The Political Economy of the New Arab Awakening

Author(s):  
Mustapha Kamel Nabli ◽  
Hakim Ben Hammouda

This chapter provides a broad perspective and a comprehensive view about the origins and causes of the New Arab Awakening. In order to understand the Arab Spring—or New Arab Awakening—it needs to be placed within the long historical context of political and economic developments at least since the 1950s, the post-independence era. It reviews the various phases of Arab development going from the initial post-independence authoritarian bargain, to the modified social contract from the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, and the accumulation of vulnerabilities of the authoritarian regimes in the 2000s. An analogy is used with financial crises and distinguishes between fundamental vulnerabilities and immediate triggers as a means to understand recent events. Also provided is a short review of the economic and political reasons behind the failures of the Arab development model which led to the demise of the authoritarian political regimes.

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 809-811
Author(s):  
Erik Martinez Kuhonta

A major debate in the literature on the political economy of development centers on the relationship between regime type and economic development. This debate has been heavily influenced by the East Asian development model, where authoritarianism has often gone hand in hand with high growth rates. In South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, development has been propelled by authoritarian or semidemocratic regimes. One key element of this argument is that the repression of labor under these authoritarian regimes has been especially helpful in states' pursuit of high growth rates because it has ensured political stability and checked societal demands.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 382-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Witold Mucha

The Arab Spring took policymakers and academics by surprise. The starting point, the scope, nor the impact had been seen coming. This was primarily because of academics’ irrevocable belief in the stabilising power of authoritarian regimes. In light of this failing, the article will critically discuss the production of crisis knowledge on the basis of four major early warning tools. These are World Bank’s greed/grievance model, the predictive model by the Political Instability Task Force, the risk and capacity approach applied by the Failed States Index, and the International Crisis Group. The article will add to the debate in two ways. First, the analysis will show that prevention research can be biased in ways that crucially influence policymakers’ assessment of states at risk. Second, the article will argue in favour of a complementary perspective that includes the analysis of conflicts that do not erupt into large-scale violence against all odds (so-called ‘negative cases’).


2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 393-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués

During the anti-regime uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, women from all walks of life were as ready as men to take to the streets to protest against the ineptitude and transgressions of their countries’ governments. Their courage was particularly noteworthy given that they suffered not only the violence of the regimes’ attempts to suppress protests by force, as did their male counterparts, but also a systematic targeting by security forces who attempted to break the women’s spirits through attacks on their honour and bodily integrity. The female presence and agency in the Arab Spring encouraged activists in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to expect an equitable role for women in the political transition processes that followed the fall of the authoritarian regimes in those countries. However, the female input in those political transitions has been scant. Moreover, in all three countries, established women’s rights are increasingly under attack and violence against women is on the rise. This article applies a gendered perspective to explore the upheavals of the Arab Spring and the political transitions in the three countries, and inquires into the insecurities that women have suffered since early 2011.


2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 109-142
Author(s):  
Mazen Hashem

Although the revolution in Syria is unfolding within the country’smodern political borders, what is going on can only be understoodby placing it in a larger historical context, which includes the adjacentgeographical areas of Bilad al-Sham. Without such abroader view, the complexity of Syria’s current reality can neitherbe appreciated, nor can its consequences be accounted for and itsfuture anticipated.Probably in no country is the mess of a land’s colonial legacymore visible than it is in Syria. This legacy’s pathway marks thecountry’s future development, and its implications are facing therevolution today with arduous challenges. The resulting complexityextends beyond the political dimension, for a similar level ofcomplexity exists at the meta-cultural level as well. Furthermore,the change in Syria has regional consequences: It will institutionalizethe Arab revolution as an unavoidable political force and energizethe process of cultural reformation and the recovery of acivilizational Muslim identity.This essay first examines the region’s historical background andthe consequences of the Ottoman order’s disintegration. Second,it analyzes the national identity dilemmas faced by the Arab worldafter colonialism, how non-Muslims reacted to them, and the twopolitical paths that those countries pursued. Third, the essay discussesthe formation of grievances among Syrian minorities in particular. Fourth, the politics of the post-independence era arepresented, highlighting the promise of the development uponwhich Syria was embarking. The essay then investigates the politicsand social conditions that led to a dictatorship of three overlappingtypes: ideological left, sectarian, and neoliberal. Beforefocusing on the ongoing revolution, a note on Islamic activism ispresented due to the fact that Islamic meanings have always beenthe impetus propelling the people’s resistance. The revolutionaryrealities on the ground are then elaborated upon, emphasizing howthe regime’s extreme violence against peaceful protest intersectswith historical social alignments. Lastly, the essay discusses thegeopolitical context in which the Syrian revolution is taking place,which at once makes it hard to prevail and makes any of its outcomeshighly consequential for the whole region.


Author(s):  
Emma Simone

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world: A Heideggerian Study explores Woolf’s treatment of the relationship between self and world from a phenomenological-existential perspective. This study presents a timely and compelling interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s textual treatment of the relationship between self and world from the perspective of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Drawing on Woolf’s novels, essays, reviews, letters, diary entries, short stories, and memoirs, the book explores the political and the ontological, as the individual’s connection to the world comes to be defined by an involvement and engagement that is always already situated within a particular physical, societal, and historical context. Emma Simone argues that at the heart of what it means to be an individual making his or her way in the world, the perspectives of Woolf and Heidegger are founded upon certain shared concerns, including the sustained critique of Cartesian dualism, particularly the resultant binary oppositions of subject and object, and self and Other; the understanding that the individual is a temporal being; an emphasis upon intersubjective relations insofar as Being-in-the-world is defined by Being-with-Others; and a consistent emphasis upon average everydayness as both determinative and representative of the individual’s relationship to and with the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 327-334
Author(s):  
Inga V. Zheltikova ◽  
Elena I. Khokhlova

The article considers the dependence of the images of future on the socio-cultural context of their formation. Comparison of the images of the future found in A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s works of various years reveals his generally pessimistic attitude to the future in the situation of social stability and moderate optimism in times of society destabilization. At the same time, the author's images of the future both in the seventies and the nineties of the last century demonstrate the mismatch of social expectations and reality that was generally typical for the images of the future. According to the authors of the present article, Solzhenitsyn’s ideas that the revival of spirituality could serve as the basis for the development of economy, that the influence of the Church on the process of socio-economic development would grow, and that the political situation strongly depends on the personal qualities of the leader, are unjustified. Nevertheless, such ideas are still present in many images of the future of Russia, including contemporary ones.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Muhannad Al Janabi Al Janabi

Since late 2010 and early 2011, the Arab region has witnessed mass protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain and other countries that have been referred to in the political, media and other literature as the Arab Spring. These movements have had a profound effect on the stability of the regimes Which took place against it, as leaders took off and contributed to radical reforms in party structures and public freedoms and the transfer of power, but it also contributed to the occurrence of many countries in an internal spiral, which led to the erosion of the state from the inside until it became a prominent feature of the Arab) as is the case in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq.


2004 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Herb

Several Arab monarchies have held reasonably free elections to parliaments, though all remain authoritarian. This article compares the Arab monarchies with parliaments in other parts of the world, including both those that became democracies, and those that did not. From this I derive a set of prerequisites, potential pitfalls, and expected stages in the monarchical path toward democracy. This helps us to understand not only the democratic potential of the parliamentary experiments in the Arab monarchies, but also the role these parliaments play in the political life of these authoritarian regimes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 263300242110244
Author(s):  
Alice M. Greenwald ◽  
Clifford Chanin ◽  
Henry Rousso ◽  
Michel Wieviorka ◽  
Mohamed-Ali Adraoui

How do societies and states represent the historical, moral, and political weight of the terrorist attacks they have had to face? Having suffered in recent years from numerous terrorist attacks on their soil originating from jihadist movements, and often led by actors who were also their own citizens, France and the United States have set up—or seek to do so—places of memory whose functions, conditions of creation, modes of operation, and nature of the messages sent may vary. Three of the main protagonists and initiators of two museum-memorial projects linked to terrorist attacks have agreed to deliver their visions of the role and of the political, social, and historical context in which these projects have emerged. Allowing to observe similarities and differences between the American and French approach, this interview sheds light on the place of memory and feeling in societies struck by tragic events and seeking to cure their ills through memory and commemoration.


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