Arab Spring

Arab Spring emerged as a wave of pro-democracy protests and uprisings that took place in the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2010 and 2011, challenging some of the region’s authoritarian regimes. 

In December 2010, Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest outside a government office in the little-known town of Sidi Bouzid. In a matter of days, his act of defiance set off a revolutionary movement.

Arab Spring hot spots—Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen

Reasons Behind the Arab Spring

• Push for dignity and human rights. Along with this religious tensions also played a significant role such as in Egypt and Tunisia.
• Deep Sectarian Divisions helped give rise to the anti-government movements in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen.
• Mideast struggled financially due to declining oil prices, high unemployment, and corruption among political elites who thrived at the expense of ordinary citizens, among other reasons.
• Poverty rates were high, especially in rural areas.
• Many of the uprisings were led by students and other young people frustrated by government corruption and the lack of economic opportunities.
• The internet and social media were vital tools for mobilizing Arab Spring protesters and documenting some government injustices.
• Some countries, such as Tunisia, have attempted to respond to protesters’ calls for better governance, including by creating anticorruption agencies and new laws to protect whistleblowers.
• Gender equality was not a primary focus of the Arab Spring, but women took leading roles in the protests despite the threat of gender based violence.

Impacts

• Arab Spring, produced modest political, social, and economic gains for some of the region’s inhabitants. But they also sparked horrific and lasting violence, mass displacement, and worsening repression in parts of the region.
• Only Tunisia made a lasting shift to democracy, whereas Egypt backslid, and Libya, Syria, and Yemen spiraled into protracted civil wars.
• In no country has the standard of living significantly improved since the revolutions, and it has even declined in conflict-ravaged areas.
• Youth unemployment in the region remains the highest in the world and has worsened in several countries.
• In the years since, countries such as Egypt have tightened their grip on cyberspace by restricting social media access, enacting laws that facilitate censorship, and jailing people over their anti-government posts online. Only Tunisia has increased internet freedom, particularly by protecting free expression and the press under its 2014 constitution.
• Many governments have moved aggressively to suppress any criticism in the media, and foreign and local journalists are more likely to be imprisoned, killed, or have their work censored than their peers in most other regions of the world. Egypt has become one of the world’s top jailers of journalists since President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi took power in 2013.
• Over the last decade, some countries have seen slight increases in female representation in government, but generally the region has done little to improve the status of women. Still, in countries including Egypt and Tunisia, women are speaking out more against injustices they face.

Arab Spring and International Relations

Stephen M. Walt theorizes that revolution in one country is not just disruptive of international relations, but can lead to interstate war. The French Revolution was soon followed by a war that spanned the continent of Europe. The 1917 Russian Revolution was soon followed by the involvement of several countries in the Russian civil war as well as a war between Russia and Poland in 1920. The 1949 Chinese Revolution was followed by the Korean War in 1950. And the 1979 Iranian Revolution was soon followed by the Iran- Iraq War of 1980-88.

Two of the “great revolutions” of the past — in eighteenth-century France and twentieth-century Russia — were especially disruptive of international relations. They brought to power in significant countries regimes that threatened the status quo elsewhere, both by their own actions and by inspiring rebellion in other countries.

Contrary to this Arab Spring revolutions that have succeeded in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen have had a remarkably non-disruptive impact on international relations.

There has so far been more continuity than change in their alliance patterns. For Example, Before its January 2011 revolution, Tunisia was not formally part of a military alliance with a Western state, but was generally aligned with America, Europe and the Arab states friendly toward them.