Declining public confidence in science is a concern in the US and Europe, but it is unclear what predicts confidence in science in developed countries, let alone in developing countries. This article examines how development and ‘risk society’ shape individual attitudes toward science across 47 diverse countries, using four theoretically driven measures of risk society. It is found that people in affluent societies have lower support for science than those in less affluent societies. Specifically, individuals holding post-materialist attitudes and living in countries with greater human and economic development (measured by higher internet access and tertiary enrollment, and lower infant mortality) have lower confidence in future-oriented science. The article concludes that the scientific gains that are brought by affluence are accompanied by heightened fears of human-made risks.

Despite dramatic human development in recent decades, women’s employment rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are the lowest in the world. Research shows that gender-egalitarian attitudes are key in explaining women’s employment. This study examines whether the Middle East stands out in terms of the degree to which individuals hold gender-egalitarian attitudes in the region and in terms of the factors that are most important in shaping attitudes toward women’s employment. I compare individual attitudes toward women’s right to employment in the MENA region to individual attitudes in a global selection of nations available in the fourth (1999–2004) wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) ( N = 57), using hierarchical linear models. I find that individuals in MENA hold significantly less egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment, compared to those in all other nations sampled. There is not one variable (such as Islam or oil) that is key to explaining attitudes in the region. Instead, this negative regional effect is reduced by accounting for national religiosity, levels of female tertiary enrollment, shares of women in parliament, economic rights for women, and national economic development. However, the negative effect of being highly religious is magnified among those individuals living in MENA nations.

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This article analyzes how, for the decade before the Arab Spring, the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR) promoted women's issues and sustained its campaign against widespread sexual harassment in Egypt. The article also reviews ECWR's activities after the mass mobilizations of the January 25th revolution. In authoritarian states, the risks inherent in challenging the regime decrease the probability that challenges will ever emerge or, if they do, continue for any significant duration. ECWR's prolonged campaign against sexual harassment, however, belies this observation. Analysis of the organization's activities provides an opportunity to examine elements that promote contentious claims making in high-risk, neopatriarchal environments. We found that the depth and strength of networks at the local level played a significant role. Also significant were ties with national and international group, which where were partly facilitated because of tourism's importance in Egypt. Through these ties, the ECWR leadership guided the organization toward increasingly promising outcomes in a unresponsive context. This case illuminates how, in the Middle East and elsewhere, civic organizations that focus on women's issues can navigate high-risk environments, whether due to neopatriarchal culture, authoritarian governance, or both.

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