Political Upheavals, Tourism Flight, and Spillovers: The Case of the Arab Spring

2021 ◽  
pp. 004728752110026
Author(s):  
José L. Groizard ◽  
Mohanad Ismael ◽  
María Santana-Gallego

This article exploits the Arab Spring, which occurred in 2011, as a natural experiment to study the effect of political upheavals on international travel. We find that foreign tourists’ demand to travel to countries experiencing Arab Spring episodes was sharply reduced and persisted after two years. We also find evidence of two different spillover effects: a tourism diversion to rest of the world, and a regional contagion to geographically nearby countries (other Arab countries that did not experience Arab Spring episodes and the Mediterranean region, although with heterogenous effects across individual countries). To disentangle how spillovers are channeled, we test whether geographical and cultural (Islamic) affinity play any role. We find that diversion is explained by the attitudes of Western tourists but not of those whose origin is Arabic. Furthermore, we find that the contagion caused by the Arab Spring is stronger for the nearest Muslim countries. JEL codes: F14, F51, H12, O11

Author(s):  
Joanna Modrzejewska-Leśniewska

The massive anti ‑regime demonstrations in Arab countries that started in December 2010 in Tunisia were followed by questions about causes and effects of those revolts. Attention of the researchers was understandably concentrated on Arab countries but it seems that other Muslim countries were overlooked – the adjective “Arab” superceded “Muslim” in the name of this widespread movement. This paper aims at proving that the process that culminated in the Arab Spring have not started in Tunisia in December 2010 but in Pakistan in 2007 and 2008.


Author(s):  
L. Fituni

The author presents his own original conception of the 2011 Arab upheavals. First, he tries to find parallels between the Arab Spring and the 19th century European Spring of Peoples. Second, he dwells on the idea of three types of transition in the Arab World: economic, demographic, and ideological. Third, he reflects on the issues of democracy and autocracy in the Arab countries emphasizing the role of youth. Fourth, he puts forward some new ideas as regards the relationship between Europe and the Arab World, offering such terms as “democratic internationalism” and “young democratic safety belt” in the Mediterranean region.


Author(s):  
Derek Lutterbeck

Coup-proofing—that is, measures aimed at preventing military coups and ensuring military loyalty—has been a key feature of civil–military relations in Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) states. Just as the MENA region has been one of the most coup-prone regions in the world, coup-proofing has been an essential instrument of regime survival in Arab countries. The most commonly found coup-proofing strategies in the region include (a) so-called “communal coup-proofing,” involving the appointment of individuals to key positions within the military based on family, ethnic, or religious ties; (b) providing the military with corporate and/or private benefits in order to ensure its loyalty; (c) creating parallel military forces in addition to the regular military, so as to “counter-balance” the latter; (d) monitoring of the military through a vast internal security and intelligence apparatus; and (e) promoting professionalism, and thus political neutrality, within the military. The experiences of the “Arab Spring,” however, have shown that not all of these strategies are equally effective in ensuring military loyalty during times of popular upheavals and regime crises. A common finding in this context has been that communal coup-proofing (or militaries based on “patrimonialism”) creates the strongest bonds been the armed forces and their regimes, as evidenced by the forceful suppression of the popular uprising by the military in countries such as Syria, or by parts of the military in Libya and Yemen. By contrast, where coup-proofing has been based on the provision of material benefits to the military or on counterbalancing, as in Tunisia or Egypt, the armed forces have refrained from suppressing the popular uprising, ultimately leading to the downfall of these countries’ long-standing leaders. A further lesson that can be drawn from the Arab Spring in terms of coup-proofing is that students of both military coups and coup-proofing should dedicate (much) more attention to the increasingly important role played by the internal security apparatus in MENA countries.


2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 233-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulio Gallarotti ◽  
Isam Yahia Al-Filali

When people are asked the question, what is the source of Saudi Arabia’s power, who would cite factors other than oil? This equation of Saudi power exclusively with its oil wealth is mistaken. Historically, a principal and the most consistent source of Saudi power at the domestic, regional and global levels has not been revenues from oil, but the cultural power that inheres in a nation that is both the capital of the Muslim and Arab worlds. This soft power accounts for as much, if not more, of Saudi influence than even oil itself. To a large extent, this power explains why Saudi Arabia has remained stout in the face of the shock waves of the Arab Spring. Saudi soft power also accounts for much of the leverage that the Kingdom enjoys in its region and the world at large. This article assesses the principal sources of Saudi Arabia’s soft power, discusses the modern day international, regional and domestic challenges facing Saudi Arabia, and finally analyzes how Saudi soft power can effectively deal with those challenges.


Author(s):  
Engin Sorhun

Although Turkey has historically concentrated its trade with the European Union (EU) it has diversified its trade markets with the neighbouring regions and different group of countries during the last decade. Among them, Arab countries have come into prominence. Especially, following the “zero problems with neighbours” policy (ZPN), pursued by Turkey since 2002, the trade volume with the Middle Eastern neighbours has increased faster than that with its traditional partners. Nevertheless so called “Arab Spring” has started to manifest its effects on this trend. It deteriorates not only the economies of the concerned countries but also Turkey’s trade expansion. This paper aims: (i) to test through a gravity model the positive impacts of the ZPN policy and the negative impact of the Arab Spring on the trade expansion with the Spring Countries; and (ii) to reveal the positive impact of the policy change and the negative impact of the uprising movements on the realization of trade potential by Turkey in the Spring Countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-101
Author(s):  
Nazar Ul Islam Wani

The Arab Spring was a series of protests which took place in Arab countries against longstanding dictatorial regimes, because of the latter’s inability or refusal to deliver socio-economic and political justice to the common 99 masses. Protests spread like fire and made an impact not only on the governance of the Arab world but also internationally, by involving big players like Russia and the United States of America. Yet these events were intensely complicated, with multiple actors and layers of history involved in each country. The book under review here is one prodigious effort to understand the Arab Spring, considering causes and effects of the uprisings. Structurally, the book is divided into two parts. The first part, consisting of seven chapters, deals with the uprisings in Arab countries; part two, consisting of six chapters, discusses the impact of the Arab Spring on the non-Arab world and their core interests related to the uprisings. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-147
Author(s):  
Ahmad Sahide ◽  
Rezki Satris

The Arab Spring in 2011 opened the way for democratization in some Arab countries, including Egypt. Egypt succeeded in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak as the president, but Egypt failed in consolidating democracy after holding a general election in 2012. The main factors of the failure in consolidating democracy in Egypt come from internal and external factors. The internal factor was that Egypt had not been ready for democracy , whereas the external factor was  foreign intervention due to national interest. This article analyzes the failure of democratization in Egypt by using Jack Snyder and Georg Sorensen’s theory. In the last part of this article, the writer suggested that Egypt should have learned how to consolidate democracy from Indonesia. Indonesia is the best model of democracy for Egypt due to some reasons. The first one is Indonesia and Egypt near a culturally (religious approach), and the second one is Indonesia's success, as the majority Muslim state, in consolidating democracy since 1998.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adnan Abdulrahman Naef Farhan ◽  
P.A. Varghese

The Arab Spring is a popular term used to describe the revolutionary movement of demonstrations and protests, and civil wars in the Arab world that began on December 18, 2010 in Tunisia and spread in the whole Arab countries. Tunisia and Egypt became the center of this revolution, and then it moved to include Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Sudan, Mauritania, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Western Sahara and Palestine. Yemeni youth’s revolution movement began to change the system through mobilization of people and social action. This paper focuses on the importance of Facebook in the revolution and how the Yemeni youth used Facebook to attract more supporters and keep the spirit up. The present paper reports the impact of Facebook in nurturing political revolution in Yemen analyzing the data achieved by survey method.Int. J. Soc. Sc. Manage. Vol. 5, Issue-1: 5-9


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Boubaker Boukreisa

Many researchers who believed in the “Arab Spring” are now debating the “Arab Autumn.” The two concepts are misleading because they reflect the entangled and complex reality of Arab countries at the current time. Such significant events that comprised the Arab Spring require knowledge of the influence of countries that were not directly involved in it, but which were pursuing their interests beyond their own borders. An attempt to engage with this sort of analytical framework leads to political fallacy that will contribute more to the crisis rather than solve it. Thus, it is important to understand that those who fight tyranny are not necessarily democratic themselves. What is the state of play in the Arab world today? At what stage of history is this region positioned? To answer both questions a lateral approach is needed, but this should not overlook the size of cases and their different levels.


Author(s):  
George Naufal ◽  
Ismail Genc ◽  
Carlos Vargas-Silva

The purpose of this chapter is to present new empirical research on the Arab Spring and, specifically, to focus on the attitudes of residents of one country in the Middle East towards the Arab Spring. This research was conducted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has been one of the main migrant destinations in the world for the last two decades. This allows for comparisons regarding attitudes towards the Arab Spring across individuals from different regions of origin such as GCC, South Asia, and Western countries. The attitudes of university students are important because the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has experienced a substantial increase in the 17 to 23 years of age population. Existing reports suggest that, by far, those involved in Arab Spring protests were young individuals. The analysis places particular emphasis on the correlation of attitudes towards the Arab Spring with three key aspects: religiousness, attachment to the GCC countries, and attachment to country of origin.


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