Political Islam, Internet Use and Willingness to Migrate: Evidence from the Arab Barometer

This paper investigates the relationship between political Islam, willingness to migrate and Internet use by exploiting the second (2010-2011) and the third (2012-2014) waves of the Arab Barometer. In an effort to explain individual-level willingness to migrate from the Arab world, it investigates the channel through which the more people support political Islam the less they are willing to migrate. At the same time, it explores the fact that the Internet could potentially act as a vehicle of political Islam. Indeed, our findings indicate that there exists a positive relationship between Internet use and individual-level willingness to migrate, while there exists a negative relationship between political Islam and individual-level willingness to migrate. The findings indicate also that there is no significant effect of Internet use on political Islam.