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ABSTRACTSurvey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab Spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and researchers added additional questions needed to answer theoretical and policy questions. Almost every Arab country now is included in the Arab Barometer or World Values Survey. Yet, some scholars express the view that the Arab survey context is more challenging than that of other regions or that respondents will not answer honestly, due to authoritarianism. I argue that this position reflects biases that assume "Arab exceptionalism" more than fair and objective assessments of data quality. Based on cross-national data analysis, I found evidence of systematically missing data in all regions and political regimes globally. These challenges and the increasing openness of some Arab countries to survey research should spur studies on the data-collection process in the Middle East and beyond.

Using data from a survey of 200 Moroccan and Algerian parliamentarians, this article assesses the relationship between parliamentarian gender, quotas, and constituency service provision to females. The findings suggest that while electing women increases service provision to females, quotas are needed to create mandates in clientelistic, patriarchal settings, where serving women is a less effective electoral strategy than serving men. Deputies elected through quotas are more responsive to women than members of either sex elected without quotas. The article extends a theory of homosocial capital to explain gender gaps in parliamentarians' supply of and citizens' demand for services. By demonstrating a novel mandate effect and framing mandates in a positive light, the article extends the literature on gender, representation, and clientelism; urges scholars to examine service representation; and supports quotas to promote women's access to services, political participation, and electability.

AbstractFew studies examine religiosity-of-interviewer effects, despite recent expansion of surveying in the Muslim world. Using data from a nationally-representative survey of 800 Moroccans conducted in 2007, this study investigates whether and why interviewer religiosity and gender affect responses to religiously-sensitive questions. Interviewer dress affects responses to four of six items, but effects are larger and more consistent for religious respondents, in support of power relations theory. Religious Moroccans provide less pious responses to secular-appearing interviewers, whom they may link to the secular state, and more religious answers to interviewers wearing hijab, in order to safeguard their reputation in a society that values piety. Interviewer traits do not affect the probability of item-missing data. Religiosity-of-interviewer effects depend on interviewer gender for questions about dress choice, a gendered issue closely related to interviewer dress. Interviewer gender and dress should be coded and controlled for to reduce bias and better understand social dynamics.

Women's rights is a salient and contested issue in contemporary Arab societies--particularly after the Arab spring--and a central theme in cross-national surveys conducted in Morocco, including the World Values Survey, Arab Barometer, and Pew Global Attitudes Survey. Despite their likelihood, interviewer gender effects have not been examined in the Middle East. This is concerning given the obvious possibility that interviewer gender could bias research on attitudes toward women (Benstead, 2010; Inglehart & Norris, 2003b; Jamal & Langohr, 2009; Norris, 2011)--for example, support for women political leaders which has been affected by social desirability in the USA (Phillips & Schuldt, 1993; Streb, Burrell, Frederick, & Genovese, 2008). It also misses the potential of the survey interaction to test social desirability and power relations theory; develop a comparative framework of response effects; and better understand gender relations in patriarchal societies. This study uses data from a nationally representative survey of Moroccans conducted in 2007 to investigate whether and why interviewer--respondent gender affects responses and item nonresponse for gender-sensitive questions and whether the effect varies across cultures. The study found strong evidence of two effects--interactive interviewer respondent gender effects on responses and interviewer gender effects on item nonresponse--that have been weak and inconsistent in U.S. samples, helping to clarify the conditions under which social desirability and power relations theories operate. In Morocco, males reported more egalitarian views to female interviewers, suggesting that when gender equality is salient--regardless of the cultural context--males seek to reduce social distance with females. Both genders were less likely to report item nonresponse to males--not to females, as in western societies--which suggests that power relations theory explains nonresponse effects in a strongly patriarchal society. These results highlight the need to control for interviewer gender and other traits, including religious dress and age, and to implement context-sensitive training, emphasizing probing and refusal aversion, particularly for female interviewers. Adapted from the source document.

Das 1995 eingeleitete Stadtentwicklungsprogramm für Groß-Johannesburg (das Rapid Land Development Programme, RLDP) hatte das zweifache Ziel, sowohl das Wohnraumangebot zu erhöhen als auch im Zusammenhang damit die räumlichen Apartheidsstrukturen im Stadtgebiet zu beseitigen. Die Bedeutung des Johannesburg-RLDP liegt nicht nur in seinem vergleichsweise marginalen Erfolg, sondern vor allem auch in seinen Fehlschlägen. Deutlich wurden kurzfristig offenbar nicht zu beseitigende ideologische Hemmnisse und festgefügte Interessen hinter den Eigentumsstrukturen in südafrikanischen Städten. Als Ergebnis hat die Stadtentwicklung im allgemeinen und in Johannesburg im besonderen seit 1994 die Geographie der Apartheid eher verstärkt als gemildert. (DÜI-Hlb)