scholarly journals The Future of the Arab Spring

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 125-136
Author(s):  
Ziauddin Sardar
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Chaotic Behavior ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Arab State ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military

To understand how the Arab Spring may evolve over the coming years, we have to understand its specific context. The “revolutions” across the Middle East are not just a product of discontent and fury against dictatorships; after all, the Arabs have been raging against their rulers for well over half a century. The Arab Spring is also a creation of a particular period of time, a time in which globalization, interconnection, and instant communication are the norm, and authority and political legitimacy are in flux. It is a period of uncertainty, ambiguity, chaotic behavior, and rapid change that I have elsewhere described as “postnormal times.”1Moreover, as Nader Hashemi has observed, “the Arab Spring is not a single event but rather a long-term process of political change. Its precipitating factors were both political and economic; and while history has yet to render its ultimate judgment, fundamental questions remain about how best to understand the nature, character, and trajectory of Arab revolts.”2 I contend that we need to grasp the context of postnormal times, which served as a catalyst for the Arab revolts and within which the long-term process of political transformation is taking place, to comprehend the dynamics of the Arab Spring and anticipate its trajectory. To appreciate the reality of contemporary times, it is important to realize that the problems of the Arab state, indeed the problems of all societies, national as well as international, are complex. The politics of a democracy, the questions of economic reforms, the hopes and aspirations of a diverse and pluralistic society, the stubbornness of entrenched institutions such as the police and the military, are all complex issues that do not have simple or straightforward answers. Complexity is enhanced by the fact that all such problems ...

scholarly journals Arab Spring Failure: A Case Study of Egypt and Syria

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-53
Author(s):  
Raid Khan ◽  
Amna Mahmood ◽  
Asif Salim
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Rule Out

The Arab Spring was assumed to reform the prevailing regime pattern and to bring socio-economic reforms. However, it failed to get its intended outcomes at large. The objectives of the revolution that are to bring a positive transformation in the social, economic, and political domains were not attained effectively and was considered a failed revolution in the case of Egypt and Syria. The present paper focuses on exploring the reasons and factors behind its failure in the particular context of Egypt and Syria. Although Egypt observed regime transition from dictatorship to democracy, yet within one and a half year, a military coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Morsi, and the military regime was reinstalled. In the case of Syria, since 2011, a civil war is going on where Bashar-ul-Asad still holds dictatorial powers. The study reveals that the lack of stable political institutions, weak democratic norms, and the absence of a vibrant civil society paved the way for state authorities to rule out the attempts of protestors. Excluding a few of the countries, the rest of the Middle Eastern countries are still ruled by the powerful elites. The successes of the Arab Spring are still to be awaited.

Coup-Proofing in the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Lutterbeck
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Common Finding ◽  
North African ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military

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.

Martyrdom in North Africa Following the Arab Spring and the Process of Transitional Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas DeGeorges
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
State Security ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Arab Spring

In Chapter 7, Thomas DeGeorges argues that martyrdom has played an important role in the transitional justice processes both before and after the Arab Spring of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. While martyrdom and transitional justice are not traditionally associated with one another, he makes the case that martyrs involve people who are victims of what may be framed as political violence, whether committed by state security forces or unknown perpetrators. In this context, martyrs may be understood in the frame of victims addressed by transitional justice, but also as icons for social or political transformation. Broadly speaking, claims regarding martyrdom were important in these countries insofar as martyrs were held up as symbols for whom reform must be pursued.

Exit, Resistance, Loyalty: Military Behavior during Unrest in Authoritarian Regimes

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Albrecht ◽  
Dorothy Ohl
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Moving Target ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military

A few years into the most recent wave of popular uprisings—the Arab Spring—studying regime trajectories in countries such as Syria, Egypt, and Yemen still seems like shooting at a moving target. Yet what has not escaped notice is the central role military actors have played during these uprisings. We describe how soldiers have three options when ordered to suppress mass unrest. They mayexitthe regime by remaining in the barracks or going into exile,resistby fighting for the challenger or initiating a coup d’état, or remainloyaland use force to defend the regime. We argue that existing accounts of civil-military relations are ill equipped to explain the diverse patterns in exit, resistance, and loyalty during unrest because they often ignore the effects of military hierarchy. Disaggregating the military and parsing the interests and constraints of different agents in that apparatus is crucial for explaining military cohesion during such crises. Drawing on extensive fieldwork we apply our principal-agent framework to explain varying degrees and types of military cohesion in three Arab Spring cases: Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria. Studying military hierarchy elucidates decision-making within authoritarian regimes amid mass mobilization and allows us to better explain regime re-stabilization, civil war onset, or swift regime change in the wake of domestic unrest.

‘Making space public’ through occupation: The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Iveson
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Single Site ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Spatial Strategy ◽  
Australian Capital ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Arab Spring

Through the actions of activists involved in the Arab Spring uprisings, European anti-austerity movements and the Occupy and Umbrella movements among others, long-term occupations of public space have re-entered the repertoire of insurgent social movements to spectacular effect. These events have dramatised the challenges and limits of occupation as a spatial strategy for ‘making space public’. This paper seeks to make a contribution to the critical geographical literatures on occupation and public space, through analysis of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy – a politically motivated occupation of a patch of land in the Australian capital that is now entering its 45th year. The Embassy activists mobillised occupation in the process of making and sustaining a counterpublic. Counterpublic participants face a distinct set of geographical challenges in making space for both withdrawal and representation in the face of spatial subordination. Occupations like the Embassy seek to resolve these challenges by combining both of these activities in a single site. The Embassy draws our attention to two important sets of issues in relation to the counterpublic geography of occupations. First, it has much to teach about how space is made public through occupation, including dynamics related to the location, duration, reproduction and relations of occupation. Second, the Embassy issues a challenge about whose space is made public through occupation – as an embodied enactment of indigenous sovereignty, the Embassy reminds us that democratic politics in settler colonial nations like Australia is premised on a violent dispossession that has yet to be fully acknowledged or addressed.

Assessing (In)security after the Arab Spring

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (04) ◽  
pp. 709-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gledhill
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Collective Attention ◽  
The Arab Spring

More than two years after the heady days of protest and uprising that characterized the Arab Spring, the glow of revolution has given way to the intricacies and complications of regime building. Coalitions are being formed, constitutions written, judiciaries vetted, and security services (re)built. As collective attention focuses on these complexities of regime restructuring, it is worth noting that a fundamental security paradox sits at the heart of transitions in the Middle East and North Africa. On one hand, individuals who hit the streets or battlefields in support of revolution in 2011 did so in the belief that a new form of government would improve their political, social, and economic security over the long term. On the other hand, subsequent (and ongoing) efforts to draft new rules of the political game have triggered internal conflicts and, on occasion, those conflicts have compromised citizens' physical security over the short term.

scholarly journals Political elites of the Arab world and their influence

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-115
Author(s):  
A. Sh. Abhari ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Foreign Intervention ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military ◽  
Shed Light

The debate between political scientists about the "Arab Spring" revolutions is still escalating. Especially regarding the forces operating at the scene. Attempts by the military elite to retain power and try to maintain the status quo at any cost, leaving the doors wide open for foreign intervention The foreign interventions of countries that are trying to use the wave of the Arab spring to achieve their goals have especially complicated the situation in the Arab world. In this article I will try to shed light on some factors influencing the results of the “Arab Spring” revolutions.

scholarly journals The army as the main driving force of Egypt's transformation in 2011-2013

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 41-50
Author(s):  
Antonіі Palamar
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
State Transformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Opposition Movements ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military

Following the 2013 coup that toppled Egypt’s democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, from power, the country has been led by military general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Eight years on, he retains the president’s office, and Egyptian parliament has decided to actually extend his term until 2030, ignoring the revolutionary demands that prompted millions of Egyptians to bring Hosni Mubarak's 29-year rule to an end in January 2011. Despite the hopes of the Arab Spring, Egypt has not only stopped democratic transit, but has begun to move toward authoritarianism. Tens of thousands of people are kept in overcrowded prisons. Freedom of speech, media independence, and opposition movements are being suppressed in the name of the stability of the state. Tortures, unjustified detentions, police attacks, and death sentences have become a strategic tool in the hands of Egypt’s military leadership to combat possible escalation of protest movements.This article reviews history of the military leadership's influence on Egyptian public policy, outlines basic principles and methods of this influence, investigates the army's participation in the state transformation during the Arab Spring, and examines the policy of post-revolutionary military power in the country.The paper sheds light on the military elite, as a significant interest group, which until 2011 had no influence on the formation of the political agenda in Egypt. This study has confirmed that the Muslim Brotherhood's seizure of power in 2012 and the subsequent desire to quickly Islamize the country under the guise of democratic slogans forced the military to oppose not only Islamization but also the democratization of the country. After the revolution, the military became the only force that could keep control and rule the country, using undemocratic methods to secure its own regime and suppress opposition movements. Finally, Egypt's transformation is still ongoing, as the demands of the 2011 revolution for democratization and liberalization of socio-political life remain unfulfilled, and the current military rule is largely reminiscent of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, which was overthrown during the Arab Spring.

Mutiny and nonviolence in the Arab Spring

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Erickson Nepstad
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The State ◽  
Security Force ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military

Recent studies of civil resistance indicate that security force defections can heavily influence the outcome of nonviolent uprisings against authoritarian regimes. Yet we know little about why, when, and how mutiny occurs. In this article, I ask: what factors influence the likelihood of military defections during a nonviolent conflict? In reviewing various literatures, I identify ten factors that facilitate or obstruct mutiny. I propose that two of these are particularly influential: (1) whether troops receive economic or political benefits from the regime; and (2) whether troops perceive the regime as fragile, based on the international community’s response to the conflict. Specifically, I argue that troops who receive benefits from a regime are more likely to remain loyal while those who receive no such benefits are more likely to defect. However, even the most underprivileged troops are unlikely to defect if they believe that the state is strong enough to withstand a major civilian uprising. Soldiers’ perception of regime strength is partly shaped by whether outside nations support the opposition, thereby weakening the state, or send troops to reinforce the regime’s control. Using a qualitative comparative method, I illustrate these dynamics through an examination of several Arab Spring uprisings: Egypt, where the military sided with civil resisters; Bahrain, where troops remained loyal to the state; and Syria, where the military split. Then, to encourage more research on this topic, I use these three cases to generate additional hypotheses about defections that others can test against a wider set of cases. I conclude with a discussion of the questions that future researchers should explore and the types of methodological approaches that are needed in this field of study.

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