Nº. 109. Post-Arab Spring Scenarios: the Actors and Dynamics of Change

Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, nº 109
Quadrimestral (January-abril 2015)
ISSN:1133-6595 | E-ISSN:2013-035X

"Post-Arab Spring Scenarios: the Actors and Dynamics of Change"

Scientific Coordinator: Inmaculada Szmolka

More than four years have passed since the events of the so-called Arab Spring. At the time the social unrest broke out in North Africa and the Middle East various analysts and academics spoke of a new "wave of democratisation". However, rather than a wave of democratisation, a "wave of political change", confined to the region, has had highly diverse effects on the nature of the Arab regimes. Of the democratic transitions that began in 2011, only in Tunisia has a democratic regime been established, while in Egypt authoritarianism has grown, and the current situations in Yemen and Libya make them ungovernable. Other Arab countries have embarked upon processes of political liberalisation that have also failed to significantly alter the authoritarian nature of power. This monograph analyses the real democratic scope of these political transformations via the analysis of various countries and areas of change.