Health Care, the Arab Spring and After

This study analyzes the effect of health care on Middle Eastern countries on the eve of and soon after the Arab Spring. It posits that countries that were most stable were the healthiest ones; countries which underwent revolutions were the unhealthiest ones; whereas countries that settled for reforms were moderate in health. It presents a hypothesis, the Inverted Funnel Model Hypothesis, that states that as the level of health care of a country rises so does its stability, which in turn leads to better health care as if down an inverted funnel to hypothetical maximums of both health care and stability. To test the hypothesis both quantitative and qualitative methods are used. The quantitative part involves first of all compiling seven health indicators based on the World Health Organization Annual Reports on twelve individual countries, for a period of five years preceding the Arab Spring's onset in 2011 and in the immediate aftermath of 2011, and, second of all running correlations with political stability of each country, grouped in a three-way typology of countries. This is supplemented by a qualitative part which analyzes the health perceptions and demands of Arab Spring protestors in search of social justice.