Understanding the Link between Islamic Religiosity and Opposing Public Gender Equality in the MENA between 2001 and 2014

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is one of the regions in the world with the lowest female political representation and support for female education and political leadership. Opposition to women’s public participation in the MENA is often ascribed to patriarchal Islamic worldviews. However, previous country-specific studies reported mixed results on the relation between religiosity and gender equality attitudes, and MENA citizens and (Muslim) feminist movements have stressed emancipatory interpretations of Islam. Still, large-scale public opinion studies that assess how different dimensions of Islamic religiosity relate to opposition to women’s political and educational participation across the MENA seem lacking. This study aims to fill this lacuna by providing a systematic assessment studying under which conditions individual religiosity has a positive or negative impact on opposing women’s public participation. To provide a nuanced understanding of Islamic religiosity’s impact, a novel dual socialization-agency framework, recognizing both socialization and agency, will be developed and tested. In its core, this framework (a) proposes MENA citizens – women particularly – are not only passively socialized, but also have the opportunity of agency, drawing attention to socio-economical empowerment as a moderating force; (b) realizes that different MENA countries have distinct political structures and social movements; and (c) proposes these contextual forces (e.g. the Arab Spring, female political representation, gender equality policies, institutionalized religion, the presence of feminist movements) shape the meaning and impact of religiosity. Empirically, 52 combined and synchronized World Values Surveys and Arab Barometer surveys on 15 MENA countries between 2001 and 2014 will be studied. To these data multilevel analyses will be applied as well as country-disaggregated analysis.