Development and Determinants of Political Trust in Egypt and Tunisia : A comparative study

Abstract: The political uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 created a new political order in the region. This research is aimed at examining how political trust has developed from 2011- 2022 in Tunisia and Egypt. It also aims to understand which variables affect political trust and whether the two countries differ. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the field by using the most recent data up until 2022. The research has been conducted with a comparative quantitative method, using Arab Barometer survey data. The results of the study results align with previous scholars’ results, the political trust declined in both countries after the Arab Spring but the most recent results from Tunisia show that the trust is slightly recovering. The results also indicate that the institutional theories of political trust are the more relevant theories when it comes to explaining political trust in the studied countries.