Abstract
Despite a growing reliance on quantitative methods in the study of mena politics globally, political scientists from the region have broadly resisted such trends. While mena scholars should not be beholden to methodological trends in other regions, there is a need to provide students with an interest in quantitative methods opportunities to receive such training in Arabic. The Summer School for Quantitative Methods was a virtual five-day program offered by the Arab Political Science Network (apsn) and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies from May 29 to June 2, 2022. The primary aim of ssqm was to address the gap noted above and introduce political science graduate students from the Arabic-speaking world to quantitative empirical analysis. The program accomplished its immediate goals, and the application process showed a significant demand for training in quantitative methods in the region, yet future projects should take into consideration the considerable challenges we faced.
As relatively new faculty members at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (di) who joined at around the same time, we rapidly discovered that we share several things in common that extend beyond our substantive research interests and academic backgrounds. One of the most fundamental similarities was our shared sentiment regarding the state of methodological training in the region. While we were embraced by many of those whom we worked with at the di, we both had to deal with persistent skepticism from many of our colleagues in the region who doubt the usefulness of quantitative methods in studying political phenomena in the Arab world. Several prominent political scientists from the region have questioned the utility of quantitative methods at the epistemological level. Many of these scholars have been particularly skeptical of survey methods, which they have argued “can [not] really be detached from its Western and/or ‘imperialistic’ origin.”1 The relative scarcity of quantitative political science research emanating from the Arabic-speaking world has been viewed by some as indicative of either the collective epistemological qualms of scholars in the region or a lack of desire to produce such research. We disagree with the notion that the dearth of quantitative scholarship produced by researchers in the region implies either of these contentions.
Arab political science is indeed oriented toward normative theory and qualitative methodologies, including the commonly mentioned yet never defined “al-minhaj al-wasfi a-tahlili” (“the descriptive analytical method”), and the quasi-absence of quantitative research. In a forthcoming article, Amengay and Aloskan examined 28 peer-reviewed political science journals published in Arabic over approximately 11 years (from 2010 to 2021), finding that only 15 of the 28 journals in the Arab world ever published an article that used quantitative methods (broadly defined) and only 12 of the 8883 articles (approximately 0.1%) in the sample used any form of regression analysis. Moreover, less than 0.2% of the peer-reviewed articles published in any of the journals utilized quantitative methods, including top outlets such as Siyasat Arabiya (Arab Policies), Al-Mustaqbal Al-Arabi (The Arab Future), and the Al-Majala Al-Arabiya lil ‘Aulum a-Siyasia (The Arab Journal of Political Science).2 This stands in stark contrast to global trends in the study of Middle East politics, which has witnessed a rapid rise in the use of quantitative methods over the past decade. For all of the drawbacks that may be associated with such trends, it has put scholars of the region in communication with the broader political science community.3
For graduate students at institutions in the English-speaking world, the path to methodological sophistication is relatively simple. They generally have faculty members who they can rely on to guide their early development as they pick up the requisite knowledge and are socialized into quantitative political science. They have the opportunity to take extensive coursework, receive feedback and guidance, and slowly acquaint themselves with the expectations and norms of the discipline as practiced by those who rely on quantitative tools of analysis. Numerous training opportunities are afforded to them by both their own institutions and broader collaborative bodies, and they have a large number of examples of high-quality work to learn from in their language of instruction. Moreover, there are strong incentives (perhaps too strong) to not only learn quantitative methods, but also acquire methodological expertise in a subset of advanced quantitative techniques. Not only are there few barriers to learning methods, but such efforts are heavily rewarded.
Now, imagine the path to methodological training that a Ph.D. student in the Arabic-speaking world must take. The probability that there will be even a single faculty member in the department who is trained in the use of quantitative methods is low.4 Statistics will not generally be taught as a part of their coursework, and if it is, it does not provide enough of a background to produce research that approaches the cutting edge. The material that is available and could help them fill in the gaps is mainly in English and there are few examples of quantitative work in their own language for them to explore. Moreover, they encounter the same (perhaps more intense) job market pressures that their peers in the West face without their extra effort being incentivized since much of the rest of the region is not using such methods.5 As such, the practical route to success is for the Ph.D. student to focus on the kind of research being published by others in the region and to refrain from dedicating limited time and resources to picking up methods. If the student is subsequently able to obtain an academic position, despite an initial interest in studying quantitative methods, they will find themselves unable to guide future students in the use of such methods and ill-equipped to critically evaluate such work. Thus, given the immense structural constraints that burgeoning scholars from the region face when trying to acquire quantitative research skills, we cannot assume that some grand epistemological logic innate to political science in the Arabic-speaking world is the primary reason why few in the region utilize quantitative methods.
As such, we believed that one of the best ways we could contribute to mena political science would be to help narrow the gap in methodological training by offering a summer program that introduced graduate students to statistics in Arabic. Given our personal experience in teaching political science in the region, we knew that we could not take for granted that most university students master English or French. In other words, for political science students in the Arab world that do not master English, and who will ultimately publish almost exclusively in Arabic, access to quantitative training in their mother tongue is constrained. With that as our motivation, under the auspices of the Arab Political Science Network (apsn) and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (di), we launched the First Summer School on Quantitative Methods (ssqm) which took place from May 29 to June 2, 2022. The one-week virtual summer program introduced a small group of political science graduate students to the fundamentals of quantitative empirical analysis in Arabic. This field note discusses and reflects on this experience.
The Unfolding of the ssqm
During the fall of 2021, we set up a meeting with Ahmed Morsy of apsn to discuss creating a short program intended to introduce graduate students from the region to the fundamentals of quantitative research. We subsequently settled on creating a 5-day virtual program requiring students to dedicate themselves to learning the foundations. As such, our target demographic were students at universities where the primary language of instruction is Arabic and that do not offer much, if any, training in quantitative methods. In concert with the apsn, we publicized the call on social media platforms. The pool of applicants for ssqm was surprisingly large. We received 173 applications from graduate students across the region, with most coming from North Africa (mainly Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco). The geographic distribution of the applications fit the patterns we have generally observed for research development workshops targeting graduate students in the region, so it is unlikely that it can be explained by the content of this particular workshop. The large number of applications from North Africa may be partially due to the higher rates of return to education creating greater incentives for participating in professional development opportunities.6
We were excited about the number of applications, even if many of them did not fully understand how they might utilize such methods in their research. Nevertheless, the number of applications was a clear sign that there is significant demand for training in quantitative methods among graduate students in the region. Ninety of these applicants were Ph.D. students, and some had already published peer-reviewed research. We perused these students’ records and examined a set of research proposals. Of the files we looked at, only a handful demonstrated any exposure to quantitative training, and even fewer submitted proposals that appeared to be oriented toward quantitative research. We decided to select students based on our perception, which is necessarily subjective, of how much our training would benefit them and prioritized advanced graduate students. Ultimately, 14 doctoral students and promising individuals with master’s degrees who intended to continue their Ph.D. studies participated in ssqm.
With immense help from Ahmed Morsy, Wael Khatib, and Reham Amro of apsn – who oversaw the logistical aspects of the summer school – the five-day training started on 29 May 2022. The daily meetings with the attendees usually comprised three two-hour long sessions. Students spent mornings and afternoons on their computers, working through the foundations of statistics for political science, with an average of 6 to 7 hours of training per day. We primarily taught the sessions in Arabic (in simplified classical Arabic or a regional dialect). They also included special sessions by guest scholars Ibrahim Khatib of the di and Mohammed Al-Masri of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. We introduced participants to statistical inference, bivariate hypothesis testing, linear regression, and statistical programming, offering them the choice of learning R or spss.7 We taught lessons interactively and gave participants significant personal attention, which included meeting with students during virtual office hours. The participants were provided with statistics readings in both Arabic and English and were expected to read them before our sessions.
By and large, the program accomplished its immediate goals, and at least five participants seemed to be highly interested in the material and engaged. Despite a grueling schedule, this subgroup was motivated, genuinely interested, actively participating in the discussions, and worked hard through dense material under often less-than-ideal circumstances. Of course, this does not imply that there weren’t significant challenges associated with providing such instruction. First, some students faced technical issues related to the internet quality or difficulty in installing software (spss or RStudio). One participant could never overcome these difficulties, which meant that she was unable to gain hands-on experience conducting data analysis. Second, almost half of the participants attended the online sessions from their workplaces. This meant that we could not interact visually with most of them and had to content ourselves with black squares on our screen when lecturing or leading practice exercises. Undoubtedly, this was not an optimal setting for learning or teaching. One example of this rather unusual teaching context was a student that had to go out for a job meeting. We saw her online while walking in the street, asking about the material. Third, the most challenging category for us was the small minority of participants that connected to the sessions without really “being there” or interacting with anybody throughout the week. Some participants from the latter subgroup were the first to ask for the certificate of attendance after the ssqm.
Reflections on ssqm
Our personal experience in the ssqm allowed us to reflect on the pertinence and challenges of teaching quantitative methods in Arabic in an intensive online setting. While we could likely write a book on what we learned during the process, we will spare you any extended theorizing or empirical examination to provide you with a condensed set of our core observations from this experience.
High Demand and Low Supply for Quantitative Methods Training and Materials
As the application numbers indicate, there is significant demand – at least in the aggregate across the region – for quantitative methods training in the Arab world. When we began organizing ssqm, one of the potential risks we faced was that there would not be enough demand for training in quantitative methods to justify a program of this nature. Given the scarcity of peer-reviewed research published in Arabic that uses quantitative methods, there was the possibility that gaining such skills was not sufficiently incentivized for students to sign up for a demanding virtual program. To our surprise, there was immense interest in the program from students across the region. Of course, there is significant heterogeneity in the experiences of graduate students in the Arab world. Those trained at Egyptian universities did have access to some training, the nature of which depended on the specific program they were enrolled in. Many of the students from Morocco and Algeria were enrolled in programs combined with law that focused on providing training that is more in line with the expectations of scholars of the law than political science. Others had access to virtually no graduate-level training in qualitative or quantitative methods. Yet the many students who applied to and/or attended ssrm are a vivid example of how many young Arab scholars have a great interest in developing their understanding of social scientific research methods.
While we could interpret this as a positive, and it does point to the potential for the increased production of quantitative research in Arabic, it is also disheartening that there are few opportunities for such instruction in the Arabic language in political science programs across the region. Moreover, there are structural barriers to the expansion of quantitative methods in the region since only a small number of the professors teaching at mena institutions have backgrounds in quantitative methods. Legal theory and methods heavily influence political science teaching and training in some countries, especially in the Maghreb region where political science programs are often housed in law schools. In other countries, we see significant attention being paid to grand theory, normative reasoning, and contextual knowledge, yet little attention being paid to developing methodological foundations, whether qualitative or quantitative.
Many scholars and students from the region also face two additional critical barriers to acquiring methods training. First, there are few resources in the students’ native language. While there is a vast array of high-quality training resources, books, and textbooks that are available in English, and to a lesser extent in other languages such as French and Spanish, resources in Arabic on quantitative methods in political science are scarce. Yet, if one of our goals was to provide students with reading materials only in Arabic, we were not able to do so. Second, many students do not have the financial resources necessary to enroll in additional training programs. Even when language is not a barrier, money can be. Most quantitative training opportunities throughout the world are not free of charge, and most graduate students and faculty members from the region cannot afford them.
Many Students want Immediate Results
Students who appeared most involved during the learning process through the ssqm sessions expressed an interest in immediately utilizing the tools they were learning to publish peer-reviewed research or even their doctoral projects. While such enthusiasm is laudable, it can lead to students attempting to use such tools in their research too quickly and not expanding their understanding of these methods and their toolkits. Although the program was intensive, it was only five days, and covered core subjects often taught to advanced undergraduates in many Western political science programs. For most scholars in the field, it takes formal training as students and years of extensive guided self-study to develop high-quality, publishable quantitative research.
One short program providing foundational knowledge to advanced graduate students is not nearly enough to give them the skills they want and need to be in dialogue with a substantial portion of the political science literature being produced. Moreover, upon leaving the program, most participants will not have access to scholars with the training needed to guide them on the empirical methods they are using. While many of the students had advisors who were well-positioned to provide them with feedback on the theoretical dimensions of their work and possessed vast contextual knowledge, few were in contact with professors who could help guide them as they continued to learn quantitative methods. More needs to be done to provide in-person instruction and guidance to students interested in acquiring quantitative methods skills.
In the future, the kind of training provided by ssrm should target students earlier in their development to allow them the time to expand and build on their foundational knowledge. One potential solution would be to provide an extended in-person program for students entering graduate programs modeled after apsa’s Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. Of course, students trained in such a program will require environments capable of capitalizing on the momentum gained from their early training in quantitative methods. Another possible avenue would be to provide training programs for early career faculty members so that they are well-positioned to teach and advise students who plan to utilize quantitative tools of empirical analysis.
Is Teaching Quantitative Methods more Challenging in the mena Region?
It was no surprise to us that conducting extended virtual sessions would be taxing on all involved. Many of the drawbacks of online instruction are common in the region. While the students themselves may have been committed to learning, the inability to place themselves in an environment where they could focus exclusively on studying the material was a barrier for many. Although virtual programs have a place in the region’s broader universe of methods offerings, they should be reserved for ancillary programs and targeted learning of specific tools rather than intensive methods programs.
While most students came in with very little training in mathematics, they picked up much of the material quickly. Despite many coming from a background in a humanities track stretching back to high school, they neither lacked the ability nor the will to develop their math skills. For most students, it had been nearly a decade since they were last required to do any mathematics, yet they quickly recalled the math they had learned and could apply and build on that knowledge. The program that was offered was not particularly technical, but it left us confident in their ability to progress and learn more advanced mathematics and statistics. Using real-life examples helped students connect the math they were doing to the work they could do in political science. Moreover, whether choosing to learn R or spss, students quickly grasped the basics.
In sum, our experience in teaching quantitative methods during ssqm was very insightful, and we hope that what we learned from it will be beneficial to similar future enterprises. Aside from the scarcity of material in Arabic dedicated to quantitative political science, the challenges that we faced probably describe the difficulties faced by many methods instructors around the world. When teaching quantitative methods, professors will always have to navigate technical difficulties, deal with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and manage with finite resources.
Final Thoughts
While mena political scientists should not necessarily emulate Western trends in the field, there are benefits to encouraging methodological diversity and remaining in dialogue with the broader global political science community. There is a significant need to increase the opportunities available for students who desire quantitative methods training in Arabic. ssqm largely succeeded in its admittedly modest goal of providing foundational quantitative methods training to a small number of graduate students, and many of the Ph.D. students at Arab institutions were able to make great strides in a very short amount of time. Nevertheless, developing either quantitative or qualitative methods skills throughout the region requires a larger commitment from regional associations and institutions.
Our experience has taught us that the demand for methods training in the region is significant, the supply in Arabic training is low, and the students in the region are more than capable of acquiring such skills and motivated to do so. Groups such as apsn and apsa mena have developed vast networks and workshops throughout the region and globally and are well positioned to help get efforts to increase methods offerings in the region off the ground. Periodic training sessions and workshops are not enough.8 For this reason, these efforts will require fostering collaboration and increasing the resources and support afforded to institutions in the region to help them provide their own training. Important steps have already been taken to foster such collaborative efforts. For example, in February 2022, a small group of scholars from across the region with experience teaching research methods gathered at the American University in Cairo for an apsn workshop to discuss both the challenges we face and how we can best remedy them. We hope that ssqm and other recent events organized by apsn and apsa mena are steppingstones toward providing a broader, more accessible framework for supporting methods training in the region.
References
Amengay, Abdelkarim and Alan Aloskan. “Hamishiyat al-Turuq al-Kamiya fi al-‘Olum al-Siyasiya al-Arabiya: Al-Iḥsa’ al-Istidlali Kamithal.” [The Marginalization of Quantitative Methods in Arab Political Science: Inferential Statistics as an Example], Siyasat Arabiya, Forthcoming.
Cammett, Melani, and Isabel Kendall. “Political Science Scholarship on the Middle East: A View from the Journals.” ps: Political Science & Politics 54, no. 3 (2021): 448–455.
Clark, Janine A., and Francesco Cavatorta, eds. Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa: Methodological and Ethical Challenges. Oxford University Press, 2018.
Farah, Tawfic E. 1983. Political Behavior in the Arab States. New York and Oxon: Routledge.
Teti, Andrea, and Pamela Abbott. “Scholarship on the Middle East in Political Science and International Relations: A Reassessment.” ps: Political Science & Politics 56, no. 2 (2023): 259–264.
Tzannatos, Zafiris, Ishac Diwan, and Joanna Abdel Ahad. “Rates of Return to Education in Twenty-Two Arab Countries: An Update and Comparison Between mena and the Rest of the World.” Economic Research Forum, 2016.
Abdelkarim Amengay and Alan Aloskan, “Hamishiyat al-Turuq al-Kamiya fi al-‘Olum al-Siyasiya al-Arabiya: Al-Iḥsa’ al-Istidlali Kamithal,” [The Marginalization of Quantitative Methods in Arab Political Science: Inferential Statistics as an Example], Siyasat Arabiya, Forthcoming). Siyasat Arabiya is published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar. Al-Mustaqbal Al-Arabi and Al-Majala Al-Arabiya lil ‘Aulum a-Siyasia are published by the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut, Lebanon.
Andrea Teti and Pamela Abbott, “Scholarship on the Middle East in Political Science and International Relations: A Reassessment,” ps: Political Science & Politics 56, no. 2 (2023): 259–264; Melani Cammett and Isabel Kendall, “Political Science Scholarship on the Middle East: A View from the Journals,” ps: Political Science & Politics 54, no. 3 (2021): 448–455.
There are of course a few notable exceptions.
Unfortunately, we do not have data on job market outcomes for graduates of PhD programs in the mena region.
Zafiris Tzannatos, Ishac Diwan, and Joanna Abdel Ahad, “Rates of Return to Education in Twenty-Two Arab Countries: An Update and Comparison Between mena and the Rest of the World,” Economic Research Forum (2016): 6.
spss was offered as an option because some students find statistical programming daunting and most students are at institutions where the majority of social scientists who use quantitative methods rely on spss (e.g., sociology and psychology).
One potential next step may be to organize a mooc or series of mooc s that provide quantitative training to graduate students in Arabic. It would also be useful to consider translating some of the recently released quantitative methods textbooks that target political scientists.