Arap Ayaklanmaları MENA bölgesinde kalkınma beklentileri: Yoksulluk, yoksulluk geçişi, gelir dağılımında olası eşitsizlik ve fırsat eşitsizliliği

Arab Uprisings are remarked as the turning point in the destiny of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. The unpredictable chain of Arab Uprisings protests has caught governments of Arab states and the international community by surprise. The massive uprisings that a few countries in the region had witnessed led to political transitions in some, and dire sociopolitical repercussions in others. This pro-democracy popular mobility has ushered a series of events that turned the course of history in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It also precipitated a prolonged era of civil conflicts and political instability in the region. Right before the eruption of Arab uprisings, the long-standing autocratic models of governments in the region were relatively stable. When social unrest erupted in the MENA region, the region was sustaining high levels of social and economic development during the decade preceding the Arab Uprisings. However, the Arab population's dissatisfaction with their standards of living was hiking. The onset of public anger was unpredictable as the aggregate indicators of economic development failed to capture the public discontent with economic deterioration, standards of living, and social and economic justice. The burst of uprisings raised attention to social issues like inclusion, income inequality, vulnerability to poverty, and deprivation which were all cited as the main triggers behind the public protests in the MENA region. The interaction of economic, political, and institutional factors has shaped the terms of transitions and the consequent socio-economic situation in the Arab World. The study focuses on development aspects like vulnerability to poverty, inequality of income distribution, and inequality of opportunity across the Arab region in the aftermath of Arab uprisings. It aims to provide dynamic measures of well-being that fits in with the transitional context of Arab uprisings. It is also intended to incorporate innovative empirical approaches that are accommodated to deal with the lack of panel data required for making transitional analyses. Evaluating development prospects in the aftermath of Arab uprisings mandates observing the dynamics of changes in the main indicators of well-being. The cross-sectional data used in this study are derived from the Economic Research Form microdata portal that provides household-level survey conducted in a bundle of Arab countries. The ordinal data used in this study are derived from the World Value Survey data portal. The timeframe of the study is selected to represent the effect of Arab uprisings on rates of vulnerability to poverty. The years of survey rounds are selected for each country before and after the Arab uprising. Within the transitional context of the change brought to the Arab region, it is more convenient to observe trends of vulnerability to poverty rather than to observe the changes in poverty rates per se. A measure of vulnerability to poverty using cross-sectional household-level data in a sample of Arab countries was provided. The study demonstrated how misleading trends of economic growth built upon objective aggregates of growth in Arab countries failed to predict people's levels of dissatisfaction with their standards of living. Repercussions of Arab uprisings on levels of household's welfare before and after Arab uprisings were inferred by changes in rates of vulnerability to poverty and by poverty transition maps that demonstrate movement into and out of poverty. In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, the estimated measures of vulnerability to poverty and poverty transitional estimates reflected deteriorating levels of well-being of the Arab population. It was concluded that larger proportions of the Arab population were vulnerable to poverty. Subjective measures of income inequality were calculated by using ordinal data. Ordinal income inequality index was estimated for a sample of Arab countries before and after Arab uprising. In both pre-revolution and post-revolution periods, the ordinal inequality index reported higher levels of income inequality in the Arab countries than the moderate to low levels reported by conventional objective measures. When ordinal data of the opinion surveys on self-reported levels of satisfaction with own financial well-being were used, subjective measures of income inequality reported high levels of inequality during the years before the Arab uprisings. Ordinal indices of inequality could not be improved in the post-revolution period. Social justice was a focal point behind the upheaval inflicted the Arab world notwithstanding the moderate to low rates of inequality reported in the Arab countries during the decade before Arab uprising. In this study, a parametric estimation of inequality of opportunity in MENA region was done. The approach employed to estimate the parametric index of inequality of opportunity allowed for evaluating repercussions of policy reforms conducted after Arab uprisings on the purpose of equalizing opportunities. The results indicate that the actual income distribution in our sample of Arab countries are far from fair income distribution compared to the distribution of the average income. The policy reforms were ineffective in reducing unfair inequality of opportunity. Policies of increased public spending on education also failed to promote the levels of individual effort exerted by the citizens of the Arab population.