The Arab Uprisings that began in 2010 removed four presidents and made more mobilized mass publics an increased factor in the politics of regional states. The main initial problematic of the Arab Uprising was how to translate mass protest into democratization and ultimately democratic consolidation; yet four years later, there was little democratization. This book explores various aspects of this question while, comparing outcomes in three states, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia. The introduction by Raymond Hinnebusch explores how far different starting points —the features of the regime and of the uprising--explain these pathways. Morten Valbjørn then considers the consequences of the Arab uprisings for the credibility of rival democratization and post-democratization paradigms. Vincent Durac examines the efficacy of anti-system social movements in challenging regimes but their inability to steer a democratic transition. Joshua Stacher examines the increased violence deployed by more conercive authoritarian regimes to prevent such a transition. Frede ́ric Volpi and Ewan Stein examine the conseuences of the relative balance between different kinds of Islamists for outcomes. James Allison then examines the impact of workers’ movements on democratic potentials. Adham Saouli assesses the mobilization of communal identities by ruling elites and counter-elites. Raymond Hinnebusch focuses on the negative impact on democratization of competitive external interference inside the uprising states. In Hinnebusch’s conclusion, the combined effects of the agency of these forces and the political, cultural, and economic contexts in which they operate are summarized. This book was previously published as a special issue of Democratization.

A holistic and cross-disciplinary approach to understanding why a regional democratic transition did not occur after the Arab Spring protests, this accessible study highlights the salience of regime type, civil society, women's mobilizations, and external intervention across seven countries for undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars.

Gathering field work from almost twenty countries along with in-depth analysis and case studies, Religious Radicalism after the Arab Uprisings explores how radical groups, governments, and publics have responded to the Arab uprisings of 2011 and how conflicts that many thought were coming to an end are likely to continue indefinitely. Leading experts from the Center for Strategic & International Studies explore how radical groups have combined techniques learned from more liberal counterparts with a simultaneous decline in police capacity to construct an effective threat against established powers. The book also examines how governments have responded to unprecedented challenges to their authority by attacking a wide range of religiously inspired groups. It concludes that to face the current threats, governments need analyze the effectiveness of existing tools, discarding those that are outdated and adopting the new strategies to counter the ever-mounting radical presence.

By examining a range of policy areas, this book aims to assess and qualify the claim that EU policies towards the Arab Mediterranean after the uprisings are predominantly marked by continuity with the past. This is attributed to the fact that the EU still acts with the aim of maximising its own security by preserving stability in the region. The book explores how security, stability and the link between them – the security-stability nexus – are better understood as the master frame shaping the EU’s approach towards the Southern Mediterranean and how this affects policy enactment. The book shows that the security-stability nexus has at least been reframed in the wake of the uprisings, but also that more change has occurred in the redefinition of the master frame than in its actual enactment. The framing and reframing of the security-stability nexus, before and after the Arab uprisings, depends on the policy area under consideration, the variety of actors involved, and the forms of their involvement. This is also crucially because of the different disposition towards the EU of prominent actors in Arab Mediterranean partner countries, which points towards the EU’s increasing difficulties to achieve its goals in its near abroad. This book was originally published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

The Arab uprisings of 2011 have sparked much scholarly discussion with regards to democratisation, the resilience of authoritarian rule, mobilisation patterns, and the relationship between secularism and Islam, all under the assumption that politics has changed for good in North Africa and the Middle East. While acknowledging the post-2011 transformations taking place in the region, this book brings to the forefront an understudied, yet crucial, aspect related to the uprisings, namely the interplay between continuity and change. Challenging simplified representations built around the positions that either ‘all has changed’ or ‘nothing has changed’, the in-depth case studies in this volume demonstrate how elements both of continuity, and rupture with the past, are present in the post-uprising landscapes of Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. Public policy, contentious politics, the process of institution making and re-making, and the relations of power connecting national and international economies are at the core of the comparative investigations included in the book. The volume makes an important contribution to the study of North African politics, and to the study of political change and stability, by contrasting the different trajectories of the uprisings, and by offering theoretical reflections on their meaning, consequences and scope. This book was originally published as a special issue of the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

This book presents an in-depth exploration of the impact of the Arab Uprisings on the relationship between constructions of (in)security, narratives of threat and patterns of socio-political change within the Middle East and North Africa region. It also offers insights into the study of regional security and the operation of threat perceptions.

This book identifies the differences in growth and development, and the various factors lying behind them, across both Middle East and North African (MENA) and East Asian countries over the 1960‒2020 period. It considers a very wide range of factors, compares initial situations, institutions, and government policies, the dynamic responses to changing circumstances, and discusses the inability of the governments of the MENA region to achieve not only political reform, but also the kinds of economic reform that would allow their citizens to prosper in an increasingly globalized world. The book focuses on Tunisia. Since its independence in 1956 until 2010, Tunisia had considerable success relative to many other MENA countries, but was somewhat less successful relative to East Asian countries. Since 2010, however, while transitioning away from autocracy to democracy, it has been in rather serious economic decline. The book highlights how both the factors identified as enabling Tunisia’s initial success and those leading to its subsequent decline can provide many useful insights for improving the management of economic development across the whole MENA region and perhaps also to developing countries throughout the world.

"Have Arab uprisings opened space for deeper, grassroots-driven decentralization reforms in the region? What are the optimum designs, sequencing and models of decentralization for countries in political transition? While political discourse in the region uniformly emphasizes reforming State institutions, decentralization reform agendas have unfolded along contrasting trajectories across Arab transition countries. Both contextual and historical dynamics seem to shape visions for the orientation and pace of decentralization reforms as well as the empirical feasibility of shifting power relations among the various tiers of State administration. Drawing on findings from field research and recent analyses, this study argues that uprisings have created stronger momentum for revisiting the question of decentralization reforms in Libya and Yemen, where the very nature of the State is being redefined, compared to the cases of Egypt and Tunisia, where all stakeholders agree on preserving the unitary State model. In the latter cases, while there is evidence that new advocacy movements focused on reforming local government structures have emerged, they have thus far remained elite-led. Grassroots activism at local community levels has served to empower new actors, who, in some cases, have been successful at extracting concessions from local authorities. These efforts, however, predominantly focus on improving access to public services within the existing context of centralized State structures, and seem often to have failed to gain the trust of local community members as potential partners in local governance. Building on focus group discussions among working-class residents in Greater Cairo and on interviews with Egyptian political elites, the study highlights an emerging critical gap between youth expectations and, on the other hand, the envisioned plans of the political elite. While youth are more likely to demand deeper reforms across all three dimensions of decentralization (administrative, fiscal and political), political elites disagree not only on which particular dimension(s) of reforms should be implemented, but also on the urgency of decentralization during early phases of political transformation. The latter's wide range of views reflect deep concerns over political capture by traditional elites, weakness of political parties as well as potentially detrimental impacts of reforms on State capacity and the nation-State's territorial integrity. The study concludes by drawing lessons from France's successful contract-based record of decentralization and presents policy recommendations for countries that have emerged from the Arab uprisings with relatively strong centralized State structures and cohesive national identities."--Publisher's description.