New Wave of Revolutions in the MENA Region

New Wave of Revolutions in the MENA Region PDF

Author: Leonid Issaev

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-11-05

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 3031151356

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book offers a comparative perspective on the new wave of revolutions in the MENA region. Recently, a new wave of revolutions has swept the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, comparable in some respects to the events of the Arab Spring. Revolutionary events have significantly changed the political regimes in Sudan, Algeria and Mali, while Lebanon and Iraq have also witnessed serious revolutionary episodes. Further, a new quality of protests has manifested in Iran, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan. Presenting a variety of country studies, this book identifies similarities and differences between the events of the Arab Spring and the current upheavals in the MENA region and examines their causes and world-system context. It also analyzes the motivating forces, goals and organizational forms of the protesters and other actors involved, as well as the political and economic consequences of these revolutionary events. Moreover, it seeks to understand why some countries that were actively involved in the Arab Spring have remained largely unaffected by these developments. The book appeals to scholars of political science with a focus on comparative politics, Middle Eastern politics and political sociology.

Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century

Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century PDF

Author: Jack A. Goldstone

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-05-19

Total Pages: 1048

ISBN-13: 3030864685

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The 21st century has witnessed a considerable and increasing number of political revolutions around the world. This contradicts the popular belief of many experts in the 1970s that revolutions occurred mainly in monarchies and empires. Instead, the revolutions of this century have several new characteristics, which call for a renewed analysis of the subject. This handbook offers a comparative perspective on the new wave of revolutions of the last decade. Presenting case studies on the color revolutions, the Arab revolutions of 2010–2011, and the global wave of revolutions in 2013–2018 that spanned regions ranging from Africa to the Caucasus, it offers a better understanding of the varied forms, features, and historical backgrounds of revolutions, as well as their causes. Accordingly, it highlights recent revolutions in their historical and world-systems contexts. The handbook is divided into seven parts, the first of which examines the history of views on revolution and important aspects of the theory of revolution. The second part analyzes revolutions within long-term historical trends and in their world-system contexts. In turn, the third part explores specific major revolutionary waves in history. The fourth part analyzes the first revolutionary wave of the 21st century (2000–2009), the so-called color revolutions, while the fifth discusses the second wave – the Arab Spring (2010–2013) – as an important turning point. The sixth part is dedicated to analyzing revolutions and revolutionary movements beyond the Arab Spring and some revolutionary events from the third wave that began in 2018. The seventh and final part offers forecasts on the future of revolutions. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars and students from various disciplines interested in historical trends, sociopolitical change, contentious politics, social movements, and revolutionary processes involving both nonviolent campaigns and political violence. ​"Once again, this volume demonstrates the kind of open-minded, systematic analysis that the field of revolutionary studies requires." (Prof. George Lawson, Department of International Relations, Australian National University Canberra)

Revolution without Revolutionaries

Revolution without Revolutionaries PDF

Author: Asef Bayat

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2017-08-01

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1503603075

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A study of the Arab Spring and its aftermath alongside the revolutions of the 1970s. The revolutionary wave that swept the Middle East in 2011 was marked by spectacular mobilization, spreading within and between countries with extraordinary speed. Several years on, however, it has caused limited shifts in structures of power, leaving much of the old political and social order intact. In this book, noted author Asef Bayat—whose Life as Politics anticipated the Arab Spring—uncovers why this occurred, and what made these uprisings so distinct from those that came before. Revolution without Revolutionaries is both a history of the Arab Spring and a history of revolution writ broadly. Setting the 2011 uprisings side by side with the revolutions of the 1970s, particularly the Iranian Revolution, Bayat reveals a profound global shift in the nature of protest: as acceptance of neoliberal policy has spread, radical revolutionary impulses have diminished. Protestors call for reform rather than fundamental transformation. By tracing the contours and illuminating the meaning of the 2011 uprisings, Bayat gives us the book needed to explain and understand our post–Arab Spring world. Praise for Revolution without Revolutionaries “Bayat is in the vanguard of a subtle and original theorization of social movements and social change in the Middle East. His attention to the lives of the urban poor, his extensive field work in very different countries within the region, and his ability to see over the horizon of current paradigms make his work essential reading.” —Juan Cole, University of Michigan “An astute analyst of the Middle East, Asef Bayat is one of the very few researchers equipped to historicize the region’s contemporary uprisings. In Revolution without Revolutionaries, he deftly and sympathetically employs his own observations of Iran, immediately before and after the 1979 revolution, to reflect on the epochal shifts that have re-worked the political regimes, economic structures, and revolutionary imaginaries across the region today.” —Arang Keshavarzian, New York University “Bayat provocatively questions the Arab Spring’s apparent moderation, tracing its softness to decades of neoliberalism that have undermined the national state and discarded old-fashioned forms of revolutionary violence. This groundbreaking book is not an obituary for the Arab Spring but a hopeful glimpse at its future.” —Olivier Roy, author of The Failure of Political Islam

Oil States in the New Middle East

Oil States in the New Middle East PDF

Author: Kjetil Selvik

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-07-16

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1317498135

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Oil has been central to regime survival for oil states across the Arabian Peninsula and has been at the heart of their attempts to defuse the wave of Arab revolutions. However, in 2011 revolution hit Libya, the most oil dependent regime in the Middle East. The political storm winds that have swept this region have thrown into doubt the resilience of Arab rentier states, and highlight how the political effects of oil vary across the oil producing countries. Oil States in the New Middle East brings together leading experts to critically assess the centrality of oil and the relevance of Rentier State Theory in light of the post-2011 upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa. It combines overall reflections on the political dynamics in oil states with focused case investigations of individual countries. Taking as its starting point the centrality of oil in explanations of regime survival, the book analyses how the oil states have responded to and fared throughout the Arab popular upheavals, resulting in a critical assessment of the continued relevance of Rentier State Theory. While observers have asked how the uprisings varied between oil and non-oil states, this book turns the comparative focus inward, arguing for a more fine-grained understanding of the political effects of oil in different oil producing countries. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Studies, Oil and Politics, as well as Comparative Politics and International Political Economy.

The Coming Revolution

The Coming Revolution PDF

Author: Walid Phares

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-12-07

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1439180490

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

After the 9/11 Commission concluded in 2004 that the U.S. was engaged in a war with terrorists and never realized it, they reasoned that “a failure of imagination” had prevented us from seeing terrorism coming. In effect, Americans were simply unable, or in fact disabled, to fathom that there were people who hated and opposed our democracy with such ferocity. But after billions of dollars and almost a decade fighting a war in the Middle East, will we miss the threat again? With penetrating insight and candor, Walid Phares, Fox News terrorism and Middle East expert and a specialist in global strategies, argues that a fierce race for control of the Middle East is on, and the world’s future may depend on the outcome. Yet not a failure of imagination, but rather, of education has left Americans without essential information on the real roots of the rising Jihadi threat. Western democracies display a dangerous misunderstanding of precisely who opposes democracy and why. In fact, the West ignores the wide and disparate forces within the Muslim world—including a brotherhood against democracy that is fighting to bring the region under totalitarian control—and crucially underestimates the determined generation of youth feverishly waging a grassroots revolution toward democracy and human rights. As terror strikes widen from Manhattan to Mumbai and battlefields rage from Afghanistan to Iraq, many tough questions are left unanswered, or even explored: Where are the anti-Jihadists and the democrats in the Muslim world? Does the Middle East really reject democracy? Do the peoples of the region prefer the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, or Hezbollah over liberals and seculars? And is there really no genuine hope that freedom and democracy can prevail over the Islamist caliphate? Phares explores how the free world can indeed win the conflict with the Jihadists, but he says, not by using the tactics, policies, and strategies it has employed so far. He urges policy makers to first identify the threat and define its ideology, or there will be no victory. The Coming Revolution is a vital corrective step in the world’s war against terrorism and essential reading that clearly and explosively illustrates the untold story of a struggle to determine if the Middle East can at last reach freedom in this century—or if this planet can prevent the otherwise inevitable outcome that could change our social and political landscape forever. The race is on.

The Arab Uprising

The Arab Uprising PDF

Author: Marc Lynch

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2013-01-08

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1610392981

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Barely a year after the self-immolation of a young fruit seller in Tunisia, a vast wave of popular protest has convulsed the Middle East, overthrowing long-ruling dictators and transforming the region's politics almost beyond recognition. But the biggest transformations of what has been labeled as the "Arab Spring" are yet to come. An insider to both American policy and the world of the Arab public, Marc Lynch shows that the fall of particular leaders is but the least of the changes that will emerge from months of unrest. The far-ranging implications of the rise of an interconnected and newly-empowered Arab populace have only begun to be felt. Young, frustrated Arabs now know that protest can work and that change is possible. They have lost their fear -- meanwhile their leaders, desperate to survive, have heard the unprecedented message that killing their own people will no longer keep them in power. Even so, as Lynch reminds us, the last wave of region-wide protest in the 1950s and 1960s resulted not in democracy, but in brutal autocracy. Will the Arab world's struggle for change succeed in building open societies? Will authoritarian regimes regain their grip, or will Islamist movements seize the initiative to impose a new kind of rule? The Arab Uprising follows these struggles from Tunisia and Egypt to the harsh battles of Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and Libya and to the cautious reforms of the region's monarchies. It examines the real meaning of the rise of Islamist movements in the emerging democracies, and the long-term hopes of a generation of activists confronted with the limits of their power. It points toward a striking change in the hierarchy of influence, as the old heavyweights -- Iran, Al Qaeda, even Israel -- have been all but left out while oil-rich powers like Saudi Arabia and "swing states" like Turkey and Qatar find new opportunities to spread their influence. And it reveals how America must adjust to the new realities. Deeply informed by inside access to the Obama administration's decision-making process and first-hand interviews with protestors, politicians, diplomats, and journalists, The Arab Uprising highlights the new fault lines that are forming between forces of revolution and counter-revolution, and shows what it all means for the future of American policy. The result is an indispensible guide to the changing lay of the land in the Middle East and North Africa.

Dispatches from the Arab Spring

Dispatches from the Arab Spring PDF

Author: Paul Amar

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2013-09-01

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 1452940614

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Arab Spring unleashed forces of liberation and social justice that swept across North Africa and the Middle East with unprecedented speed, ferocity, and excitement. Although the future of the democratic uprisings against oppressive authoritarian regimes remains uncertain in many places, the revolutionary wave that started in Tunisia in December 2010 has transformed how the world sees Arab peoples and politics. Bringing together the knowledge of activists, scholars, journalists, and policy experts uniquely attuned to the pulse of the region, Dispatches from the Arab Spring offers an urgent and engaged analysis of a remarkable ongoing world-historical event that is widely misinterpreted in the West. Tracing the flows of protest, resistance, and counterrevolution in every one of the countries affected by this epochal change—from Morocco to Iraq and Syria to Sudan—the contributors provide ground-level reports and new ways of teaching about and understanding the Middle East in general, and contextualizing the social upheavals and political transitions that defined the Arab Spring in particular. Rejecting outdated and invalid (yet highly influential) paradigms to analyze the region—from depictions of the “Arab street” as a mindless, reactive mob to the belief that Arab culture was “unfit” for democratic politics—this book offers fresh insights into the region’s dynamics, drawing from social history, political geography, cultural creativity, and global power politics. Dispatches from the Arab Spring is an unparalleled introduction to the changing Middle East and offers the most comprehensive and accurate account to date of the uprisings that profoundly reshaped North Africa and the Middle East. Contributors: Sheila Carapico, U of Richmond; Nouri Gana, UCLA; Toufic Haddad; Adam Hanieh, SOAS/U of London; Toby C. Jones, Rutgers U; Anjali Kamat; Khalid Medani, McGill U; Merouan Mekouar; Maya Mikdashi, NYU; Paulo Gabriel Hilu Pinto, U Federal Fluminense, Brazil; Jillian Schwedler, Hunter College, CUNY; Ahmad Shokr; Susan Slyomovics, UCLA; Haifa Zangana.

Black Wave

Black Wave PDF

Author: Kim Ghattas

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2020-01-28

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1250131219

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 “[A] sweeping and authoritative history" (The New York Times Book Review), Black Wave is an unprecedented and ambitious examination of how the modern Middle East unraveled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy. With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, once allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region, became mortal enemies after 1979. She shows how they used and distorted religion in a competition that went well beyond geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and encouraging sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the war for cultural supremacy led to Iran’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, the assassination of countless intellectuals, the birth of groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the rise of ISIS. Ghattas introduces us to a riveting cast of characters whose lives were upended by the geopolitical drama over four decades: from the Pakistani television anchor who defied her country’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in jail for indecent writings all the way to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Black Wave is both an intimate and sweeping history of the region and will significantly alter perceptions of the Middle East.

Political Change in the Middle East and North Africa

Political Change in the Middle East and North Africa PDF

Author: Inmaculada Szmolka

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2017-06-29

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1474415296

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Taking a comparative approach, this book considers the ways in which political regimes have changed since the Arab Spring. It addresses a series of questions about political change in the context of the revolutions, upheavals and protests that have taken place in North Africa and the Arab Middle East since December 2010, and looks at the various processes have been underway in the region: democratisation (Tunisia), failed democratic transitions (Egypt, Libya and Yemen), political liberalisation (Morocco) and increased authoritarianism (Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria). In other countries, in contrast to these changes, the authoritarian regimes remain intact (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Arab United Emirates.