CIAO DATE: 11/2013
Volume: 12, Issue: 3
Fall 2013
Prelims The Arab Spring: Comparative Perspectives and Regional Implications (PDF)
The Arab Spring: Comparative Perspectives and Regional Implications
Guest Editor's Note: The End of the Arab Spring? (PDF)
Philipp O. Amour
Guest Editor's Note
Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya: A Comparative Analysis of Causes and Determinants (PDF)
Ufiem Maurice Ogbonnaya
The Arab Spring, a pro-democracy uprising which has been sweeping through North Africa and the entire Arab world since 2010, has been described as a cataclysmic revolutionary wave that has seen the over-throw of numerous political regimes in its wake. This has had great impacts on the political developments and democratic governance in the Arab world in particular and the world in general. Though the political, environmental and socio-economic factors and variables that resulted in and sustained the revolutions in the affected states appear similar in nature, they vary from one country to the other.Using the MO Ibrahim Foundation Index, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index among others on selected indicators, this paper draws a comparative analysis of the key factors and variables that gave rise to the Arab Spring. The paper focuses particularly on the North African countries of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Findings show that the inability of governments in these affected states to respond adequately to the growing demands of political inclusion, good governance, job creation and policies of inclusive growth played fundamental roles in awakening the people’s consciousness, resulting in the revolutions.This paper recommends the institutionalization of participatory and multiparty democracy and the implementation of people-oriented policies such as job creation and the introduction of poverty reduction programmes among others, as a means of sustaining the success of the revolutions.
Ayfer Erdogan
The last two years have witnessed an unexpected series of events unfolding in the Arab World leading us to make comparisons with the fall of Communism in 1989. Developments in the Middle East and North Africa made headway at a rapid pace. The overthrow of governments in Tunisia and Egypt, the civil war in Libya and the ongoing inner conflicts in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen were just as unexpected and stunning as the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. It is ironic that many observers attempting to make sense of these events have chosen the term ‘Arab Spring’ to define this movement, which somehow recalls the Eastern European analogue ‘Prague Spring’ in 1968. Many political scientists and analysts viewed these events taking the fall of Communism as a common point of reference. The Arab Spring is reminiscent of the Eastern European Revolutions in 1989 in many respects, yet a deeper analysis shows that significant similarities are outweighed by key differences. This paper attempts to address the recent wave of democratization which has swept across the Arab world in a comparative context and discuss the similarities and differences between the Arab Spring in 2011 and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.
When Life Imitates Art: The Arab Spring, the Middle East, and the Modern World (PDF)
Sean Foley
What was the intellectual vision that led to the Arab Spring and what are its roots? This article investigates how that vision took shape in the years immediately before the Arab Spring through the work of poets and popular Arab singers like Hamza Namira and Maher Zain. It argues that the vision in art and politics mirrored the desire of many Arabs and Muslims to find new ways to solve the challenges plaguing their societies. The vision also reflected a) how the downturn in the global economy after 2008 combined with major environmental changes to galvanize millions to act in the Arab World b) how social media and new communications tools helped to mobilize dissent and to limit the ability of governments to effectively repress their populations. More than two years after the Arab Spring began in late 2010 the movements it spawned are radically reconstructing societies in the Middle East. They are also undermining some of the basic assumptions of the international system, many of which have been in place since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648
'Blown Away by the Winds Like Ashes:' Biopower in Egypt's #25 Jan and Iraq's 14 Tammuz (PDF)
Elizabeth Bishop
Citizens of the Arab Middle East have taken part in a wave of democracy movements; in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia at least, their protests have resulted in regime change. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s personal experiences in one of these countries, and informed by his concept of “biopolitics,” this essay connects Egyptians’ current liberation struggle with their earlier revolution in 1952, in order to compare these experiences with Iraqis’ 1958 Tammuz revolution. Were new social media as important, as the level of funding dedicated to the military? And what is the role of diplomacy in a revolutionary moment?
Debating the Merits of the "Turkish Model" for Democratization in the Middle East (PDF)
Paul Kubicek
The “Turkish model” has been upheld as a positive example for Middle Eastern countries, particularly in light of the Arab Spring. While Turkey is, in many respects, successful—it has a dynamic economy and in recent years has made great strides toward political liberalization— and the current Turkish government has high standing in the Arab world, this paper will argue that the applicability of a “Turkish model” to other settings is limited. In part, this is due to confusion over what the “Turkish model” precisely is or should be. For many years, the “Turkish model” was taken to be Kemalism, or a statist, authoritarian, secular order imposed “from above” with the goals of modernization and Westernization. More recently, the “Turkish model” would mean embracing a more moderate-type of political Islam, exemplified by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). While the AKP has proven to be successful in Turkey, it came to power in conditions very different than those that prevail in the Arab world at present. In particular, the AKP has evolved to reconcile itself to secularism in Turkey and embraced a program of Europeanization through accession talks with the European Union, an option not on the table in Arab states. Finally, a comparison of the political culture of Turkey with that in much of the Arab world reveals significant differences in values and priorities between the two cases
Moritz Pieper
Turkey’s role in the Iranian nuclear dossier is often portrayed as that of a ‘facilitator’ and ‘mediator’ in scholarly analyses. NATO member Turkey was seen as a potential bridge-builder between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ‘Western camp’ of negotiators. During prime minister Erdoğan’s first legislature, however, Ankara’s and Washington’s foreign policy outlooks and strategic priorities started to diverge in the course of Turkey’s new regional engagement in what has been theorized as a ‘Middle-Easternization’ of Turkish foreign policy. It is Turkey’s location as a geostrategic hub in a politically instable region that informed Turkey’s ‘Zero problems with neighbors’ policy and foreign minister Davutoğlu’s advocacy for a ‘Strategic Depth’ in Turkey’s foreign and regional policies. Ankara emphasizes its need to uphold sound relations with its neighbors and publicly stresses an unwillingness to go along with Western pressure on Iran, and insists on the principle of non-interference and Iran’s right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes. All the same, Turkish-Iranian relations are undergoing a deterioration in the wake of the Syrian civil war at the time of writing, with both sides supporting diametrically opposite causes and factions. Turkish-Iranian fundamentally differing conceptions of regional order will also impact upon Turkey’s leverage power to defuse the Iranian nuclear crisis. This paper therefore adds a timely contribution to our understanding of a multifaceted and nuanced Turkish foreign policy toward Iran that can be a critical complement to ‘Western’ diplomatic initiatives in the search for new paradigms for a new Middle East order.
The 'Arab Spring' and South China Sea Tensions: Analyzing China's Drive to Energy Security (PDF)
Henelito A. Sevilla
The Arab Spring has brought significant changes to the political landscape in many Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries since early 2011. It has also affected the geo strategic and economic interests of powerful emerging Asian states, especially China and other net-energy consuming countries. One immediate result of the Arab Spring is its highly disrupted impact (a ‘ Black Swan’) on the production and supply of crude oil to the economies in Asia due to their high degree of reliance on hydrocarbon from the Middle East. Chinese reactions to Arab Spring have fed tensions between itself and the countries with which it shares the South China Sea, most importantly the Philippines and Vietnam. This paper demonstrates that the black swan effect of the Arab Spring is manifested in the renewal of a geo-strategic competition in the South China Sea as China is re-asserting its historical claims over the control of the area and of its possible hydrocarbon reserves.
Book Review: Iranian and Turkish rapprochement: Damaged by the Arab Spring? (PDF)
Vahit Yucesoy
Thierry Kellner and Mohammad Reza-D.jalili,Iranian and Turkish Rapprochement: Damaged by the Arab Spring? L'Iran et la Turquie face au «printempsarabe»? GRIPS: Bruxelles, 2012, ISBN - 978-2-87291-034-2. Well-researched, and well-documented, L’Iran et la Turquie face au Printemps arabe (Iran and Turkey in the face of the Arab Spring), written by authors Mohammad-Reza Djalili and Thierry Kellner, sets out to analyse the Arab Spring from the vantage point of two major non-Arab powers of the Middle East. Given the shortage of academic books on the reaction of these two major powers to the Arab Spring, the authors’ book comes at a very pertinent time.
Book Review: Change and Opportunities in the Emerging Mediterranean. (PDF)
Hamdy Bashir MohammedAli
Stephen Calleya and Monika Wohlfeld (Eds),Change and Opportunities in the Emerging Mediterranean. Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies, University of Malta, 2012. 495. pp., (ISBN- 978-99957-0-176-5). In Change and Opportunities in the Emerging Mediterranean, the editors Stephen Calleya and Monika Wohlfeld, have succeeded in pulling together outstanding essays on challenges facing the Southern Mediterranean countries in transition to provide insight into policy measures that should be adopted to create a more stable and prosperous future. It is important to note that this book is a collection of essays written by eminent academics from the North African countries that are experiencing change and reform as well as European scholars. They provide important conceptual and methodological insights as they investigate the diverse patterns of political mobilization, the various indigenous traditions of order and governance, and the institutional mechanisms that have shaped the state-making process.