Arab Spring and its Legacies

Satraachee, Issue 24, Vol. 36, No. 4, July - September,, 2022

The Arab Spring began in late 2010 and marked a turning point in West Asia and North Africa (WANA). Triggered by widespread frustration over economic hardship, political repression, and social inequality, the uprisings spread like wildfire across the region, toppling long-standing regimes, destabilizing others, and fuelling hopes for democratic reforms. Ten years later, the legacy of the Arab Spring is mixed. Some countries experienced transformative change, while others descended into chaos or returned to authoritarianism. Therefore, this research paper examines the political landscape of the WANA region after 10 years of the Arab Spring including failed revolutions, entrenched authoritarianism, civil wars, shifting alliances, Iran-Saudi rivalry and intensified the U.S-Russia involvement.

Journal of Globalization Studies, 2024

There is no doubt that the Arab Spring triggered a global wave of social and political destabilization which significantly exceeded the scale of the Arab Spring itself and affected all the world-system zones, including Asian countries.2 The analysis suggests that in the Asian region there were two waves of destabilization caused by the Arab Spring. The first started in 2011 and included a series of mostly peaceful protests, which had some features similar to the Middle Eastern revolutions in their organizational forms and communication methods. The second wave, in turn, took place in 2012–2014, when protest movements in Asia began to follow their own path, adding local discontent to their agenda. It was also connected with a sharp increase in terrorist activity in the Middle East, due to the weakening of several authoritarian governments and the emergence of consolidated terrorist organizations. Some Islamist groups in some Muslim-majority Asian countries, in their turn, pledged allegiance to these organizations (first of all, to ISIS/Daesh). Terrorist activity spread from the Arab world to Asia through various channels: the internationalization of jihadist ideas by militarized groups; ISIS propaganda on the Internet; refugees and jihadists returning to the region from the battlefields of the Arab World.

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies , 2018

The Arab world (and the MENA region in general) tends to be perceived as a zone of instability where various wars, violent conflicts, and other upheavals are likely. 1 The protests and revolutions of 2011, known as the "Arab Spring," fit quite well into the stormy history of this region (e.g., Grinin & Korotayev, 2016a, 2016b; Korotayev et al., 2016). However, from the 1980s, the region had seemed to settle into a period of stable authoritarianism. After decades of political hibernation (Gardner, 2011), one could hardly fail to be impressed by the unexpectedness and energy of the social explosion, the enormous geographic scope of the Arab Spring "from the Ocean to the Gulf" (e.g., Mirskiy, 2011), the synchronicity of the "color revolutions" and social protests, and the prevalence in 2011 of sociopolitical (rather than interethnic or interconfessional) motifs. The upheavals and protests involved more than a dozen Arab countries, including 1 On the revolutionary events in the MENA region in the 1950s-1990s see Chapter "Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century" (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

Journal of Islamic Studies, 2014

More than four years after the so-called "Arab Spring" began, headlines across most of the Middle East seem depressingly retro. The United States is fighting Sunni extremists in Iraq. Activists imprisoned for peacefully protesting a repressive government in Egypt are on hunger strike. Gazans are digging out from the most recent Israeli bombardment. People from Morocco to Oman face poor job prospects and rising living costs. In 2011, people in the region argued over which dictator would be the next to fall. Today, activists breathe a sigh of relief when colleagues are released from prison on bail, even if they still face farcical trials. The sole bright spot is Tunisia, where despite setbacks , a genuine political (if not yet social) transition continues. Both because of the depressing nature of current events and the ease with which they overwhelm, Dispatches from the Arab Spring: Understanding the New Middle East1 2 offers a head-clearing experience. Reading it is a bit like looking at a wedding album amidst divorce proceedings. It's a reminder of 1 Carolyn Barnett is a Fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 2 Paul Amar and Vijay Prashad (eds.), Dispatches from the Arab Spring: Understanding the New Middle East (Minneapolis, m n : University of Minnesota Press, 2013).

A new political geography has emerged in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) after the Arab Spring. The transformative impact of the popular upheavals appeared to put an end to longterm authoritarian regimes. Today, the region is far from stable since authoritarian resilience violently pushed back popular demands for good governance and is pushing to restore former state structures. However, the collective consciousness of the popular revolts endures, and a transformative prospect may emerge on the horizon. The chaotic situation is the result of an ongoing struggle between those who seek change and transformation and others in favour of the status quo ante. A critical evaluation of the Arab Spring after five years indicates a continuous process of recalculation and recalibration of policies and strategies. There are alternative routes for an eventual settlement in the MENA region, which are in competition against both regional and transregional quests for a favourable order.

Arab Spring is known as the series of protests and demonstrations ranging from political unrest to civil war across the Middle East and North Africa including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria. The protests have met violent responses from public authorities, progovernment militias and counter-demonstrators. The demonstrators used the social media to organize, communicate and raise awareness. Numerous factors such as dictatorship or absolute monarchy, government corruption, human rights violations, economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty etc have led to the protests. Living standards and literacy rates have raised, availability of higher education has increased and the social movements have been more active in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Syria or elsewhere in the region of Middle East and North Africa. The tension between rising aspirations and the lack of government reforms may have been a driving factor of Arab Spring. Arab Spring has a long term effect on the countries which are economically dependent on Middle Eastern and North African Countries. Bangladesh is one of them. It has registered a 5 to 6 percent rate of annual growth since the mid-1990s. It has made important progress in the areas of primary education, population control and the reduction of hunger. However, the recent phenomenon of Arab Spring causes serious threat for Bangladesh in labor market, international trade as well as flow of remittance. This paper, based on general review of literature such as relevant journals, articles, newspapers and secondary statistics, attempts to pinpoint the causes and consequences of Arab Spring.

The mass protests against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East from December 2010 onwards, known as the Arab Spring, found some resonance in the Southeast Asian region. We will look more closely at the relationship of the Arabellions with demonstrations in Indonesia and Malaysia.