The Arab Spring : The Failing Strive For Democracy

Larry Diamond's presentation explores the question of why there are no Arab democracies in the Middle East and North Africa. He shows us the relatively stagnant levels of democratic freedoms that have been the norm in the region for the past several decades. Diamond gives us a multitude of potential explanations for the absence of a sustainable democracy.

In February 2011, when the Tahrir Square movement forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi became leader and president. Sisi is soft-spoken and very different from the other leaders. Mubarak held his power for almost 30 years. He was overthrown by a revolution that lacked leadership and organizational structure. In June 2012, Egypt’s first democratic Presidential election was won by Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Brotherhood. Morsi didn’t wait for anything, he forced the retirement of the Minister of Defense, along with the leaders of the Navy, the Air Defense, and the Air Force. This move was praised by young Egyptian advocates or opponents, who saw it as a sign that Morsi was determined to reduce the Army’s

The term “Arab Spring” has emerged in academic literature as well as in the general media from about early 2011. It refers to the “awakening” of some Arab nations and the movements to replace authoritarian regimes with democratic ones. The theme of “spring” and “awakening” seems to have been borrowed from the 1989 reform movements in the former Eastern-block nations, such as in the former German Democratic Republic or Hungary. However, this comparison has been criticised by some analysts since both the circumstances which have led to these movements as well as the outcome of these reform efforts seem to differ quite a lot. Yet, the Arab Spring term seems to be still widely used and even found an extension in the creation of the term Arab Winter which refers to events that happened in 2012 in some Arab countries during which these reform movements seemed to have “cooled-off” and particular nations, such as Egypt, attempted to go back to the status-quo of the pre-2011 era.

It is important to note that these two case studies share a number of similarities that are worth pointing about before emphasizing their distinctiveness. Firstly, both the uprisings in Tunisia as well as the Syrian conflict both belong to the arena of collective political action, that is rather than individual acts of political dissent. Secondly, they are employed by organized opposition movements representing an oppressed minority of the disempowered majority, engaged against the unjust action of the state and institutionalized violence they exert. Thirdly, each operate outside the bound of conventional political channels such that they are non-institutional. Arguably, the most important similar factor is that the both belong to the larger

In this video, Richard Haass, the President of the council on foreign relations discusses the reasoning behind the fail of the Arab Spring. He starts by saying that despite the strong protests made by civilians, they had no one to put into power. They did not have any specific candidate or any candidates at all to lead them if the Arab Spring were to succeed. He also adds that part of the failure of the Arab Spring was due to the fact that protesters did not look into the future. Many protests were not strong enough to overthrow dictators and their autocratic regimes which led more and more people dead. Terror groups like ISIS began to form and other older militia groups such as Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and Hamas began to gain more

In early 2011 the world watched as Egypt’s youth revolted against their abusive president, Muhammed Hosni El Sayed Mubarak. This revolution sparked much political and social debate around the world, about what was next for the Egyptians. With the ousting of Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood saw it’s chance to run for political power and therefore began their campaign. Before looking at the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in the 2011 Revolution and the elections that would follow, their moderation as an Islamist organization must be examined. In order to do so, this paper will examine to what extent did the Muslim Brotherhood Moderate from the 1980’s-2000’s?

A revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (both violent and non-violent), riots, and civil wars in the Arab World that began on 18 December 2010, later gained the heading “The Arab spring”. The Arab spring began by a twenty six year old boy named Mohammed Bouazizi was getting ready to sell fruits and vegetables in a rural town of Sidi Bouzid Tunisia. Bouazizi was the primary supporter for his widowed mother and six of his siblings. The entire incident originated when the police officer asked bouazizi to hand over his wooden cart, he refused the police women allegedly slapped him after being publicly humiliated bouazizi marched in front of a government building and set himself on fire. The Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, the shock wave swept across the country which threatened the stability of this oil-rich region with repercussion felt internationally. After the world witnessed what happened in Tunisia, it caused a spilled over into most of the Arab countries. Such as Egypt, Libya Syria and Yemen. Aim of this paper is to show that the current situation corollary of decades of failed policies, exacerbated by an unsolicited foreign intervention. The extensive consequences, I will argue, require cautious attention and careful management from international communities as well as the Arab human rights committee. This paper seeks to explore the profound causes that prompted the so called “Arab awakening” and the covert hidden agenda behind the sudden pro democratic

In late 2010, a Tunisian named Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest against the poor economic situation in which he was living (CNN, 2011). Other Tunisians soon took the opportunity to resist their government and possible overthrow the leadership of Ben Ali. They took it as their responsibility to fight for the common good. Simple demonstration against the Tunisian government soon went ahead to an extent that Ben Ali had to leave the country. The events that followed the departures of the Tunisian president were the least expected. The revolts in Tunisia spurred citizens of other Arab nations to revolt against their governments. By the end of the years 2011, the Arab spring had claimed the presidency of three long serving presidents and

With the escalation of protests that would mark the so-called Arab Spring, Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad responded not just through brute force but also by the raising of the salaries of the public servants, the cancellation of subsidy cuts, the waiving of fees and the allowance of illegal building (Syria Report 28 March, 3 and 4 April 2011). In this response one can see one element that the regime has deployed in its quest for survival that of the deployment of patronage to which many would claim that the Syrian regime would bribe their own people so as to remain in power. Though one can see this as a desperate attempt of a dying regime, this may more of an oversimplification. What would be noted that this form deployed here would be considered Patronage or Clientalism which more than just a survival mechanism, it is the normal aspect of conferring legitimacy upon a regime that rules in a corporate manner with little appetite for representative government. In this system of governance, the state is more or less detached from the public at large and is mainly tied through an elite group that would support the activities of the state machinery, because of this lack of legitimacy the trust between the communities are insufficient and to win this trust the ruler would engage in an activity called Clientalism in which he would reward a certain group in exchange for support. Such a system is prevalent in a majority of authoritarian states, especially Syria,

The Syrian Uprising is indeed a puzzle. After both Egyptians and Tunisians overthrew their respective dictators, an uprising in Syria was still contrary to many experts and analysts' beliefs; it was predicted that Syrians would not follow the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt due to the lack of "structures that could enable people to organize themselves and rally others" (Abdulhamid, 2011). One of these scholars was David Lesch, a Professor of Middle East History at Trinity University who is claimed to know Assad better than any other Westerner. He asserts in his book, Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad, that after the Syrians failed to mobilize in the following weeks of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, this seemed "to confirm the almost universal predictions of analyst, commentators, diplomats and scholars (including this one) that the Arab Spring would not come to Syria any time soon or in any significant way" (2012, 54). However, on March 25, 2011, large demonstrations in Syria spread nation-wide. In response, President Bashar al-Assad mobilized his coercive apparatus and repressed against the protestors. After months of repressive means against protestors, parts of the Syrian military left to join the opposition movement, and which created the present situation in Syria, a civil war. For scholars of the Syrian Uprising, it seems thus critical to ask two questions. First, what were the underlying factors that initially demanded an uprising in Syria? Second, what

Another prominent cause of the Arab Spring in Egypt was the corruption in the government run by Mubarak. One of the best examples of Mubarak’s corruption was the use of emergency law. For his entire almost 30-year reign, Mubarak ruled through emergency law. Under emergency law, Mubarak could censor all publications, search and tap phone, mail, and Internet use, and arrest people without a trial, or through secret trials. (Tristam, 2013) All political meetings also had to be preapproved by him before they took place. Demonstrations in the streets were also illegal. Many members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak’s main opposition, were arrested for no apparent reason. Human rights organizations estimated that between 5000 and 10000 people

The Arab Spring refers to the revolts that arose independently and spread through the Arab country in 2011. The origin of these uprisings was in Tunisia late in the year 2010 and spread to other nations in the Arab world like Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The Middle East commonly considered to be the hot-spot for tensions and instabilities. The Arab spring increased the level of tension in the states with several implications on the region’s security. The events of the Arab Spring lasted for three years. According to Elfatih Abdel Salam (119), the Arab Spring has led to changes in the Middle East as well as exacerbate other problems. Early 2011, the Arab awakening commenced where cataclysmic events of the Arab Spring initiated. Among the changes that arose because of the Arab Spring was regional security. Hence, the essence of this paper is to appraise the impacts on security.

Much of the modern political Arab world was born at the end of World War I, as outside powers divided up their shares of territories that were loyal to their regimes. For example, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon came to exist along side the precarious state of Palestine. By World War II, these states had begun to want independence, and the following decades would witness revolution, regime change, violence, and, ultimately, a break from the grips of the Ottoman Empire and European powers (Provence). Today, the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings, ongoing now for several years, are in part as a result of mid-20th-century political rule and administration by outside powers.

According to Cleveland, the concept of ‘upheval and renewal’ can be considered a common feature for the countries in the Middle East in the 1970s. After the formation of independent states, one can notice a general tendence in Arab republics towards the consolidation of their power. This essay aims at comparing and contrasting this process in Egypt and Syria starting from 1970, year in which both countries saw the coming into power of new leaders, Anwar Sadat and Hafiz Al-Asad, and a subsequent change from the previous regime’s policies. Given the shortage of space and the complexity of the matter, the focus will be only on the most evident aspects of authoritarian power consolidation under those two leaders without going too much into

Over the last century, the Middle East has been the location of ethnic rivalry, political and economic instability, religious conflict, territorial dispute and war. Much of this tension in the Middle East comes from the various interpretations of Islam and how the religion should be applied to politics and society. Over the last ten years, the United States and their allies have pushed to promote democracy in the Middle East. However, they too have many obstacles they must overcome. They face problems such as the compatibility of Islamic law and democracy, the issue of women’s rights, and there is always the problem of how to go about implementing a democratic reform in these countries. Many initially would assume that it is only the