Author: Michele Dunne
Affiliation: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Organization/Publisher: Journal of Democracy
Date/Place: January 2020, Washington DC, USA
Type of Literature: Journal Article
Number of Pages: 12
Link: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/745964/pdf
Keywords: Arab Spring, North Africa, Nile Valley, Democracy, Military
Brief:
The Arab Uprising since 2011 is a result of suppression by tyrannical regimes over their masses. It was economic deprivation, social dispossession and lack of political freedom that motivated and instigated the Arab youth to stand against decade-long oppression. The author analyzes the Arab Spring as a continuous process with several intervals due to the consequences of revolution in Egypt, Yemen and Syria. Not only are the masses of the Middle East inspired by events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria but also the uprisings have spilled over to North Africa where the public in Algeria and Sudan tries to get rid of the status-quo. The Youth Bulge in the Arab world is also one of the factors that is provoking the masses to revolt against despotic policies of authoritarian regimes. The masses in Algeria and Sudan also protested against the dictatorial rule of Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Omar al-Bashir respectively, but the setup that has been established afterwards is not democratic. The author observes that during these revolutionary movements, the flexibility expressed from within the authoritarian status-quo sometimes proved as a trap. The author concludes that masses in Algeria and Sudan stayed on streets much longer than the revolutionaries of 2011 because the transitional setup in these States is not according to popular aspiration.
By: Muhammad Taimoor Bin Tanveer, CIGA Research Associate