Arab Countries between Winter and Spring: Where Democracy Shock Goes Next!

Abstract

We examine the role of democracy shocks in the cross-country economic growth processes over a period of five decades since 1960. The recent uprisings that arose independently and spread across the Arab world form the main context of our investigation. We study if (i) a shock to democracy in one country triggers institutional reforms and growth upsurge in the neighbouring countries, and (ii) the magnitude and direction of response to democracy shocks are contingent upon income pathways of countries. To estimate the spillover effects of democracy shocks, we model and estimate growth interdependence among individual countries with similar democratic characteristics. To study the nature of responses of democracy shocks on cross-country growth processes, we build and estimate a Global Vector Autoregression (GVAR) model where we allow countries to be interdependent with regard to bilateral migration and geographical proximity. Using the GVAR model, we also stimulate a positive shock to democracy in Egypt-the most populous Arabic country-and study its impacts on institutional reforms and economic growth in the rest of the Arab World. We find that high and upper-middle income countries are immune to democracy shocks in Egypt, whereas the lower middle and low income countries are susceptible to another revolutionary wave.

How might responsible management education (RME) be used to develop responsible leadership skills among students in business schools? Evidence from non-Western business schools

“…art and theatre activities, elections for student representatives, preparing lectures for social activists). This is in line with the sociopolitical and cultural agenda of the country, which has experienced two political revolutions accompanied by violent demonstrations between January 2011 and January 2014 (Bougharriou et al , 2019; Abdel-Latif et al , 2019). The management educators stated that a business school in which a student feels unable to exercise any activity cannot prepare its students to care about democratic values, social inclusion and sustainable development:…”

Winterizing the Egyptian spring: why might business schools fail to develop responsible leaders?

“…Unfortunately, the uprisings that occurred in Egypt resulted in civil society activities being locked down, growing poverty, rising unemployment, violations of human rights and the spread of clashes among socio-economic classes (Abdel-Latif et al , 2019; Mostafa, 2017; Allinson, 2019). This might have occurred as a result of the fact that the protesters in those countries did not take any power and were confronted with counter-revolutionary personnel (Allinson, 2019).…”

“…As mentioned earlier, since the mass uprisings witnessed in Egypt, which called for economic growth, freedom and social justice, Egypt has not succeeded in initiating a variety of constitutional democracy in addition to making progress in empowering women (Mousa, 2021c; Allinson, 2019). Moreover, the country has witnessed what is referred to as a counter-revolution (Abdel-Latif et al , 2019; Mostafa, 2017; Allinson, 2019). This can be seen in the dominance of the authoritarian army-backed regime over all facets of life (Allinson, 2019).…”