During the Arab Spring, the protest movement has changed the geopolitical configuration of the Middle East. So far, there is a consensus among researchers on the reasons for the rise in protests during the Arab Spring. However, the hierarchy of growth factors in the protest movement remains a subject of debate. This article contains an attempt to build a hierarchy reflecting the influence of the most significant reasons on the dynamics of street protests at the beginning of the Arab Spring. The dynamics of protests and the factors influencing it are presented in a quantitative form. The dependent variable is the indicator of the dynamics of protest actions. In turn, indicators of factors affecting protests are independent variables. The values of indicators from open databases were collected. Correlation analysis of empirical data is used to assess the strength of the influence of factors on the course of protests. In particular, it allows you to obtain the values of the strength of connections between variables. The estimates obtained as a result of statistical analysis are sorted in descending order of values, representing a hierarchy of causes. As a result of the study, it was determined that the greatest impact on the growth of the duration of protests at the initial stage of the "Arab Spring" had a high level of expansion of higher education among the population.
