Yasmina Abouzzohour and Tarik M. Yousef
Why Trust in the Military is Surprising
High trust in the military is especially surprising, considering that armies in the MENA region have a history of turning on governments, blocking transitions, repressing citizens, and encroaching on the economy. Dark, repressive episodes have marred the military’s reputation in the region, with soldiers frequently deployed to quell protests. For instance, during the 2011 uprisings and subsequent civil war in Syria, military forces committed human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture. In Sudan, following President Omar al-Bashir’s removal in 2019, soldiers were deployed to disperse pro-democracy demonstrators, resulting in violence, injuries, and fatalities. In Iraq, soldiers brutally suppressed protesters during the Shia and Kurdish uprisings in 1991, which led to widespread casualties and displacement.
It is not just citizens who are at risk but governments as well. Military factions in nearly every MENA country have staged at least one coup since 1945.
These events destabilized governments and undermined efforts to establish democratic governance in the region. Some coups occurred shortly after countries gained independence, leading to the establishment of military regimes that ruled for decades. Notable examples include the 1952 overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy by the Free Officers Movement, the 1963 coup by the Ba’ath party in Syria, and the 1969 al-Fateh Revolution led by Muammar Gadhafi in Libya.
Other coups reversed democratic rule, as seen in Sudan in 1969 and 1989. These events halted democratic progress and perpetuated a cycle of authoritarianism and instability in the country, which persists to this day. Even failed coups in the MENA region have had significant repercussions. For instance, two failed coups in Morocco in the early 1970s precipitated the most repressive decades of King Hassan II’s rule, while several attempted coups against Gadhafi in 1975 led to a decades-long strategy to marginalize the army.leaders have also frequently intervened in politics by obstructing political processes and supporting contested regimes. In Sudan, military leaders blocked a political transition in 2021, which led to civil war and continual armed conflict.
Similarly, the Algerian army leadership stopped a years-long revolution in its tracks in 2019 and backed Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s presidency. Decades earlier, the military annulled free elections that were poised to bring an Islamist party to power, sparking a decade-long civil war. In Egypt, army leaders took over in 2013 after ousting the country’s first democratically-elected president and remain in power today.
Outside the realm of politics, military elites have reportedly enabled and benefited from corruption and cronyism in various countries. In Egypt, for example, the military has established a significant economic empire spanning sectors such as construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and consumer goods. This economic influence is facilitated through an extensive network of companies and enterprises that enjoy preferential treatment and government contracts, granting them a competitive advantage over private businesses. Algerian military elites benefit from the country’s rentier economy by negotiating with political and administrative figures. As a result, they receive preferential treatment in real estate ventures, tax liability, and bureaucratic procedures. Additionally, military actors are reported to profit from smuggling operations in border areas, particularly where law enforcement agencies lack access.
Economic interference by military actors can have catastrophic repercussions. In post-2014 Libya, powerful militias, armed groups, and military factions have competed over control of state resources, including oil infrastructure, border crossings, and smuggling routes. This militarization of the economy has resulted in intensified resource competition, rent-seeking behavior, and the exploitation of Libya’s natural resources for financial gain. Consequently, economic instability has been exacerbated, efforts to revive the economy have been hindered, and the country has been plunged into political turmoil.
How High is Trust in the Military in
the Middle East and North Africa?
Despite the tumultuous history of military involvement in the MENA region, recent survey data conducted by the Arab Barometer in 2021–2022 reveal that the military commands significant trust among citizens. Indeed, more than 70% of surveyed citizens express significant trust in the armed forces. This has remained consistent over the years. Between 2011 and 2022, levels of moderate and high public trust in the military in MENA varied on average between 71% and 81%.
Levels of trust in the armed forces do vary across countries. On average, between 2011 and 2022, they ranged from 92% in Tunisia to 47% in Libya (see Figure 3). Yet, even in Libya, a significant portion of the population expressed high trust in the armed forces. For example, in the eastern part of the country, 87% of surveyed citizens indicated the army could be trusted a great deal or quite a lot in 2019 (versus 60% in the south and close to 57% in the west). Furthermore, in all surveyed MENA countries, including Libya, the armed forces are accorded significantly more trust than most national institutions like government, parliament, and civil society (see Figure 4). In fact, when comparing trust in the armed forces to trust in the next most trusted institution—in this case, it is civil society in most countries, except for Egypt—the difference in favor of the armed forces ranges from 61 percentage points in Lebanon to 19 percentage points in Sudan.
The Public Equation:
Who Trusts the Military and Why?
What explains the high levels of trust that MENA citizens place in the armed forces? Our research has identified several factors that should influence MENA citizens likelihood of trusting their armed forces based on studies of civil-military relations and institutional trust and the growing political economy literature on the role of militaries in the MENA region. These include personal safety, economic class, political conservatism, Islamist orientation, trust in institutions, and attitudes toward democracy.
We empirically examined these factors using data from the Arab Barometer Wave V survey, collected between 2018 and 2019, at a time when protests took place across the region, and consequently, armies were deployed to varying degrees across countries. The data comprises some 10,000 responses from nationally representative samples across nine countries. Four of these countries have civilian-led governments (Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia), and five have an extended history of military intervention or rule (Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen). This allows us to examine whether the drivers of trust in the armed forces vary under military versus civilian rule.
What makes people more likely to trust the military? Personal safety emerges as a key driver. Individuals who feel their personal and family’s safety is ensured are much more likely to trust the military. This suggests that the public may perceive the military as a bastion of stability and order that can be called upon in times of upheaval. In countries like Jordan or Morocco, where robust safety measures are in place, people may attribute this success to the military’s role in maintaining security. In less stable countries like Libya or Sudan, where military actions have contributed to chaos, the institution is viewed nonetheless as a safeguard against insecurity and a defender of a fragile state.
Ideology also plays a role. Conservatives—those who defer to the state regardless of their own political views—tend to trust the military more than others, perhaps because they view the military as a symbol of traditionalism. Similarly, despite its controversial history, the military garners trust among proponents of democracy, challenging conventional assumptions about its compatibility with democratic governance.
Dividing the data by regime type introduces an interesting caveat: data from countries with civilian-led regimes is driving the positive relationship between support for democracy and trust in the military. In countries with a history of military intervention or rule, we find some evidence of the opposite result: proponents of democracy tend to trust the military less, reflecting perhaps the erosion of democratic practices under extended military rule.
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Yasmina Abouzzohour is a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs (ME Council) and a fellow and lecturer at Princeton University. Abouzzohour’s research focuses on public trust in the military, public opinion, and regime behavior in the Middle East and North Africa.
Tarik M. Yousef is a senior fellow and director of the ME Council. His career has spanned the academic and think tank world, including at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His involvement with public policy includes working in the Middle East Department at the International Monetary Fund, the Middle East and North Africa region at the World Bank, and the UN Millennium Project.
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