Identifying Beliefs and Inferences

This chapter analyzes direct speech to identify reasoning processes underlying participation in the Arab Spring protests. First, it introduces Corbin and Strauss’ qualitative open and axial coding procedures. The author introduces this coding scheme and explains how it was constructed. The chapter then presents numerous excerpts from interviews as well as Facebook entries and explains, line by line, how these coding procedures were applied to identify the main components of reasoning processes: beliefs, direct and indirect inferences, and decisions to join the uprisings or to stay at home instead. The chapter describes how emotions, which were central to protest decisions, were identified from direct speech by referring to the psychology literature on hope, courage, pride, and solidarity. It also elaborates on the analysis of quotes expressing safety considerations, which were central to decisions to stay at home.

Hot Contention, Cool Abstention

This chapter presents the findings of the computational analysis. Confirming the literature on hot cognition and emotions in general, it shows that decisions to mobilize for the Arab Spring were primarily motivated by beliefs about positive emotions (solidarity, courage, hope, national pride). On the contrary, decisions to stay at home were not motivated by beliefs about emotions but instead were triggered by beliefs about living in safety, improving living conditions, and state approval. The author organizes the results around the particular findings related to protestors and non-protesters and the key antecedents of their decision to protest or stay at home.

Similar States, Opposite Outcomes

This chapter describes the research design—a double-paired comparison of protestors and non-protestors from Egypt and Morocco—and discusses how this design serves the investigation of mobilization for the Arab Spring. The chapter introduces the two case studies, Egypt and Morocco, and the research sample of 121 individuals, which was obtained from ethnographic interviews during field research in the Middle East, and a textual analysis of Facebook posts (in Arabic and French). The author observes that although Egypt and Morocco have similar features, they experienced opposite outcomes of the Arab Spring. Both were authoritarian, elaborated mobilization structures, and were suffering from economic hardship. Yet only Egypt experienced protests leading to the fall of its head of state.

Tracing Reasoning Processes

This chapter presents the computational model developed to analyze the data constructed by the textual analysis. The model formalizes belief systems as Boolean circuits to systematically trace reasoning processes that connect various types of beliefs to decisions about participating in the Arab Spring (belief → belief → . . . → decision). The model permits the systematic analysis of the data to identify key beliefs and inferences related to decisions. The author first discusses how this model contributes to existing studies of belief systems and then describes the model in detail. The chapter thus sets the stage for the next chapter, which presents the results.

Conclusions

The final chapter puts the findings in perspective by reflecting on the existing literature on the Arab Spring, political mobilization, and reasoning processes. It also discusses generalizability and policy implications of the findings related to current events in the Middle East. The analysis included individuals from two countries with very different protest levels and political outcomes. Some individuals were from Egypt, where the uprisings involved millions of people and led to the fall of the president, and other individuals were from Morocco, where mobilization levels were much lower and did not result in the resignation of the head of state. The finding that an unusually large number of protestors from such different contexts displayed signs of hot cognition, whereas a large number of non-protestors from these contexts displayed signs of cool cognition suggests that similar patterns might be observed in other settings as well.

An Extraordinary Experience

This chapter introduces the main research puzzle and the analytical framework of the book. To determine what motivated people to mobilize for the Arab Spring, the analysis applies belief systems and traces the reasoning processes of protesters and non-protesters. The chapter discusses what this application adds to the psychology literature on reasoning as well as the political science literature on contentious politics. The chapter outlines the main argument presented by the analysis—that mobilization for the uprisings was hot, meaning people decided to join the Arab Spring based on reasoning processes including emotions, whereas non-participation was cool, meaning people decided to refrain from joining the protests based on reasoning processes not including emotions.