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Unhappiness has been recognized as one of the main factors that cause political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in recent years. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of governance matters on happiness in the MENA region while controlling for other relevant determinants.

The paper applies panel random effects regression analyses by using data from 14 MENA countries over the period of 2009-2011.

The empirical results show that higher level of political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness and rule of law significantly increase happiness in the region. Furthermore, the paper finds that voice and accountability, regulatory quality and control of corruption variables have positive relationship with happiness but are not significant.

Most studies in this area cover developed countries. Since findings for developed countries might not be directly transferable to emerging economies such as MENA countries, therefore, more work is necessary to obtain a clearer picture of the political determinants of happiness in this region.

Several scholars, policymakers and international development agencies have been suggesting that trade and capital openness would bring better governance, in particular higher level of voice and accountability (VA), for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on VA in the MENA region.

Applying two different panel models (fixed‐effects and dynamic), this paper uses related observations from 19 MENA countries between 2000 and 2008 to analyze the impacts of FDI inflows on VA.

The results reveal that FDI inflows do not contribute to the higher level of VA in the MENA region.

With no previous studies of the linkage between FDI inflows and VA in the MENA region, the paper makes a significant contribution in this regard.