Service Delivery, State Legitimacy and Conflict in Arab Countries: Exploring the Key Linkages Using a Social Policy Perspective
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Department of Social & Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK
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Research Center in Applied Economics for Development, Alger 16000, Algeria
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Research Center in Economics and Management, CEDEX, 14032 Caen, France
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Reimut Zohlnhöfer
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(12), 481; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120481
Received: 29 September 2021
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Revised: 22 November 2021
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Accepted: 3 December 2021
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Published: 16 December 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Fragility-Grievances-Conflict Triangle in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA))
This paper addresses the question of how service delivery (SD) affects state legitimacy (SL) and conflict (C) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, drawing particularly on frameworks that move beyond a state-centric approach. Focusing on the majority-Arab countries of MENA, the paper aims to: (1) offer a preliminary explanation of the distinctiveness of this region in light of some of the main findings of the introductory paper by the lead guest editor Timo Kivimäki and (2) explore the potential of a social policy perspective in explaining the relationship between SD, SL and C. This is achieved by combining research insights acquired through extensive qualitative social policy research in the MENA region with a re-reading of the existing literature on SD, SL and C. To support a comprehensive re-examination of the issues at hand, the paper also draws on the 5th Wave of the Arab Barometer micro-level survey (ABS) on Arab citizen perceptions of socio-economic conditions in their countries and macro-level social welfare expenditure data from the World Bank World Development Indicators (WDI). By bringing insights from the social policy literature on the MENA region into conversation with broader research on the relationship between SD, SL and C, we identify several distinctive features of service delivery in the MENA context and examine their implications for state legitimacy and conflict.
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Keywords:
service delivery; state legitimacy; conflict; social policy; Middle East and North Africa; social protection; social expenditure
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MDPI and ACS Style
Jawad, R.; Walton, O.; Merouani, W. Service Delivery, State Legitimacy and Conflict in Arab Countries: Exploring the Key Linkages Using a Social Policy Perspective. Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 481. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120481
AMA Style
Jawad R, Walton O, Merouani W. Service Delivery, State Legitimacy and Conflict in Arab Countries: Exploring the Key Linkages Using a Social Policy Perspective. Social Sciences. 2021; 10(12):481. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120481
Chicago/Turabian StyleJawad, Rana, Oliver Walton, and Walid Merouani. 2021. "Service Delivery, State Legitimacy and Conflict in Arab Countries: Exploring the Key Linkages Using a Social Policy Perspective" Social Sciences 10, no. 12: 481. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120481
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