ABSTRACT

The Arab Uprisings and subsequent events continue to transform policies of regional and major powers toward the Middle East and North Africa. These powers have shown different approaches toward the Uprisings, ranging from support for the status quo to endorsing regime changes. Their policies have also exerted a significant impact on the course of events. Despite this growing importance and implications of policies of regional powers on the Uprisings and the Syrian conflict, we still do not know much about how the public assesses these policies and to what extent domestic cleavages shape these assessments. Using a nationally representative original survey conducted in 2014 in Tunisia, this study examines the perceptions of the policies of France, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia towards the Uprisings and the Syrian conflict. It finds that French and Turkish policies about the Uprisings have garnered substantial support among citizens, whereas most citizens negatively assess the Saudi policies. On the other hand, the majority of Tunisians negatively assess all these countries’ policies toward the Syrian conflict. Another major finding suggests that political identity reflecting secular/religious cleavages shapes how citizens view the policies of these three countries toward both issues, but its effect is higher in assessing the Uprisings.

摘要

阿拉伯起义和随后的事件继续改变地区和主要大国对中东和北非的政策。这些大国对起义表现出不同的态度，从支持现状到支持政权更迭。他们的政策也对事态的发展产生了重大影响。尽管地区大国对起义和叙利亚冲突的政策越来越重要和影响越来越大，但我们仍然不太了解公众如何评估这些政策，以及国内分歧在多大程度上影响了这些评估。本研究使用 2014 年在突尼斯进行的具有全国代表性的原始调查，考察了法国、土耳其和沙特阿拉伯对起义和叙利亚冲突政策的看法。它发现法国和土耳其关于起义的政策得到了公民的大力支持，而大多数公民对沙特的政策持负面评价。另一方面，大多数突尼斯人对所有这些国家对叙利亚冲突的政策持负面评价。另一个主要发现表明，反映世俗/宗教分歧的政治身份决定了公民如何看待这三个国家对这两个问题的政策，但它在评估起义方面的影响更大。