When Egyptians one year ago today set their nation on a new political course, neither Egyptians nor observers knew for sure what would happen next. Understanding that, Gallup stepped up its surveying in Egypt to begin surveying at least 1,000 Egyptians about once every other month.
Gallup conducted surveys in Egypt in April, June, August, September, and December, amassing a huge amount of data on Egyptians' views of their country's transition, their personal economic situations, and their lives as a whole during this period of historic change.
Dalia Mogahed, director and senior analyst of the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, provides a comprehensive review of what Gallup has learned in the past year in this piece in Foreign Policy magazine, reporting that, "Egyptians are more optimistic than they have been in years, far less divided along secular-religious lines than the pundits would have us think, and poised for the demands of democracy."
Gallup has reported extensively on Egyptians' views over the past year and all of the findings are available here. Among the things we learned:
- Egyptians' optimism surged after the revolution.
- More Egyptians struggled to make ends meet in the months after the revolution.
- Most Egyptians expected the parliamentary elections to be fair and honest and planned to vote.
- Few Egyptians favored continued protests in the country.
- Well-off Egyptians over time lost some of their initial optimism about their own life post-Mubarak.
- Many Egyptians went from being undecided to expressing support for Islamist parties as the parliamentary elections neared.
- The majority of Egyptians think it would be best for the military to exit politics after the presidential election.
We also have several more stories planned based on our just-in December data. And Gallup is planning a briefing on its Egypt data on Wednesday, Feb. 22, at its Washington, D.C., headquarters. (Contact us for information.)
Gallup plans to survey in Egypt eight times in 2012 and to report the findings back to you as often as possible. To get every new story as soon as it is published, sign up for our email alerts and choose "All Gallup Headlines" or "World" or "Egypt." You can also visit the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center for longerreports and briefs from across the Arab League, and to join its mailing list.
For complete data sets or custom research from the more than 150 countries Gallup continually surveys, please contact SocialandEconomicAnalysis@gallup.com or call 202.715.3030.