Abstract

Several years after the Arab Spring began, democracy remains elusive in the Middle East. The Arab Spring that resides in the popular imagination is one in which a wave of mass mobilization swept the broader Middle East, toppled dictators, and cleared the way for democracy. The reality is that few Arab countries have experienced anything of the sort. While Tunisia made progress towards some type of constitutionally entrenched participatory rule, the other countries that overthrew their rulers (Egypt, Yemen, and Libya) remain mired in authoritarianism and instability. Elsewhere in the Arab world uprisings were suppressed, subsided or never materialized.

Citation

Masoud, Tarek, Jason Brownlee, and Andrew Reynolds. The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform. Oxford University Press, 2015.