different from zero in all cases, indicating that there is enough variance in our data to avoid weak instruments. Other research on gender differences in well‐being finds that women report higher satisfaction scores than men, but more stress (1998). The generated instruments that did not meet these conditions were excluded from the second‐stage regression. The coefficients of Lewbel estimates are directly comparable to our WLS estimates. Relative Deprivation as a Factor of Sociopolitical Destabilization: Toward a Quantitative Comparative Analysis of the Arab Spring Events. The decomposition for Arab Spring countries where the uprisings were most intense shows a similar pattern with regard to the explained part (Figure 2c). We do so by employing both objective and perceptions data regarding different aspects of life and society. The second teaching of the Four Noble Truths is the cause of suffering. Development, Freedom, and Rising Happiness: A Global Perspective (1981–2007), The Determinants of Child Mortality Reduction in the Middle East and North Africa, On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Subjective Measures, A Stata Implementation of the Blinder‐Oaxaca Decomposition, The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Methodology and Analytical Issues, Egyptian Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis, The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East, Using Heteroscedasticity to Identify and Estimate Mismeasured and Endogenous Regressor Models, Male‐Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets, OECD (Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development), Ownership Structures in MENA Countries: List Companies, State‐Owned, Family Enterprises and Some Policy Implications, City Life: Rankings (Livability) Versus Perceptions (Satisfaction), Good Governance and Happiness in Nations: Technical Quality Precedes Democracy and Quality Beats Size, All in the Family: State Capture in Tunisia, All in the family: State capture in Tunisia. 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