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Measuring Preference Falsification in an Authoritarian Regime: Results from a List Experiment in Egypt
Abstract by Dr. Steven T. Brooke
Coauthors: Jason Brownlee
On Session 136  (Population-Based Survey Experiments in the Middle East)

On Monday, November 23 at 2:30 pm

2015 Annual Meeting

Abstract
Does fear of official sanction or public opprobrium cause citizens living under authoritarian regimes to strategically inflate their public satisfaction with those regimes? Prominent theories suggest that this type of behavior is both widespread and a key link in the causal chain of revolution and regime change. Yet practical barriers, including the difficulties of survey research in authoritarian regimes and the very nature of preference falsification, hamper attempts to measure citizen attitudes towards the authoritarian regimes that rule them. This paper reports the results of an original nationwide list experiment carried out in Egypt in the summer of 2014, one year after the Egyptian military overthrew the elected president and instituted authoritarian rule. Not only does the survey allow us to measure citizen dissatisfaction with the military regime in real time, the list format offers the ability to discern exactly the types of hidden attitudes that scholars of revolution have identified as key prerequisites of upheaval. Among our findings is that, when granted anonymity, 35% of the sample expresses opposition to military rule. This is a significantly larger percentage than those who registered dissent when asked outright. By extending the experimental turn in political science to authoritarian regimes, this paper contributes new insights into the stability of one of the Middle East’s most volatile governments.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
Democratization