tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/arab-spring-594/articlesArab Spring – The Conversation2024-02-28T19:14:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2211162024-02-28T19:14:56Z2024-02-28T19:14:56Z‘If we burn … then what?’ A new book asks why a decade of mass protest has done so little to change things<p>In 2010, in response to ongoing ill-treatment by police, a fruit vendor performed an act of self-immolation in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. This set off an uprising that led to the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/1/14/remembering-the-day-tunisias-president-ben-ali-fled">removal of dictator Ben Ali</a> and a process to rewrite the constitution in a democratic direction. </p>
<p>Inspired by this, huge demonstrations against police brutality erupted in Egypt, centred in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the protesters calling for the removal of the country’s president, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/hosni-mubarak-legacy-of-mass-torture/">Hosni Mubarak</a>. </p>
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<p><em>If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution – Vincent Bevins (Hachette)</em></p>
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<p>These events catalysed what Vincent Bevins calls the “mass protest decade”. The years from 2010 to 2020 saw a record number of protests around the world seeking to transform societies in broadly progressive ways. Many groups were inspired by democratic ideals. </p>
<p>These protests were truly global. Those in Tunisia and Egypt became part of the wider uprising that came to be called the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/jan/25/how-the-arab-spring-unfolded-a-visualisation">Arab Spring</a>”. </p>
<p>In 2013, the <em><a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/brazilian-free-fare-movement-mpl-mobilizes-against-fare-hikes-2013">Movimento Passe Livre</a></em> (MPL) or “Free Fare Movement” led to mass protests in Brazil. Initially directed against rises in transport fares, they rapidly expanded to include an unwieldy and contradictory set of groups and grievances. </p>
<p>Many other protests sprang up, including Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2014, dubbed the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/30/-sp-hong-kong-umbrella-revolution-pro-democracy-protests">umbrella movement</a>” in their first phase by the global press. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whatever-happened-to-the-arab-spring-10973">Whatever Happened to the 'Arab Spring'? </a>
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<h2>From bad to worse</h2>
<p>In his new book <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/vincent-bevins/if-we-burn-the-mass-protest-decade-and-the-missing-revolution-as-good-as-journalism-gets">If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution</a>, Bevins starts by asking “how is it possible that so many mass protests apparently led to the opposite of what they asked for?” </p>
<p>The answer he provides is suggested in the book’s title, which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If5w78BrmT4">he expands</a> as: “If we burn … then what?” </p>
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<p>Aiming to make sense of the significant role of mass protest across the decade, Bevins focuses on countries where the protest movements were so large that the existing government was either seriously destabilised or dislodged: Bahrain, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Hong Kong, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine and Yemen. His book explores why movements failed to achieve their goals and why, in many cases, things got decidedly worse. </p>
<p>In Egypt, for example, the Mubarak regime ended up being replaced by the even worse <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/egypts-sisi-authoritarian-leader-with-penchant-bridges-2023-12-08/">El-Sisi dictatorship</a>. In Brazil, the leftist-led protests ended up undermining the progressive government led by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dilma-Rousseff">Dilma Rousseff</a>, when groups on the right adopted similar tactics, media strategies, and anti-establishment and anti-corruption rhetoric. What ensued led to the impeachment of President Rousseff and the rise to power of far-right demagogue <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Jair_Bolsonaro">Jair Bolsonaro</a>.</p>
<p>For a significant part of the mass protest decade, Bevins was based in Sao Paulo as the Brazil correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. In If We Burn, he draws on his extensive experience as a journalist, as well as his academic background. He has travelled around the world and conducted over 200 interviews in 12 countries, which he has woven into an interesting narrative history. </p>
<p>His particular focus is on the activists who conceived and enacted the protest movements. Bevins covers their experiences at the time and, later in the book, what they came to understand about the events that unfolded, and their advice for future activists. He also engages with others, such as politicians and journalists, and draws on the work of social and political theorists. </p>
<p>The narrative is slanted towards his Brazilian home base. Bevins was there to witness the Free Fare Movement and the waves of mass protest it unleashed. Caught up in the action, he experienced, among other things, tear gassing. His colleague Giuliana Vallone was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.</p>
<p>Vallone found her picture “flying through social networks”. Her image was used as a part of the Brazilian media’s reframing of the protests from broadly bad (leftist troublemakers) to broadly good (nationalists and patriots). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Journalist Guiliana Vallone was hit in the eye with a rubber bullet during the Free Fare Movement protests in Brazil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6QVLE8PQJ8">YouTube</a></span>
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<p>The effect of this reframing illustrates the power of dominant news media. As Bevins argues, media narratives shaped how the decades’ protests were viewed around the world, but they also shaped the configuration of the protests in real time, influencing who showed up, and why.</p>
<p>The reframing turbo-charged popular support for the mass protests across Brazil – but not in ways that aligned with the goals of the originators of the protests, which were taken over by an assortment of better organised right-wing groups, including proto-Bolsonaristas. </p>
<p>In a classic right-wing tactic, one group – the <em><a href="https://reason.com/2016/10/15/free-brazil/">Movimento Brasil Livre</a></em> (MBL) or “Free Brazil Movement” – even appropriated the originators’ name. “In Brazilian Portuguese,” Bevins notes,“‘MBL’ sounds nearly identical to ‘MPL’.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-bolsonaro-failed-to-overthrow-democracy-and-why-a-threat-remains-223498">Why Bolsonaro failed to overthrow democracy – and why a threat remains</a>
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<h2>International solidarity</h2>
<p>On June 13, 2013, while being tear gassed, the crowd in Sao Paulo chanted “love is over – Turkey is here”. They were referring to the ongoing repression of protesters in Turkey, whose <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2019/10/24/legacy-of-gezi-protests-in-turkey-pub-80142">occupation of Gezi Park</a>, next to Taksim Square in Istanbul, began as a protest against the park’s redevelopment, but became a focal point for wider discontentment with the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.</p>
<p>Bevins posts the words on Twitter and is stunned to see them go viral. He receives a flood of images and messages in response. Signs pop up in Gezi Park over the following weeks reading “the whole world is Sao Paulo” and “Turkey and Brazil are one”. </p>
<p>The story exemplifies a new type of international solidarity. Facilitated by the speed of social networking sites, digitally mediated mass protests in significant public places, often squares, emulated the Tahrir Square “model”. </p>
<p>The global protests extended from Taksim Square and Gezi Park in Turkey, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/12/occupy-wall-street-10-years-on">Zuccotti Park and Occupy Wall St</a> in the United States, to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-13551878">Plaza del Sol in Spain</a> and the <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/euro-maidan-revolution/">“Euromaidan” protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>Bevins emphasises that these protests tended to share certain features: they were “digitally coordinated … horizontally structured … apparently leaderless … apparently spontaneous”. </p>
<p>He describes this phenomenon as a “repertoire of contention”. It involved a certain “recipe of tactics” that became largely taken for granted as the “natural way to respond to social injustice”. </p>
<h2>Repertoire of contention</h2>
<p>During the protest decade, this “repertoire of contention” was more successful than expected. It often put so many people on the streets that it gave protesters real political leverage. They were suddenly in a position where they could make demands and extract reforms from the political establishment. In some cases, they generated “revolutionary situations” where they might potentially take power themselves. </p>
<p>But this type of protest is, as Bevins observes, “very poorly equipped” to take advantage of the kinds of destabilisation or “revolutionary” situations that they create. In such situations, groups must either enter the ensuing power vacuum or use their leverage to negotiate with the establishment. The problem was that to do this effectively required the type of representation and organisation that had become almost impossible. </p>
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<span class="caption">Vincent Bevins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_by_Best_Wishes.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>On one hand, Bevins says this was due to the “material conditions” existing before the popular explosions. In the North African dictatorships, for example, unions and alternative political parties had been severely weakened or suppressed. As such, the protests took the “horizontal” form characteristic of the decade.</p>
<p>But in countries with democracies, however imperfect – Brazil and Chile, for example – there were unions and alternative political parties. The horizontal nature of the protests there tended to be driven by an ideological commitment to “horizontalism”. </p>
<p>The ideal was a form of radical participatory democracy, emerging from left-libertarian and anarchist traditions, in which “everyone is equal”. Hierarchy is eschewed, as is any type of enduring formal structure of leaders or spokespeople. As the anthropologist and activist David Graeber wrote: “It is about creating and enacting horizontal networks instead of top-down structures like states, parties or corporations.”</p>
<p>Bevins reports that, at crucial moments, due to their lack of organisation and structure, key actors often replicated tactics they had learned beforehand. Their “repertoire” left them ill-prepared for both the challenges and opportunities that arose.</p>
<p>An unprecedented, technologically facilitated sense of solidarity and inspiration flowed around the world, but it happened so quickly that it led to the “cutting and pasting” of approaches into different national contexts. “Transfer of solidarity” became bound up with “transfer of tactics”. </p>
<p>This meant, in particular, that the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alter-globalization">alter-globalisation</a>” movement, conceived in the democratic context of North America, had a disproportionate influence, creating a mismatch of tactics and circumstances. The hasty adoption of tactics meant most movements did not take the time to think through strategies that might be successful in their local context. </p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/louisa-lims-outstanding-portrait-of-a-dispossessed-defiant-hong-kong-is-the-activist-journalism-we-need-179091">Louisa Lim's 'outstanding' portrait of a dispossessed, defiant Hong Kong is the activist journalism we need</a>
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<h2>New strategies</h2>
<p>Bevins suggests that by taking this and other lessons on board, the deep desire for progressive change, both nationally and in the global system, might come closer to being realised in coming decades. The “mismatches” can be overcome with study and reflection on the events of the mass protest decade. More suitable “repertoires” might be arrived at. </p>
<p>The spontaneous horizontal protests, Bevins observes, “did a very good job of blowing holes in social structures and creating political vacuums”. But the power vacuums they created were filled by those who were ready. </p>
<p>In Egypt, that meant the military. The Gulf countries, especially the United Arab Emirates, were also involved in the El-Sisi coup, via their funding of the anti-Morsi <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23131953">Tamarod movement</a>. In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council “literally marched in to fill in the gaps”. The Hong Kong movement was crushed by Beijing. In Brazil, Rousseff was “not removed, not immediately; but to the extent that she lost influence in June 2013, that power did not fall to the anti-authoritarian left, as the [Free Fare Movement] would have liked”.</p>
<p>Lasting progressive change, Bevins argues, requires better organisation and vehicles capable of handing down knowledge, strategy and tactics to the next generation of activists. He offers the example of Chile. </p>
<p>In Chile, the role of unions and political parties, as well as the activists engaging in institutional politics, proved more successful in producing progressive outcomes than digitally organised, horizontal, mass protests alone. </p>
<p>The powerful student unions played a strong role. The “autonomist” left-wing activist <a href="https://www.gob.cl/en/institutions/presidency/">Gabriel Boric</a>, who emerged through university politics, ended up becoming president in 2022. He was pivotal in the referendum process that sought to rewrite Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution. </p>
<p>Bevins proposes that the horizontalist left is so traumatised by the “sins of the Soviet Union” and “other revolutions” that many activists have given up “the things that work” – like organisation, structure and co-ordination. </p>
<p>“But if you refuse to use the tools that work”, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If5w78BrmT4">he points out</a>, you are “ceding your power” to those who will. It is “like showing up to a football game without a coach, strategy, or even a clear idea of who’s on your team”. Being well organised does not guarantee success, but it is essential when you enter into conflict with other well organised forces. </p>
<p>Bevins describes the decade’s dominant form of protest as being ultimately “illegible”. A key part of the problem was that “the square” was, in most of these protests, not asking for one coherent thing, or set of things. Activists, years later, often had widely divergent views as to “what the movements were all about”. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Vincent Bevins speaking at the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College, October 25, 2023.</span></figcaption>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-20-year-rule-of-recep-tayyip-erdogan-has-transformed-turkey-188211">How the 20 year rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has transformed Turkey</a>
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<h2>American influence</h2>
<p>As the world’s dominant superpower, the United States is entwined, in complex ways, with the individual countries and the regional power-politics Bevins discusses. In 2011, for example, the US took the opportunity provided by unrest in Libya, and a brutal state crackdown in response, to invade and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/20/nato-libya-war-26000-missions">overthrow the Gaddafi regime in a NATO mission</a>. Hong Kong protesters came to believe they were “sacrificed” for the Trump administration’s ongoing “propaganda war against China”. </p>
<p>Bevins also argues that the American domination of the internet has contributed to unrealistic views about the nature of social institutions, power and social change. The techno-utopianism that has accompanied its rise, the US-centric culture and ideas that circulate on oligarch-owned social media platforms, and “online communities born in the alter-globalisation era”, such as <a href="https://indymedia.org/">Indymedia</a> and <a href="https://www.adbusters.org/about-us">Adbusters</a>, played an “outsize role” in the mass protest decade. </p>
<p>Protesters’ ideas about what was possible and how to proceed were shaped by their immersion in this media landscape. Reflecting in retrospect on the prominent use of material from The Hunger Games, V for Vendetta and Star Wars, a Hong Kong activist said: “I think it is … a little sad, and definitely very unfortunate, that we got so many of our ideas from pop culture.”</p>
<p>The simplistic faith of “liberal techno-optimists” that the internet and social media are intrinsically progressive has proved unfounded, as has the belief that “the internet would make the world more like the United States”. </p>
<p>No protest action or technology is intrinsically progressive. As Bevins points out, is has become clear in recent years that the protesters’ “repertoire” of tools and tactics can be used at least as effectively by right-wing demagogues and disinformation outfits. The shock of Trumpian politics was accompanied by a sobering realisation that “the internet was something that could be used by malevolent foreign powers to undermine the American project”. </p>
<p>Digital communication, Bevins observes, has facilitated “the existence of big protests that come together very quickly – so quickly, perhaps, that no one knows each other, people are trying to realize contradictory goals, and after the initial energy fades, nothing remains”. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTRkIY6NQhA">recent interview</a>, he paraphrases one Free Fare Movement interviewee reflecting on how events unfolded in Brazil: “all we wanted to do for eight years was to cause a popular uprising; and then we did, and it was awful”. </p>
<p>Throughout If We Burn, Bevins shows that “movements that cannot speak for themselves will be spoken for”. As an Egyptian activist reflects: “we thought representation was elitism, but actually it is the essence of democracy”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Pollard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Throughout If We Burn, Vincent Bevins shows that “movements that cannot speak for themselves will be spoken for”.Christopher Pollard, Tutor in Sociology and Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082742023-06-22T14:59:14Z2023-06-22T14:59:14ZHow protest movements use feminine images and social media to fight sexist ideologies of authoritarian regimes – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533296/original/file-20230621-14551-qi1cio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C7%2C806%2C603&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pro-resistance social media pages share photos of graffiti like this.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Provided by Michaela Grancayova and Aliaksei Kazharski.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern protest movements, like the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/iranian-protesters-remain-defiant-in-the-face-of-violent-and-brutal-regime-oppression/ar-AA1cK1KX">ongoing protests in Iran</a>, often center around women who have been killed or harmed by agents of authoritarian governments. While it can be easy to chalk up this consistent, state-sponsored abuse of women to simple sexism, researchers say there is a deeper story at play.</p>
<p>Authoritarian regimes often lack a coherent underlying ideology. So to fill that gap, many leaders turn to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2022.1713752">discrimination, using gender, race or sexuality</a> to vilify opponents and generate support. As a result, pushback against gender as a tool of oppression has taken on a visual and artistic component as protests have entered the social media age.</p>
<p>In this episode of <em>The Conversation Weekly</em>, we speak to three experts who have studied protests and the role of gendered ideology, images and social media as tools of resistance as well as of oppression. </p>
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<p>In August 2020, <a href="https://theconversation.com/belarus-protests-why-people-have-been-taking-to-the-streets-new-data-154494">Belarus erupted into unrest</a> after Alexander Lukashenko, the longtime authoritarian leader of the country, won the presidency for the fifth time in an election few considered free or fair.</p>
<p>“There had never been so many people out in the streets before – hundreds of thousands in a country of less than 10 million,” says <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RNtIwG4AAAAJ">Aliaksei Kazharski</a>. Kasharski researches international politics and security at Charles University in Prague, in the Czech Republic. He himself is Belarusian. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A huge crowd of people holding Belarusian flags and colors." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533297/original/file-20230621-27-sqokg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Belarusian people rose up in massive protests after Alexander Lukashenko claimed to have been reelected to the presidency in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/august-2020-belarus-minsk-thousands-of-people-gather-for-a-news-photo/1228167689?adppopup=true">Ulf Mauder/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michaela-Grancayova">Michaela Grancayova</a> is a researcher who focuses on language and politics, particularly in the Middle East, and was studying at the same university as Kazharski in 2020. As she was watching the protests in Belarus unfold, Grancayova noticed some <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-female-iranian-activists-use-powerful-images-to-protest-oppressive-policies-193507">striking similarities to the Arab Spring</a>, her own area of research. “The regimes in both countries were <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-female-iranian-activists-use-powerful-images-to-protest-oppressive-policies-193507">relying on the traditional gender images</a>, images of how the ideal woman should behave and should look like,” she explains. “Or how an ideal man should look like, should behave – in this case, hegemonic masculinity.”</p>
<p>“These ideas of hegemonic masculinity and gender basically substitute for an official ideology, which is missing from those regimes,” Kazharski explains. “And in a society that’s more or less traditionalist, this image of a strong leader, a macho, real man actually appeals to many people.”</p>
<p>Not only were there similarities between Lukashenko and Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/middleeast/12egypt.html">was overthrown during the Arab Spring</a>, Grancayova noticed that the protest movements of both countries fought against these gendered ideologies in much the same fashion, too.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graffiti of a blue bra." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533298/original/file-20230621-30-8q2lh1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533298/original/file-20230621-30-8q2lh1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533298/original/file-20230621-30-8q2lh1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533298/original/file-20230621-30-8q2lh1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533298/original/file-20230621-30-8q2lh1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533298/original/file-20230621-30-8q2lh1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533298/original/file-20230621-30-8q2lh1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman known as the ‘girl in the blue bra’ was beaten during protests against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which ruled Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. After a video showing her beating, during which her abaya came off and revealed her blue bra, event went viral, protesters used the image of the blue bra, as seen in this social media post, as a symbol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Provided by Michaela Grancayova and Aliaksei Kazharski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One prominent theme was an idea the researchers call the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2022.1713752">iconization of victimhood</a>. “There were people who were tortured and humiliated by the regimes, and they were meant to be turned into the victims,” explains Grancayova. “But in reality the people who took part in the protest turned them into heroes and visual icons.” </p>
<p>In both Egypt and Belarus, protesters turned to social media to distribute <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/belarusian-venus-bruised-female-nude-173332876.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACZG2HON2LK0j72QYqmthIFWX94dRse8ZAymHFFdNCgol_L_KiaSAEn7Yg0doh2RGyMijXtesPUPU2eCX5AMV4o05QP4hJnxpEPqGWoY-lHOHnE1kC_rhKKysmLfrCymSA4uXZjvHm71aDXtVOCeWmvFNVE2wYzifMbO4kXDnEw9">images of the bloodied martyrs</a> or share images of graffiti or other symbolic visuals. </p>
<p>As a response, both the Egyptian and Belarusian governments tried to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/1/25/arab-spring-anniversary-when-egypt-cut-the-internet">squash the social media branches of the protests</a>. As Kazharski explains, Lukashenko “did try to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/belarus-internet-outage-election/">shut down the internet</a> in 2020 for a couple of days but then realized it was way too costly.” Instead, agents of the regime went door to door, searching laptops and phones and torturing those who wouldn’t give up their passwords. </p>
<h2>Women’s movements in Iran</h2>
<p>These same themes of gender and weaponized social media are playing out today, too, in the ongoing protests in Iran. </p>
<p>Since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, was killed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-irans-morality-police-a-scholar-of-the-middle-east-explains-their-history-196023">the Morality Police</a> in fall of 2022, Iran has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/unrest-across-iran-continues-under-states-extreme-gender-apartheid-183766">enveloped in protests</a>. The movement, called “Woman, Life, Freedom” is in many ways focused, as the name suggests, on restoring the freedoms of women, who have severely limited by the Iranian government.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A protestor throwing something at police with a woman in the foreground with her hair free." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533299/original/file-20230621-30-vsawr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During the initial uprisings after the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, many women began going in public without the mandated headscarves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uprising_in_Tehran,_Keshavarz_Boulvard_September_2022_(3).jpg">Darafsh/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://cas.uoregon.edu/directory/political-science/K">Parichehr Kazemi</a> is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oregon, in the US, where she studies women’s resistance movements across the Middle East with a focus on the use of images on social media. </p>
<p>Previous women’s movements in Iran, like <a href="https://www.mystealthyfreedom.org/">My Stealthy Freedom</a>, where women posted photos of themselves without hijabs in public places, were often centered around images. Kazemi explains that after 2009, “images were birthed because of a very repressive environment under the Islamic Republic that didn’t really give women other opportunities to express dissent.” </p>
<p>When protests erupted in late 2022 after the Morality Police killed Amini, videos of massive crowds and clashes between police and protesters flooded social media. As Kazemi followed the protests on social media, she began seeing more representational imagery emerge. “Over time, it’s not just images of tons of women running from security forces in the streets,” she says. “You see women cutting their hair. You see girls in the streets without their veils. You see them burning their hijabs. You see them dancing in circles. This isn’t something that we’ve seen under the Islamic Republic.”</p>
<p>Under a regime where public protesting can get you killed, Kazemi says, “Images have become a way for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-protests-in-iran-are-part-of-a-long-history-of-womens-resistance-191551">people to continue showing the world what’s happening</a> in Iran.”</p>
<p>As in Belarus and Egypt, the Iranian government has been cracking down on social media as a tool of resistance. Among the debates over whether social media is generally a force for resistance or a tool of state control, Kazemi had a bigger-picture perspective. “Social media is embedded within our lifestyles, and we’ll figure out a way to use it as an extension of ourselves. But regimes will also use it as an extension of themselves.”</p>
<hr>
<p>This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood. Mend Mariwany is the executive producer of <em>The Conversation Weekly</em>. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.</p>
<p>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also subscribe to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>. </p>
<p>Listen to <em>The Conversation Weekly</em> via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a> or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From the Arab Spring to the Belarus Awakening and the ongoing Iranian protest Women, Life, Freedom, female-centered imagery and social media are battlegrounds of resistance and oppression.Daniel Merino, Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationNehal El-Hadi, Science + Technology Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047882023-05-10T15:56:58Z2023-05-10T15:56:58ZFor Tunisia’s muzzled media, Arab Spring is now a distant memory<p>“Every afternoon before I leave the office, I turn off my phone and remove the SIM card. I don’t want to authorities to track my whereabouts.” Ayman (anonymised for protection) is one of Tunisia’s most prominent media profiles, and among the dwindling number of journalists who dare to criticise the authorities. Now he expects to be arrested any day. His boss was arrested and interrogated in February.</p>
<p>This is a far cry from the heady days after the fall of the country’s autocrat, Zinedine Ben Ali (1987-2011), when Tunisia’s media sector was revolutionised along with the rest of society. Like in Egypt, the 2011 Arab Spring resulted in the fall of a severely authoritarian regime. Until the fall of Ben Ali Tunisia was a veritable police state. Then, in a very short amount of time, Tunisians managed to set up new and democratic institutions, including a functioning parliament, an accountable presidency and independent courts.</p>
<p>The revolution also sowed the seeds of new and independent media outlets – radio, television and digital newspapers. The state television and radio company, al-Wataniyya, was redesigned to be a public broadcaster along the lines of BBC. The Journalists’ Syndicate proved to be an efficient protector of journalists’ professional rights vis-à-vis the authorities. Tunisians soon got used to critical news coverage and raucous political debates on prime-time TV. Now, all these gains are threatened and ordinary people do not even seem to mind much. What happened?</p>
<h2>The dark side of free media</h2>
<p>Since 2015, we have been studying media-politics relations in Tunisia as part of a research project on <a href="https://www.nupi.no/en/projects-centers/journalism-in-struggles-for-democracy-media-and-polarization-in-the-middle-east">journalism in struggles for democracy</a>. Over the last seven years, we have conducted 53 in-depth interviews and two focus group interviews with Tunisian journalists, activists and politicians. The aim of our interviews was to understand how journalists deal with media instrumentalisation and what political role they play in hybrid settings fluctuating between autocracy and democracy. Our last visit was in March 2023, one and a half years after President Kays Saïed abruptly suspended parliament.</p>
<p>But let us first rewind to 2011, when Tunisia went from a police state where the media was part of Ben Ali’s propaganda system to a suddenly free (and initially chaotic) media environment. The reshaping of the media scene took place in a context of political turmoil: <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-journalism-in-the-grey-zone.html">a hybrid political situation</a> of continuously contested democratisation in which political and business elites were eager to exploit the media for their own purposes. A textbook example of this was the behaviour of Nabil Karoui, a businessman who built his wealth on audiovisual production, digital media, and urban advertising and is CEO of the public relations firm Karoui & Karoui World. As the owner of Tunisia’s most popular TV channels, Nessma, he personally influenced its editorial policies while acting as communication advisor for ex-<a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-essebsi-the-late-maestro-of-tunisian-politics-122403">President Beji Caid Essebsi</a> (2014-2019). Karoui also appeared in the documentary series <em>Khalil Tunis</em>, devoted to covering the activities of a charity he had set up to fight poverty – at the same time as he founded his own party and his presidential ambitions became ever clearer. While Karoui was a particularly blatant example of media instrumentalisation, many other politicians, media owners and public figures were involved in murky intrigues and deals.</p>
<p>Hard-working journalists in newspapers, radio and television saw the big gain from the revolution – free media – melt away before their eyes, as squabbling politicians and commentators for hire alienated the Tunisian populace from both politics and the news media.</p>
<h2>Populism vs. journalism: President Kais Saïed and the media</h2>
<p>Enter the presidential election of September 2019, which featured two dyed-in-the-wool populists as frontrunners. Both of them represented a danger to free and critical media, but in very different ways. Nabil Karoui, whom we have already mentioned, was a charismatic media magnate who used his own TV channel to manipulate the political climate. The Conservative Kais al-Saïed, who <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20191014-conservative-kais-saied-elected-president-of-tunisia-with-72-71-percent-of-vote">won the election with 72,71% votes</a>, was a former university lecturer in law who preferred to avoid the news media altogether. Saïed was nicknamed “Robocop” on account of his mechanic style of talking in interviews. His campaign relied not on media, but on grassroots activists going from door to door and arranging public meetings across Tunisia.</p>
<p>Saïed treats the media with the same contempt as he has shown toward political parties and parliamentarism. Journalists we spoke with in March said that the public broadcasting company has been reduced to a propaganda outlet. Saïed avoids relating to the private media, and prefers communicating with the public through announcements on Facebook, a very important communication platform in Tunisia. When the media contact the president’s office for statements on current affairs they receive no reply. It was telling that when a new and tame parliament opened on 13 March, no journalists from independent or foreign media were allowed inside the building so as to prevent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/13/press-banned-from-opening-session-of-new-tunisian-parliament-kais-saied">“disorder”</a>.</p>
<h2>The decline of journalism and the relativization of truth</h2>
<p>The president’s antipathy toward the media goes hand in hand with his intolerance of criticism and predilection for conspiracy theories. His widely reported, racist <a href="https://theconversation.com/tunisia-presidents-offensive-statements-targeted-black-migrants-with-widespread-fallout-201593">rant against sub-Saharan Africans</a> in February is only the tip of the iceberg. Several opposition leaders have been imprisoned since March, accused of <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/02/tunisia-president-saied-must-immediately-stop-his-political-witch-hunt/">“conspiring to undermine the state”</a>. Noureddine Boutar, the head of Tunisia’s main independent radio channel, Mosaïque, was arrested in February on charges of <a href="https://www.mosaiquefm.net/fr/actualite-national-tunisie/1137635/detention-de-boutar-la-ligne-editoriale-de-mosaique-fm-derange">‘attacking the highest symbol of the state and exacerbating tensions in the country’</a>. Journalists we met in March told us that they are accused of spreading fear among the public (now a punishable crime) when they simply report facts about Tunisia’s many economic and social problems.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since rising to power in 2019, President Saied has increasingly zapped Tunisia’s freedom of speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tunisia-3433_-_Want_to_buy_a_TV......_%287847360164%29.jpg">Dennis Jarvis/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are still strong journalistic voices who speak out against the attacks on liberty of speech. When we interviewed officials at the Journalists’ Syndicate, they took it for granted that they were being surveilled, but they were as defiant as ever, having participated in a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/5/tunisian-opposition-defies-protest-ban-with-rally">march for freedom</a> a couple of days before we met them.</p>
<p>However, the bigger picture is gloomy. Political content has all but disappeared from the previously intensely political TV channels. Journalists who want to do political reporting have difficulties earning a living from it. Moreover, Saïed seems to have succeeded in convincing substantial parts of the population that the news media are part of the corrupt elites and not to be trusted. As a result, people get their news from rumours on Facebook. As one media scholar told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I had problems convincing my own family that Saïed’s wildly exaggerated claims about the number of sub-Saharan African immigrants were necessarily absurd, because there are no epistemological authorities anymore. Announcements and rumours on Facebook have replaced fact-checked news as a source of information.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The dearth of sober, critical journalism does nothing to reduce the intense polarisation in Tunisian politics between <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/tunisia-politics-idCAKBN2RA05Z">the president, the Islamists, and the reactionary Free Constitutional Party</a>. They all have it in for journalists. Each camp constructs its own reality and viciously attacks those who challenge the relativisation of truth based on <a href="https://inkyfada.com/en/">objective and critical reporting</a>. We should not forget that Tunisian journalists can look to the <a href="https://rsf.org/en/classement/2022/americas">United States</a>, <a href="https://rsf.org/en/classement/2022/europe-central-asia">several European countries</a> and <a href="https://rsf.org/en/country/russia">Russia</a> for parallels to their own situation. Sadly, that does not help them much. Critical, fact-based journalism is under threat in many purportedly free and pluralistic societies, and Tunisia is presently one of the hotspots.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob Høigilt a reçu des financements de Conseil de recherche de Norvège. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kjetil Selvik a reçu des financements du Conseil norvégien de la recherche </span></em></p>Freedom of expression was the one remaining gain of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, but it is now severely threatened by a populist president.Jacob Høigilt, Professor of Arab studies, University of OsloKjetil Selvik, Research Professor in political science, Norwegian Institute of International AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029792023-04-03T13:57:28Z2023-04-03T13:57:28ZMass protests in Kenya have a long and rich history – but have been hijacked by the elites<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518491/original/file-20230330-20-zjju3k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters face off with an anti-riot police officer in Nairobi, Kenya, in March 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga and his coalition party, Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya, recently called for <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/292123/kenya-raila-announces-anti-ruto-protests-with-major-demo-in-nairobi/">mass protests across the country</a>. Odinga and his team have questioned the legitimacy of President William Ruto’s win in the country’s August 2022 election, and taken issue with the rising cost of living. The Conversation Africa’s Kagure Gacheche spoke with Westen K Shilaho, a senior researcher on African politics, who explores the evolution of political protests in Kenya.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>What does the law say about political protest?</h2>
<p>The right to protest is enshrined in the <a href="https://www.klrc.go.ke/index.php/constitution-of-kenya/112-chapter-four-the-bill-of-rights/part-2-rights-and-fundamental-freedoms/203-37-assembly-demonstration-picketing-and-petition#:%7E:text=Assembly%2C%20demonstration%2C%20picketing%20and%20petition,-Chapter%20Four%20%2D%20The&text=Every%20person%20has%20the%20right,present%20petitions%20to%20public%20authorities.">constitution of Kenya under Article 37</a>. It states that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The right to protest is also affirmed by international instruments to which Kenya is a signatory. These include the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/36390-treaty-0011_-_african_charter_on_human_and_peoples_rights_e.pdf">African Charter on Human and People’s Rights</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>. </p>
<p>However, successive Kenyan governments have repeatedly criminalised the right to protest. As a result, the police consistently react with <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/au-calls-for-calm-restraint-in-kenya-4175774">brute force against protesters</a>. </p>
<h2>What led to the latest wave of protests in Kenya?</h2>
<p>Kenya held general elections on 9 August 2022, and <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/nJbSsSKxMj.pdf">William Ruto was declared president</a>. The opposition contested the election results and <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/raila-contests-presidential-election-results-supreme-court-3922660">filed a petition</a> before the supreme court, which <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/kenyan-court-to-rule-on-disputed-presidential-election-/6731434.html">unanimously dismissed the petition</a> for lack of evidence. </p>
<p>Raila Odinga, the losing presidential contestant, rejected this ruling and has refused to recognise Ruto’s win. He has taken the dispute to the court of public opinion – the streets. He has made three main demands: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>that the electoral agency’s servers be opened to prove that he won the 2022 election</p></li>
<li><p>that Ruto halts <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/25-kenyans-seek-to-replace-chebukati-as-iebc-chair-895-eye-commissioner-jobs-4177314">reconstitution of Kenya’s electoral body</a> </p></li>
<li><p>that the government lowers the cost of living.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Protests began on 15 August 2022 when the presidential election results were declared. <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/national/article/2001453334/bitter-end-chebukati-attacked-as-chaos-mar-bomas-briefing">Hoodlums assaulted</a> the electoral agency’s chairperson and other officials. They are yet to be held to account for these attacks.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-body-choosing-kenyas-election-commission-is-being-overhauled-how-this-could-strengthen-democracy-198798">The body choosing Kenya's election commission is being overhauled – how this could strengthen democracy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>After a six-month lull, these protests recently spilled over onto the streets. The opposition called for demonstrations <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/raila-odinga-calls-for-boycott-of-safaricom-kcb-4167328">twice a week</a> from 20 March until the government accedes to its demands. </p>
<p>Ruto and his supporters <a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2023/03/president-ruto-dismisses-raila-call-for-resignation-halt-of-iebc-recruitment/">have been scornful</a> of the opposition’s demands, saying they have no basis in <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/president-ruto-dismisses-raila-s-azimio-protests-as-sabotage--4103666">law, morality or logic</a>. Ruto dismissed the protests as <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2023-03-19-i-will-not-allow-you-to-terrorise-kenyans-ruto-tells-raila/">acts of economic terrorism</a>. </p>
<p>After two weeks of <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2023/03/30/violent-clashes-as-kenya-opposition-stages-third-day-of-protests/">violence</a> – where at least three people died, several others injured and property vandalised – Ruto extended an olive branch to the opposition and asked them to <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/eyes-on-raila-as-ruto-asks-opposition-to-call-off-protests-4182346">call off the protests</a>. He suggested that the issue of the reconstitution of the electoral body could be revisited. </p>
<p>In response, <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-04-02-my-door-is-open-for-talks-call-off-protests-ruto-tells-raila/">the opposition suspended the protests</a>. </p>
<p>Ruto has previously said he would not be <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/anxiety-as-ruto-raila-harden-stance-over-protests-4172706">blackmailed into a power-sharing arrangement</a> with the opposition. If not checked, power-sharing arrangements – or “<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyatta-raila-pact-will-only-herald-real-change-if-promises-are-followed-by-action-96148">handshake</a>” in Kenya’s political parlance – could become the country’s default arrangement after elections. This would be to the detriment of democratic tenets. </p>
<h2>What is the history of political protests in Kenya?</h2>
<p>Kenya’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-kenyas-constitutional-duels-are-all-about-power-struggles-among-the-elite-147471">political history</a> is marked by mass protests that date back to the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/180739">colonial period</a> and continued into independence. </p>
<p>Amid police crackdowns, Kenyans protested against <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000096439/witness-recalls-the-1969-kisumu-massacre-that-marked-jomo-kenyatta-s-visit">political assassinations</a> and autocracy during the tenures of the country’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, and his successor, Daniel Moi. </p>
<p>Through a <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Constitution/HistoryoftheConstitutionofKenya/Acts/1982/ActNo.7of1982.pdf">constitutional amendment</a>, Moi turned Kenya into a one-party state in 1982, which heightened political tensions. Later that year, Kenyans protested in Nairobi in support of an <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/kenya/article/2001380803/inside-secret-coup-attempt-that-killed-240-in-city-crossfire">attempted coup against Moi</a> as opposition politicians and civil society sought a return to political pluralism. </p>
<p>Countrywide protests were held in <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2020/07/07/saba-saba-and-the-evolution-of-citizen-power">1990</a>. This agitation, coupled with pressure from civil society, religious groups and western donors, forced Moi to accede to <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1204/04041.html">multiparty politics in 1991</a>. </p>
<p>In 1992, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/news/article/2001261426/bare-breasted-crusade-when-mothers-of-political-prisoners-stripped-at-uhuru-park">mothers of political prisoners</a> held an 11-month hunger strike in Nairobi to demand the release of their sons. </p>
<p>Protests against presidential results in 2007 led to a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2013/3/3/kenya-what-went-wrong-in-2007">horrific crackdown</a>. More than 1,100 people were killed, <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=tjrc-gov">several of them extrajudicially</a> by the police. Odinga had disputed Mwai Kibaki’s win. Protests and summary executions also followed the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/17/kenya-riot-police-election-protest">2013</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-history-of-political-violence-colonialism-vigilantes-and-militias-83888">2017</a> announcements of presidential election results.</p>
<p>Protests are important. They can influence a government or a body of authority to respond to popular interests and injustice. Through protests, a government can be forced to address service delivery concerns, corruption, labour disputes, extrajudicial and summary executions and education matters, and to abandon dictatorial tendencies. In some countries, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Arab-Spring">Tunisia, Egypt and Libya</a>, protests collapsed regimes. </p>
<p>As I discuss in my book, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322174201_Political_Power_and_Tribalism_in_Kenya">Political Power and Tribalism in Kenya</a>, political protests in the country have become insular, sectarian, tribal, unashamedly personality driven and elitist. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-history-of-political-violence-colonialism-vigilantes-and-militias-83888">Kenya’s history of political violence: colonialism, vigilantes and militias</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>My research found that the political elite have used protests for self-preservation and to pursue their interests. Protests have become about getting opposing political personalities to come to an agreement so that election losers don’t lose all the benefits of being in power – but such agreements stifle healthy debate.</p>
<p>Elections must produce winners and losers among the contestants. The citizenry should be the only constant winners. Their concerns must be met regardless of who ascends to power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Westen K Shilaho does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Political protests in Kenya have become insular, sectarian, tribal and unashamedly personality driven.Westen K Shilaho, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for PanAfrican Thought and Conversation (IPATC), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976412023-01-24T14:34:50Z2023-01-24T14:34:50ZFootball and politics in Kinshasa: how DRC’s elite use sport to build their reputations and hold on to power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504456/original/file-20230113-26-o6a4dx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Young people play football on a street in Goma, eastern DRC. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Guerchom Ndebo/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Football in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – as in much of the world – is intertwined with politics. </p>
<p>In the central African country, football clubs have long been a way for the regime in power to build political capital. Many politicians involve themselves with clubs to bolster their image. On the other hand, football is also a space for political opposition. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/files/8518/fa1af368-d443-41cc-88b9-38bcdcb90449.pdf">our recent paper</a>, we show how politics and football come together in a number of ways in Kinshasa, the country’s capital city. </p>
<p>Football was particularly important for Joseph Kabila’s regime, from 2001 to 2019. His was a <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2018/01/kabila-must-go-the-congolese-see-this-why-cant-the-west/">contested and repressive regime</a>. Throughout his tenure as president, Kabila and his party members looked for ways to improve their reputation to gain votes. One way was by financially supporting football clubs. This worked because these clubs don’t have structural or sufficient commercial or state support. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/files/8518/fa1af368-d443-41cc-88b9-38bcdcb90449.pdf">our study finds</a> that football politics can also work against a regime. During the Kabila years, football stadiums and supporter crowds offered a relatively safe place to protest the repressive regime. Anti-Kabila songs, for example, were often heard at matches. </p>
<h2>Football and power</h2>
<p>Our interviews with supporters, regime figures and others found that during the Kabila years, supporters and club officials made a distinction between regime figures supporting the club, and the regime. A common statement we heard was: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>supporters still appreciated Kabila-associated politicians as long as they were able to provide financial support.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gabriel Amisi (commonly known as Tango Four), for example, was a close ally of Kabila’s and currently serves as an <a href="https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1016772/politique/rdc-sous-pression-des-usa-felix-tshisekedi-procede-a-un-prudent-remaniement-dans-larmee/">army general and inspector general of the Congolese army</a>. Amisi has been accused of a wide range of human rights abuses during his time as a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/20/congo-war-crimes-kisangani">rebel commander</a> and an <a href="https://www.radiookapi.net/actualite/2012/11/22/rdc-le-president-kabila-suspend-le-general-major-amisi-le-chef-de-forces-terrestres">army commander</a>. One press article describes him as “<a href="https://afridesk.org/whos-who-le-general-amisi-tango-four-le-boucher-du-kivu-jj-wondo/">the butcher of Eastern Congo</a>”. </p>
<p>Between 2007 and 2020, Amisi was president of the AS Vita Club, one of the biggest clubs in Kinshasa. Before 2007, the team was performing poorly. Under Amisi’s leadership, the team won three national titles and excelled internationally. Players remember his leadership as providing financial stability, with regular and good salaries, and material supplies. </p>
<p>This made him very popular. When Amisi tried to resign in 2012 after AS Vita Club’s elimination from the national league, the team’s management and club supporters didn’t accept his submission. When protests began against the Kabila regime in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-politics-idUSKBN14800C">2016</a> in Kinshasa, AS Vita supporters protected Amisi’s house. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/16/dr-congo-profiles-individuals-sanctioned-eu-and-us">Human Rights Watch</a> has documented how Amisi (and other elite figures) used youth league members of football clubs to infiltrate protests against the Kabila regime “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/16/dr-congo-profiles-individuals-sanctioned-eu-and-us">and incite protesters to loot and commit violence</a>”. </p>
<p>An association with regime figures gives football clubs advantages, such as protection from prosecution if supporters are caught up in stadium violence. This makes it unattractive for clubs to associate with opposition figures, who generally have less money to invest and less political power. </p>
<p>In this way, Congolese football isn’t very different from football elsewhere in the world. It has been shown how <a href="https://books.google.be/books?id=VIlcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA463&lpg=PA463&dq=Armstrong,+G.,+%26+Mitchell,+J.+P.+(2001).+%E2%80%9CPlayers,+patrons,+and+politicians:+oppositional+cultures+in+Maltese+football.%E2%80%9D+Fear+and+loathing+in+world+football,+137-158.&source=bl&ots=6GcJZyJ7BE&sig=ACfU3U3YaJGbpHXEt6nnlRXMeLAYfrrpVw&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiorpSsspz8AhUROewKHQ0BDxAQ6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false">worldwide</a> – not only on the <a href="https://polaf.hypotheses.org/5030">African continent</a>, but in a variety of places such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14660970.2013.792482">Turkey, Indonesia</a> and <a href="http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/10117/">Malta</a> – football helps regimes to reproduce their hegemony, particularly by creating political capital. </p>
<h2>Football and protest</h2>
<p>But the opposite has also been shown. Football has played an important role in contesting power. It has, for example, played a role in decolonising struggles in <a href="https://experts.arizona.edu/en/publications/visualizing-politics-in-african-sport-political-and-cultural-cons">Zimbabwe</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/abs/kickin-it-leisure-politics-and-football-in-colonial-zanzibar-1900s1950s/A97494FF2D4FEB7BFA1252B4A11A6309">Zanzibar</a> and <a href="https://books.google.be/books?hl=nl&lr=&id=N65pbr2hC4wC&oi=fnd&pg=PP12&dq=Martin,+P.+(2002).+%E2%80%9CLeisure+and+society+in+colonial+Brazzaville.%E2%80%9D+Cambridge+University+Pr&ots=2MF69toPoN&sig=6yK6P7RbPAWkvnTOo0XuYu3Tp6U#v=onepage&q=Martin%2C%20P.%20(2002).%20%E2%80%9CLeisure%20and%20society%20in%20colonial%20Brazzaville.%E2%80%9D%20Cambridge%20University%20Pr&f=false">Congo-Brazzaville</a>; and in the <a href="https://www.eurasiareview.com/24122012-pitched-battles-the-role-of-ultra-soccer-fans-in-the-arab-spring-analysis-2/">Arab spring</a> in the 2010s. </p>
<p>These dynamics also played out in Kinshasa, where football supporters participated in decolonisation struggles. On <a href="https://dialectik-football.info/16-juin-1957-lunion-saint-gilloise-au-congo-et-la-premiere-emeute-anti-coloniale/">16 June 1957</a>, a match between Kinshasa’s FC Leopoldville and Belgium’s Union Saint Gilloise de Bruxelles led to the first riots leading up to independence. A year and a half later, AS Vita Club supporters played <a href="https://books.google.be/books?id=bF5Vx8cCnrMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">an important role</a> in decisive riots against colonial authorities. In 1960, the DRC got its independence from Belgium. </p>
<p>In the postcolonial period, football has also played a role in challenging power. During the Kabila regime, as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/29/dr-congo-repression-persists-election-deadline-nears">political repression escalated</a> in almost every other space, the football stadium became an important venue for political protest. </p>
<p>In the words of a soccer fan in <a href="https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/files/8518/fa1af368-d443-41cc-88b9-38bcdcb90449.pdf">our study</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since we’re in the stadium, we won’t be arrested. The police knows this: they won’t try anything because we’re way more numerous than them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The lyrics of protest songs and slogans – referred to as “hymns of the oppressed” – included: “God is doing everything so that Kabila dies!” and “Eeeh, we refuse (to be) the voting machine”. </p>
<p>During <a href="https://qz.com/africa/569612/dr-congos-joseph-kabila-is-taking-a-slippery-path-to-a-third-term">the “slippage” period</a> from 2015 onwards – when Kabila went beyond the formal limits of his mandate – anti-Kabila slogans became even more popular. </p>
<p>The engagement of regime figures with soccer clubs didn’t overcome hostile feelings about the regime. </p>
<h2>Regime controls</h2>
<p>The impact of these confrontations of regime power was limited, though. </p>
<p>For example, during the Kabila regime, radio and TV stations would cut their broadcasting when political songs were sung during games involving the national team. And in late 2016, the minister of sports <a href="https://www.radiookapi.net/2016/12/14/actualite/sport/rdc-le-ministre-des-sports-suspend-le-championnat-national-de-foot">temporarily suspended</a> the national football competition. The official reason for this was “<a href="https://www.radiookapi.net/2016/12/14/actualite/sport/rdc-le-ministre-des-sports-suspend-le-championnat-national-de-foot">excessive violence in the stadiums</a>”. But it was widely understood as a political measure by the regime, fearing protests by supporters in reaction to the end of Kabila’s official mandate during this period. The former minister confirmed this to us during interviews. </p>
<p>In sum, football in Kinshasa is politics – but primarily regime politics. Even though political opposition can be expressed through football, it is questionable how much potential for change this carries. </p>
<p>During the authoritarian Kabila regime, the protest role of football was confined. It’s similar under the current Felix Tshisekedi regime, which uses football as a political tool. Kinshasa’s main clubs (Daring Club Motema Pembe and AS Vita), for example, have club presidents who are close allies of Tshisekedi.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Football provides a way for unpopular elites to build political capital – but also creates space for citizens to voice dissent.Kristof Titeca, Professor in International Development, University of AntwerpAlbert Malukisa Nkuku, Associate researcher, University of AntwerpLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1935072022-12-21T13:40:26Z2022-12-21T13:40:26ZHow female Iranian activists use powerful images to protest oppressive policies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502184/original/file-20221220-13-loap2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C3817%2C2535&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women have been at the forefront of protests in Iran.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SyriaIran/3b79af71c23442d1bcae8e54248258b7/photo?Query=Iranians%20protests%20the%20death%20of%2022-year-old%20Mahsa%20Amini&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=323&currentItemNo=89">Hawar News Agency via AP via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Images of unveiled Iranian women and adolescent girls <a href="https://twitter.com/GEsfandiari/status/1585346972655190016">standing atop police cars</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/ksadjadpour/status/1593673422290157569">flipping off the ayatollah’s picture</a> have become signature demonstrations of dissent in the past few months of protest in Iran.</p>
<p>In fact, among the Iranian protest photos selected for inclusion in Time magazine’s list of the “<a href="https://time.com/6234958/top-100-photos-2022/">Top 100 Photos of 2022</a>” are one of women running from military police brigades and another of an unveiled woman standing on a car with hands raised.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://cas.uoregon.edu/directory/political-science/all/pkazemi">a scholar studying the use of images in political movements</a>, I find Iranian protest photos powerful and engaging because they play on several elements of defiance. They draw on a longer history of Iranian women taking and sharing photos and videos of actions considered illegal, such as singing and dancing to protest gender oppression.</p>
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<h2>Pictures in past Iranian movements</h2>
<p>Iranian women did not stage mass public demonstrations against restrictions on their freedoms for nearly three decades <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/052159572X">following the 1979 Islamic Revolution</a>, when protests against compulsory hijab laws were brutally crushed by the Islamic regime.</p>
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<img alt="A black and white picture showing hundreds of young girls marching in a procession and holding up banners." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=76%2C4%2C2919%2C1625&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Thousands of Iranian women march in Tehran on March 12, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IranRevolutionWomen/0e669bf5cd5a42fc8e30a9398d680847/photo?Query=iran%20women%20protests%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=318&currentItemNo=198">AP Photo/Richard Tomkins</a></span>
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<p>In the 2009 Iranian Green Movement against election fraud, however, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00576.x">women played a major role</a>. Images of one young female protester, Neda Agha-Soltan, who was fatally shot by security forces during the protest, went viral, <a href="https://pure.au.dk/portal/en/publications/dramatic-diffusion-and-meaning-adaptation-the-case-of-neda(10d410cc-8e43-41f8-8d28-48694541e00b).html">catalyzing millions of Iranians to join the protests</a>.</p>
<p>In subsequent protests, visuals have been at the heart of women’s efforts to mobilize against the Islamic Republic. In 2014, women <a href="https://revistas.uam.es/reim/article/view/6936">began recording themselves</a> walking, cycling, dancing and singing in public unveiled, under the banner of the “My Stealthy Freedom” movement. Started by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born journalist based in New York, the movement protested the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315716299-18/importance-social-social-media-gholam-khiabany">forced wearing of the hijab</a> and other restrictive laws by showing women breaking them.</p>
<p>Walking in busy city streets unveiled, riding a bike in parks where such activities are banned for women and joining dance circles in town squares were among the ways in which Iranian women protested oppressive laws and practices.</p>
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<p>Four years later, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-42954970">what came to be known as the “Girls of Revolution Street,” protests</a> started with one woman, Vida Movahed, standing atop a utility box on Tehran’s Revolution Street to wave her headscarf on a stick like a flag. Soon, others joined Movahed by repeating her action in other public spaces in Iran.</p>
<p>Images showing dozens of people protesting mandatory veiling in this way were widely shared on social media and later picked up by global news networks, bringing international attention to women’s resistance efforts in Iran.</p>
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<p>The use of images by protesters has been a central practice of resistance in other protests around the world as well. During the Arab Spring, a series of protests against the ruling regimes that spread across the Middle East and North Africa in the early 2010s, <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0163-786X(2013)0000035005/full/html">images</a> played an important role <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813489863">in mobilizing people</a> into joining the movement.</p>
<p>A photo of a woman dragged by government forces in the streets of Egypt with her body exposed persuaded many to protest against what was a clear <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/676977?casa_token=vd5wbfWy-OAAAAAA%3AgghjRf9NxTbRrCUmdCAriIv4iH70podl1ZPJ_LvB3KjX7GQbf8HR3Qnew3g7i4p2U49r1kgh3fuCXw">example of state violence</a> in the Egyptian uprising. These images challenged the regime interpretations of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01343.x">protesters as “troublemakers</a>” and helped <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01629.x">bypass the state-controlled news networks</a> to show the world what was happening on the ground.</p>
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<h2>What such a resistance means</h2>
<p>Iranian women have been protesting the Islamic Republic’s sexist policies and showing the world what <a href="https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1903">freedom</a> and <a href="https://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jsss/article/view/6284">gender identity</a> mean to them through their bodily expressions.</p>
<p>Images of women freely riding a bike or sitting with a member of the opposite sex while unveiled are ways of protesting through the everyday acts that women are barred from under the Islamic Republic. Through their widespread participation in these actions, women have shown a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772717302750">solidarity</a>.</p>
<p>As it is difficult for the Islamic Republic to suppress this kind of protest, it often responds by arresting key activists who can be identified and imprisoning them for several years. In 2019, one activist associated with this form of protest, Yasaman Aryani, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.au/shortened-sentence-for-yasaman/">was sentenced to a 16-year jail term</a> after a video surfaced of her handing out flowers in the Tehran metro unveiled.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BjHLVj3nC06/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Images of Iranian women engaged in defiant acts make their daily oppression visible. Scholar <a href="https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/monalilja">Mona Lilja</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2017.1382176">describes these protests in terms of</a> “resisting bodies” that speak in ways that are not always apparent at the outset of a demonstration or public act of defiance. Emotions, symbolic actions and women’s engagements with the spaces in which they protest combine to form the meaning of resistance we associate with these pictures. </p>
<p>Today’s protest pictures build on past resistance efforts and build on a tradition of resisting the Iranian government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Parichehr Kazemi's research is supported by the University of Oregon's Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) and the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF). </span></em></p>Iranian women have often used images of actions such as singing and dancing unveiled to show what freedom means to them and to protest the Islamic Republic’s gender oppression.Parichehr Kazemi, PhD Candidate, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1965432022-12-16T13:13:27Z2022-12-16T13:13:27ZMuslim Brotherhood at the crossroads: Where now for Egypt’s once-powerful group following leader’s death in exile, repression at home?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501383/original/file-20221215-22-5t8yv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C53%2C3994%2C2604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the Muslim Brotherhood protest at a rally in 2013.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-supporters-of-ousted-news-photo/173509620?phrase=Muslim%20Brotherhood%20flag%20Egypt&adppopup=true">Carsten Koall/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ibrahim Munir, the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-ibrahim-munir-muslim-brotherhood-acting-leader-dies">died on Nov. 4, 2022</a>, in exile in London. While the news generated few headlines around the world, Munir’s death marks a critical moment in the evolution of a group founded nearly 100 years ago, as a social and religious movement.</p>
<p>Over the years, the Brotherhood grew into the most significant social movement and political opposition in Egypt. Its Islamist ideology – which calls for public policies in line with its interpretation of Islam – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/15/muslim-networks-and-movements-in-western-europe-muslim-brotherhood-and-jamaat-i-islami/">became widely influential</a> around the world.</p>
<p>But since a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html">2013 military coup</a> that removed the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi from power, the group has been all but destroyed, with most of its leaders either imprisoned, killed or in exile.</p>
<p>For now, the group has <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221107-muslim-brotherhood-assigns-temporary-acting-guide/">a new temporary leader</a> in Muhyeddine al-Zayet, a 70-year-old senior figure in the movement.</p>
<p>But the stark reality is that the Brotherhood is at a turning point: The movement either will have to reinvent itself or face the prospect of gradually fading into irrelevance.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/imatesan/profile.html">scholar of social movements</a> who has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-violence-pendulum-9780197510087?cc=us&lang=en&">studied the evolution of the Brotherhood</a> and interviewed both members and defectors, I believe its fate hangs on three issues: how it responds to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s repression of opposition groups including the Brotherhood; which leaders guide the movement during its crisis; and how the group rebuilds in exile. </p>
<h2>Has the Brotherhood run its course?</h2>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood was <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/egypts-muslim-brotherhood">established in 1928</a> by Hassan al-Banna, a primary school teacher with a vision that piety and Islamic values can help transform the individual, reform society and ultimately bring about an Islamic state.</p>
<p>Appealing to Egyptians disillusioned with the country’s existing religious institutions, critical of its political system and angered by the Western interference in the Muslim world, the Brotherhood <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/03/world/africa/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-explainer/index.html">grew into a grassroots movement</a> with an intricate network of schools, newspapers and social services.</p>
<p>By the end of the 20th century, the Brotherhood dominated civil society in Egypt and became a prominent source of political opposition. It also established branches and affiliates throughout the Muslim world. </p>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/17/what-is-the-arab-spring-and-how-did-it-start">2011 Arab Spring</a>, which saw popular uprisings in a number of countries across the Middle East, the Brotherhood came to power in Egypt’s first free and fair elections. Its affiliated political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, won the largest parliamentary block, and its candidate, Mohammed Morsi, was elected president. By June 2013, however, disillusionment with the lack of political progress and the poor economic performance of the country led to widespread popular mobilization against the Brotherhood. A month later the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html">military ousted Morsi</a> from power. </p>
<h2>Emergence of two Brotherhoods</h2>
<p>When Brotherhood supporters took to the streets and demanded that the democratically elected president be reinstalled, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/08/egypt-clashes-morsi-muslim-brotherhood-military">police and army forces opened fire on demonstrators</a>. On Aug. 14, 2013, security forces brutally put down the sit-in in Rab’a Square in eastern Cairo, killing over 800 people, in what Human Rights Watch said <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-according-plan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt">likely amounted to crimes against humanity</a>.</p>
<p>For some Brotherhood members, the brutality of the security forces sparked a <a href="https://doi.org//10.1080/13510347.2016.1273903?journalCode=fdem20">desire for revenge and justified a violent response</a>.</p>
<p>For the most senior Brotherhood leaders, however, violence was neither politically pragmatic nor ideologically justified. In the absence of a clear vision for how to respond to the political crisis, many young members became <a href="https://doi.org//10.1080/13510347.2019.1630610">disillusioned with the organization</a>. </p>
<p>By 2014, the Brotherhood was not just losing members. Two additional fault lines emerged: the question of leadership and the question of exile. Mass arrests caused a leadership vacuum that led to a <a href="https://doi.org//10.1080/13510347.2019.1630610">new cadres of midranking members</a> taking over activities inside Egypt. </p>
<p>These new leaders adopted a more revolutionary tone and started operating independently of the older leadership. The parallel claims to authority and divergent visions over how to respond to the political repression <a href="https://research.sharqforum.org/2018/09/07/iran-and-the-egyptian-muslim-brotherhood-heading-towards-development-or-simply-repair/">led to a split</a> between the so-called “historical leaders” and the new leadership.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Photo of an elderly man in a black blazer and blue shift." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Ibrahim Munir in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-general-of-the-international-organization-of-the-news-photo/173448728?phrase=Ibrahim%20Munir%20Muslim%20Brotherhood&adppopup=true">Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>By 2016 there were in effect two Muslim Brotherhoods: the original group, under the leadership of Ibrahim Munir as the deputy guide operating out of the U.K., and the <a href="https://research.sharqforum.org/2018/09/07/iran-and-the-egyptian-muslim-brotherhood-heading-towards-development-or-simply-repair/">so-called “General Office,” under the new leadership</a>. The General Office attracted many young revolutionaries, including women, but the group had significantly fewer resources, which led it eventually to dissipate.</p>
<p>I learned from interviews with Brotherhood members that with Munir operating as leader in exile, a deeply contested internal debate emerged over whether to restructure the movement and shift the strategic decision-making to the leaders abroad. Outside of Egypt, the organization established regional consultative councils in most host states with a significant Brotherhood presence, most notably in Turkey.</p>
<p>While this allowed for some semblance of organizational rebuilding, some leaders still insisted that all major decisions about the direction, tactics and strategies of the Brotherhood be made inside Egypt. </p>
<h2>Can the Brotherhood rise again?</h2>
<p>This is not the first time that the Muslim Brotherhood has been nearly destroyed by government repression. In 1954 a militant faction of the Brotherhood allegedly attempted to assassinate Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser, prompting <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-violence-pendulum-9780197510087?cc=us&lang=en&">a severe crackdown on the group</a>. The torture and abuse that Brotherhood members faced in prison inspired a new militant vision for activism and led a small group of Brotherhood members to start plotting attacks on government officials. The government discovered these cells before any plans came to fruition, leading to a <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691167886/making-the-arab-world">second major wave of repression in 1965</a>.</p>
<p>But the circumstances in which the Brotherhood finds itself today are different from these past periods of repression. It is more deeply divided than before. And importantly, the current repression comes after the movement came to power and had a chance to rule but ultimately failed.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/ABV_Egypt_Report_Public-Opinion_Arab-Barometer_2019.pdf">Arab Barometer</a>, a nonpartisan research network, shows that since 2013 Egyptians have been consistently skeptical of political Islam as expressed by the Brotherhood, even as the population remains largely religious. For for many of Egypt’s young people the Brotherhood cannot offer any solutions to the economic hardships facing the country, or the growing human rights abuses.</p>
<p>Faced with these internal divisions and challenging political circumstances, the road ahead will not be easy for the Brotherhood. As some of its former members have admitted, there is a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rethinking-political-islam-9780190649197?cc=us&lang=en&">tension between being a social movement and being a political party</a>.</p>
<p>The Brotherhood knows that many Egyptians agree with the group’s religious values at the same time that they are deeply critical of its political ambitions.</p>
<p>If the Brotherhood seeks to become a force of change again and attract a new generation of Islamist activists, I believe it needs to develop a new vision and theory of political agency that inspires both the youth in exile, who speak the language of inclusion, diversity and revolution, and Egypt’s young people, who hunger for freedom and economic opportunities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ioana Emy Matesan has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The Muslim Brotherhood once held the reins of power in Egypt. Now it faces internal splits, government repression and dwindling support.Ioana Emy Matesan, Associate Professor of Government, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1954872022-11-30T16:16:58Z2022-11-30T16:16:58ZChina’s ‘white paper’ protest movement echoes freedom struggles across Asia and the world<p>If there was a single trigger for the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-63781716">“white paper” uprising</a> that has been sweeping China over the past few days, it was events in Ürümchi, the capital of Xinjiang province. Xinjiang’s lockdown has been the most severe in China, with many residents unable to leave their homes for nearly four months. When ten or more residents, mostly Uyghur Muslims, were barred from escaping a blaze, their apartment block became a death trap. The doors, it is said, had been externally bolted.</p>
<p>Within hours, rallies and candlelit vigils for the Ürümchi victims were held in cities across China. To evade censure, protesters developed creative techniques involving irony and strategic ambiguity. </p>
<p>“Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves,” sang one protester, a call to arms protected by its status as a line from <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stefficao/urumqi-xinjiang-fire-protests">China’s national anthem</a>. Others posted ludicrously gushing messages about the regime and the security forces, or the phrase “<a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/11/28/asia-pacific/china-creative-covid-protest-tactics/">shrimp moss</a>” which in Chinese sounds like “step down.” The best-known trope was the holding aloft of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/world/asia/china-protests-blank-sheets.html">blank sheets of paper by demonstrators</a>. </p>
<p>Three factors were decisive in the astonishing speed of the insurgency’s spread.
The critical spark was the militancy in Ürümchi. These were not the first deaths attributed to China’s lockdown policies that led to public criticism. </p>
<p>But Ürümchi residents took a militant decision: to rally in city-wide demonstrations, in defiance of the protest ban that is <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/china-and-tibet">especially draconian</a> in this province. Uyghurs among them will have immediately understood the links between locked fire exits and the locking up of Muslims in “re-education” camps.</p>
<p>The news from Ürümchi fanned out through social media as well as old-fashioned word of mouth. That the words travelled fast and far is because thousands of similar acts, as militant if not as momentous, had been bubbling nationwide over previous months and years.</p>
<p>This is the second factor. Diverse individuals connected their horror at the Ürümchi fire to a sense of shared suffering and a collective “frame” that identified the political authorities as culpable. Lockdowns provided the focus around which multiple grievances coalesced. Substantial numbers were suddenly receptive to the possibility of collective resistance to the lockdown – even to the regime itself.</p>
<p>The final factor that influences an uprising’s momentum is the ability of the security forces to smother it. Momentum is the operative term, as the mass of insurgents combined with the velocity of their response to thwart the state’s attempts to quickly crush them. In the first two days of the insurgency, many instances were recorded of police <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPRDLqggwQU">being pushed back</a> and censors overwhelmed.</p>
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<h2>Anti-lockdown protest?</h2>
<p>For a few days the protests burned more brightly than any in China since 1989. How does it compare to other social movements, and how should it be characterised?</p>
<p>One option would be to theorise it as the climax of a global anti-lockdown movement. This is too crude. In their political form, lockdowns vary along a spectrum. Whereas lockdowns in <a href="https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/blog/lockdown-politics-response-to-panagiotis-sotiris">Daegu (South Korea) and Kerala (India)</a> were relatively consensual and humane, China represents the antithesis. </p>
<p>Admittedly, public health has benefited. China’s COVID death rate stands at <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-63739617">three per million</a>, compared to 2,400 per million for Britain. The life expectancy of Chinese citizens <a href="https://qz.com/china-life-expectancy-exceeds-us-1849483265">has overtaken</a> that of Americans, thanks to Beijing’s zero-COVID and Washington’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/">calamity-COVID</a></p>
<p>Yet Beijing’s strategy prioritises authoritarian surveillance over healthcare. Its sluggish pursuit of vaccination programmes (together with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/28/china-abandon-zero-covid-protests-mass-vaccination">Moderna’s refusal</a> to transfer mRNA technology) resulted in pitiful vaccination rates among the elderly. If omicron were to run wild, the risk of mass fatalities and a collapsing health system would be real.</p>
<p>Nor can one assimilate the demonstrations in China to anti-lockdown movements elsewhere. Most protestors wear masks, despite the lower risk of infection outdoors. And their attitudes to lockdowns are diverse. “It’s OK to seal off the city,” <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2265af24-b5f3-46e4-aa83-a8699cab99e4">said one Ürümchi protester</a>, “but it’s not OK to block the fire exit.”</p>
<h2>…or a political revolt?</h2>
<p>An alternative categorisation focuses on the Chinese regime’s self-designation as “communist”. This places the white paper movement alongside the Tiananmen Square rising, and revolts across the Soviet bloc in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in 1989, Hungary in 1956, East Germany in 1953 and again in, 1989 – and so on. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Chinese protester stands ikn front of a line of tanks heading in to Tiananmen Square in Beijing, 1989." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498259/original/file-20221130-22-hrky9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498259/original/file-20221130-22-hrky9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498259/original/file-20221130-22-hrky9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498259/original/file-20221130-22-hrky9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498259/original/file-20221130-22-hrky9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498259/original/file-20221130-22-hrky9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498259/original/file-20221130-22-hrky9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tank man at Tiananmen Square: the current demonstrations are the biggest in China since the pro-democracy movement was crushed in 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeff Widener/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The thesis is that such regimes are authoritarian and intervene very directly in all domains of public life, including enterprise management. This political-economic structure affects social movements. Local protests tend to quickly direct their grievances at the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0965156032000167207">central authorities</a> unless the repressive apparatuses act with ruthlessness. </p>
<p>In China, protests since 1989 have tended, prudently, to avoid the temptation. The white paper rising stands out in the rapidity with which opposition to lockdowns escalated to criticism of the power of the Communist party and Xi himself.</p>
<p>But this is to overstate the commonality of the so-called communist countries and to understate the features they share with others. As the Glasgow University-based historian Vladimir Unkovski-Korica and I have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00076791.2022.2134348">recently argued</a>, it makes no sense to group China under Xi alongside Tito’s Yugoslavia and Ulbricht’s East Germany within a single camp.</p>
<p>A more productive approach would be to situate the white paper movement as one of many emancipatory struggles on the Asian and global stage. In Iran this autumn the murder by the “morality police” of Jîna Amini, a Kurdish woman, <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-reflect-society-wide-anger-at-regime-which-trashes-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-193773">ignited a nationwide insurgency</a>, much as the deaths in Ürümchi sparked protest in China. </p>
<p>Mass rebellions earlier this year kicked off in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/briefing/sri-lanka-crisis.html">Sri Lanka</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/06/kazakhstan-unrest-what-are-the-protests-about">Kazakhstan</a>, and in recent memory in Thailand and Myanmar, not to mention the mass protests in India and Pakistan in which roads were blocked by farmers with tractors and bullock carts. </p>
<p>Tracking a little further back, other movements that – in specific attributes – invite comparison with China’s white paper rising include the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/arab-spring-ten-years-whats-legacy-uprisings">Arab spring uprisings</a>. These were ignited, in part, by deaths in custody or following <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43917075">mistreatment by police</a>: Khaled Saeed, Mohamed Bouazizi and Hamza Al-Khatib. Likewise in the US, where the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/black-lives-matter-14463">Black Lives Matter movement</a> erupted in response to murders of black people by police officers and other racists.</p>
<p>“In the particular is contained the universal,” wrote James Joyce, when suggesting that the experience of Dublin can help to reveal secrets of all the world’s cities. The same can be said of uprisings. </p>
<p>The white paper movement is irreducibly Chinese, defined by that country’s extremely harsh lockdowns and ultra-repressive governance. And yet, in another sense, it is universal. It’s the latest in a series of emancipatory struggles that have arisen during these turbulent years of pandemic and post-pandemic crisis, of economic and geopolitical tension.</p>
<p>We can safely predict that the Chinese authorities will clamp down on the current dissent. It is harder to foresee when the next cracks will appear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gareth Dale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It started with the deaths of ten people in a locked-down apartment, but is not a widespread demonstration of unrest across CHina.Gareth Dale, Reader in Political Economy, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1930832022-11-09T14:12:46Z2022-11-09T14:12:46ZTunisia’s once-vibrant democracy is on its deathbed: but it can be saved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493623/original/file-20221105-19-1a7j3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators protest in Tunisia's capital Tunis in 2021 against President Kais Saied's steps to tighten his grip on power.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the lessons the 21st century is bringing home is that the winners of elections can gradually <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938">kill democracies</a>. Healthy democracies have institutional checks and balances which act as a restraint on elected governments. The key institutions include parliament and independent judicial systems. </p>
<p>But when power gradually concentrates in the executive, it disturbs this delicate balance. There is a growing trend of autocrats using the rules – constitutional formalities – to cover up their power grabs. Taking power “constitutionally” makes it look as if they are doing things in the interests of citizens. It makes it harder to challenge the autocrat. I’ve used the <a href="http://www.iconnectblog.com/2018/12/towards-a-concept-of-constitutional-authoritarianism-the-venezuelan-experience/">expression</a> “constitutional authoritarian populism” to describe such regimes. </p>
<p>Venezuela could be considered a poster child of how a presidency can concentrate power. It has achieved this through emergency decrees, constitutional modification processes, and rulings by constitutional courts. All these measures have been accompanied by populist rhetoric. </p>
<p>Tunisia is the most recent example of the trend. The 2011 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Arab-Spring">revolution</a> paved the way for a democratic transition in Tunisia. A new constitution in 2014 then instituted a system of checks and balances, with power-sharing agreements between the legislative and the executive. Tunisia was considered a remarkable example of democratic transition in the aftermath of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-arab-spring-changed-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-forever-161394">Arab Spring</a>, avoiding the fate of Egypt. </p>
<p>It wasn’t an instant fix for the country’s problems. People’s mistrust in the government lingered. When President Kais Saied was elected in 2019, it was on the promise of restoring that trust and increasing accountability. Instead the former constitutional law professor went on to dismantle the checks and balances system. </p>
<p>On 24 July 2021, Saied dismissed the prime minister and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/world/africa/tunisia-president-dissolve-parliament.html">suspended</a> parliament for 30 days (blocking access to the parliament building with tanks). Based on decrees, he also assumed the legislative function. Amid social unrest, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/07/26/kais-saieds-power-grab-in-tunisia/">Saied said</a> those measures were adopted </p>
<blockquote>
<p>until social peace returns to Tunisia and until we save the state.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Tunisia’s democratic backslide shows why it is necessary to adopt a human rights perspective to interpret constitutional decisions. And that is what the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights did. It <a href="https://www.african-court.org/cpmt/storage/app/uploads/public/633/48f/dcc/63348fdcc9449943680203.pdf">ruled</a> on 22 September 2022 that the decisions adopted by Saied violated human rights. The court ordered that the presidential decrees be repealed to restore the supremacy of the constitution.</p>
<p>A human rights approach is the best antidote to constitutional authoritarian populism. Because autocrats will manipulate the law to justify authoritarian measures, it is necessary to go back to the classical legal tradition and recall that an unjust law cannot be deemed <a href="https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028&context=suurj">binding</a>.</p>
<h2>Constitutional pretence</h2>
<p>President Saied invoked the constitution to adopt authoritarian measures based on the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/07/26/kais-saieds-power-grab-in-tunisia/">extraordinary powers</a> vested in the presidency by the 2014 constitution. </p>
<p>The exceptional powers enjoyed by the president are intended to be used to protect the constitution in extraordinary circumstances. They were not designed to dismantle the constitutional order – as Saied <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/27/tunisia-presidents-seizure-powers-threatens-rights">did</a> when he dismissed the prime minister and suspended the parliament. In practical terms, the extraordinary powers abolished the 2014 constitution, concentrating power in the presidency. </p>
<p>But those authoritarian measures were justified as a means of protecting the people from the alleged <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/27/1020998605/tunisias-nascent-democracy-is-in-crisis-but-trouble-has-been-brewing-for-a-decad">inefficiency</a> of the prime minister. Saied drafted a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/07/06/tunisias-new-constitution-will-only-worsen-its-political-crisis/">new constitution</a> and tried to make it look like a popular decision by holding a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20220726-tunisia-constitutional-referendum-marked-by-low-turnout-as-opposition-boycotts">referendum</a> on 25 July 2022. </p>
<p>In my view, the referendum was rigged. It was conducted in <a href="https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/events/?id=3354">violation</a> of basic electoral integrity conditions. These include particularly the lack of an independent electoral management body.</p>
<p>The authoritarian measures have continued with the modification of the <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/saieds-new-rules-tunisias-elections">electoral rules</a>. It won’t be possible to hold free and fair elections using these rules.</p>
<p>Saied has masked his authoritarian measures with a constitutional veneer to avoid challenges, mainly from the international community. Piercing this constitutional veil reveals the authoritarian essence of the measures adopted since 2021.</p>
<h2>Masters of legality</h2>
<p>Why do modern authoritarians love constitutional formalities? This is not a novelty. As the German political philosopher <a href="https://files.libertyfund.org/files/676/Rommen_0017.pdf">Heinrich Rommen</a> observed, modern dictators “are masters of legality”. More recently, the Venezuelan journalist and writer Moisés Naím has referred to the “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revenge-Power-Autocrats-Reinventing-Politics/dp/1250279208">pseudo-law</a>” to describe how autocrats like to hide behind legal formalities.</p>
<p>Several reasons explain why autocrats are masters of constitutionality. First, constitutions are not only legal institutions but also <a href="https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=143377">instruments</a> that can bring legitimacy. Using them as a veneer could protect the autocrat’s legitimacy. And the veneer makes it easier for autocrats to say they are protecting “the people”.</p>
<p>The second reason is more legal. When authoritarian measures have a veneer of constitutionality, there’s not much the international community can do. The <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/abs/principle-of-nonintervention/7EE9EC769A3F2CEE10E3DEE1CB30E274">non-intervention principle protects domestic disputes</a>.</p>
<p>Tunisia’s democracy can be saved. But the first step is to put human rights at the centre, following the ruling of the African Court.</p>
<h2>The human rights perspective</h2>
<p>As the African Charter <a href="https://www.achpr.org/legalinstruments/detail?id=49">recalls</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>fundamental human rights stem from the attributes of human beings. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Therefore, any measure adopted through constitutional formalities that violate human rights is, in essence, unconstitutional. Following the painful experiences of the second world war, the German doctrine explained why constitutional provisions could be <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43668170">unconstitutional</a>, for instance, if they denied human dignity.</p>
<p>Similarly, the new constitution approved by President Saied is unconstitutional and cannot overrule the 2014 constitution. Also, any election conducted under the current conditions – including the <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202112140252.html">announced</a> parliamentary election for December 2022 – should not be deemed free and fair.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>José Ignacio Hernández G. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tunisia’s democratic backslide demonstrates how autocrats can use constitutional cover to entrench authoritarianism.José Ignacio Hernández G., Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1876342022-07-26T14:49:02Z2022-07-26T14:49:02ZSouth Africa has been warned that it faces an ‘Arab Spring’: so what are the chances?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476062/original/file-20220726-13-kdqkq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest in Johannesburg against the lack of service delivery or basic necessities such as access to water and electricity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Marco Longari / AFP via Getty images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former South African President <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> recently launched a sharp critique of the governing African National Congress (ANC) for failure to address what it has <a href="https://cisp.cachefly.net/assets/articles/attachments/88080_umrabulo-policy-document-18th-may-2022.pdf">labelled</a> the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality. </p>
<p>Mbeki, who led the party <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/former-leaders-2/">from 1997 to 2007</a>, said the government seemed to have no plan to address these problems, warning that rising poverty and hardship, poor governance, and mounting lawlessness could see South Africa erupt into its own version of the “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Arab-Spring">Arab Spring</a>”.</p>
<p>The “Arab Spring” uprisings which swept across North Africa and parts of the Middle East more than a decade ago, led to the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Many of the protesters were young and educated and had become disillusioned by the corruption and patronage that benefited only political and economic elites. </p>
<p>A common feature of these uprisings was that the existing constitutional orders had become so delegitimised that they simply collapsed under the weight of social discord. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">South Africa's deadly July 2021 riots may recur if there's no change</a>
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<p>Mbeki’s prophesy is sobering, especially coming a year after <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">devastating riots</a> in parts of the country in July 2021. With the plotters of what President Cyril Ramaphosa described as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">failed insurrection</a> still at large, many South Africans nervously await a repeat. </p>
<p>Political parties, trade unions, business, civil society groups all realise that South Africa is a pressure cooker. But the youth have shown little interest in organised politics. Their <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1614389/south-africa-election-young-voters-stay-away-from-polls/">low participation rates</a> in elections are a sign of that. There is a sense that something needs to change quickly, and radically. If not, the youth could explode in impatience and anger, a tsunami that even political parties will find difficult to contain.</p>
<h2>Ramaphosa’s plan to avert chaos</h2>
<p>President Ramaphosa used a public platform to respond to Mbeki’s criticism, almost a week later. Addressing the closing session of the ANC KwaZulu-Natal electoral conference <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EthSjP-Amk">he pointed</a> out that the government did have a reform agenda to address these problems. He cited the unwieldy <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">National Development Plan</a>, government’s formal blueprint for achieving its long term goals, and the ANC’s own <a href="https://voteanc.org.za/assets/manifesto-summaries/A5_Manifesto_English.pdf">2019 election manifesto</a> as “the plan”. </p>
<p>Some of the priorities identified have since been translated into the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202010/south-african-economic-reconstruction-and-recovery-plan.pdf">Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan</a>, which aims to change the asset and resource base of the economy by making the ownership structure more inclusive. </p>
<p>Tellingly, the president referred to these measures as “reforms”, language that invokes the idea of incremental change. But such initiatives sound distant and removed from what is needed.</p>
<p>What people want to see is visible change in their daily lives, and more imagination on the part of their government in relieving their hardships. The R350 (about US$20.72) monthly grant to unemployed people <a href="https://www.gov.za/services/social-benefits/social-relief-distress">during the COVID pandemic</a> was a tangible response to the crisis that families facing starvation needed. Similar scaled-up measures to deal with the multiple crises are needed, and there is no time to waste. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-social-unrest-in-south-africa-and-what-might-be-done-about-it-166130">What lies behind social unrest in South Africa, and what might be done about it</a>
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</em>
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<p>Something needs to be done urgently to address a host of big challenges, ranging from the <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/609268/warning-signs-as-wealthy-south-africans-take-strain-from-the-higher-cost-of-living/">high cost of living</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-driving-the-surge-in-south-africas-fuel-price-185302">soaring fuel prices</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-government-in-south-africa-is-broken-but-giving-the-job-to-residents-carries-risks-155970">inadequate provision of basic municipal services</a>.</p>
<p>Bored youth, with limited opportunities for work and gaining skills, get sucked into drugs or alcohol abuse, petty crime or worse. </p>
<h2>Possible trajectories</h2>
<p>Given the picture I have painted, is an Arab Spring likely? </p>
<p>It is impossible to make an accurate prediction, but two trajectories are plausible. </p>
<p>One is a repeat of last July’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">devastating unrest</a>. The failure of the state to respond decisively to the July unrest could encourage politically inspired anarchists to resort to violence again if they don’t get their way. They have tested the waters and seen what’s possible. And given that people remain frustrated about their lives, the country could see another outbreak of violence.</p>
<p>Another trajectory is the one in which lawlessness increases even further. Transnational organised crime networks and local gangs are <a href="https://theconversation.com/mass-shootings-in-south-africa-are-often-over-group-turf-how-to-stop-the-cycle-of-reprisals-187182">becoming increasingly brazen</a>. The police are <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/police-are-overstretched-and-understaffed-north-west/">overstretched</a> and gripped by their own internal problems. This breakdown in respect for the law by criminals has the effect of eroding the legitimacy and authority of the state. </p>
<p>Extortion, protection rackets, kidnappings, drive-by shootings, if they are allowed to encroach unchecked, will result in criminal networks being even more of a destabilising factor than political actors. A convergence of these elements – a South Africa where disgruntled elements engage in ongoing destabilisation, and collude with, or even unwittingly create the space for criminal networks to run amok – does not augur well for a prosperous nation.</p>
<h2>Mitigating factors</h2>
<p>Uprisings like those that occurred in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, were the result of combustible local conditions, triggered by a small spark. People were railing against political systems they saw as authoritarian and intolerant of dissent. </p>
<p>South Africa is still a very different political space. The country is a noisy democracy with a free and open media, lots of dissenting voices, and insulting the government of the day doesn’t carry any overt sanction.</p>
<p>It could be a blessing in disguise that the country is perpetually in election mode. The local government elections and national general elections occur every five years. Because they overlap each other, the country has an election every three years. </p>
<p>In between these events, political parties hold their own leadership contests, which serve as bellwethers for who is likely to occupy national office or local government seat. This ongoing extra- and intra-political competition serves as a pressure valve to absorb the energy that might otherwise bubble over.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-political-risk-profile-has-gone-up-a-few-notches-but-its-not-yet-a-failed-state-170653">South Africa's political risk profile has gone up a few notches: but it's not yet a failed state</a>
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<p>Political assassinations, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-political-killings-have-taken-hold-again-in-south-africas-kwazulu-natal-143908">especially at the local level</a>, are a pernicious by-product of this endless electoral churn. But the prospects of attaining office through outwitting, or ganging up with rivals, are still sufficiently attractive to the political classes. </p>
<p>This is not to deny that destabilisation is not widespread, something referred to by Ramaphosa when he addressed the nation on broadcast media on <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-actions-address-electricity-crisis%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">Monday 25 July</a>. Sabotage of electrical infrastructure, illegal connections by community members, theft of cables by organised criminals might not necessarily be centrally orchestrated. Nevertheless, they delegitimise the authority of the central state. </p>
<p>Already, many young people engage in protest action. So-called <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2017.1329106">service delivery protests</a> are part of the South African experience: for the moment they remain largely localised and driven by single issues. Just five years ago, student protests through the <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1753-59132021000400006">#FeesMustFall movement</a> saw activism on a national scale. The national mood changed; politics changed. Some of those young activists are now in parliament, in local government, and other spaces. </p>
<p>But they account for a small minority. There is a vast, restless sea of young people with unmet dreams and aspirations. They wake up to lives of poverty, joblessness, boredom. They see little change, and perceive the state to be indifferent to their plight. </p>
<p>Yet these same young people are energetic, connected via social media, and bursting to claim their space. Some are fortunate to come by opportunities, but for those from poor families, there is not much to persuade them that their lives are about to get better. Therein lies the challenge to political parties and the state.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187634/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandy Africa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The country is still a very different political space. It’s a noisy democracy with a free media, lots of dissenting voices, and insulting the government doesn’t carry any overt sanction.Sandy Africa, Associate Professor, Political Sciences, and Deputy Dean Teaching and Learning (Humanities), University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1751452022-01-24T14:24:57Z2022-01-24T14:24:57ZFrom Algeria to Zimbabwe: how Africa’s autocratic elites cycle in and out of power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441231/original/file-20220118-19-wv4nw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe greets supporters massed at his party headquarters shortly before his ouster in 2017.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2021, coups d’état ousted four heads of state in sub-Saharan Africa. Army interventions in Chad, Mali, Guinea and Sudan halted a years-long decline in military takeovers. Some heralded this as the <a href="https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/new-military-wave-africa-could-it-turn-tide-32718">comeback of the army</a> in African politics.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in Africa, elected leaders in <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/africa_tunisian-president-sacks-premier-suspends-parliament/6208718.html">Tunisia</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/28/rights-groups-accuse-tanzanias-magufuli-over-rising-repression">Tanzania</a> and <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationalrelations/2020/07/29/autocratic-entrenchment-as-the-world-turns-a-blind-eye-towards-zimbabwe/">Zimbabwe</a>, among others, were accused of pivoting to authoritarian rule. Common authoritarian measures include suspending parliamentary assemblies, confining opposition leaders, extending term limits and violently repressing opposition and dissent. </p>
<p>Here lies an apparent paradox: despite decades in which democratic institutions have become prevalent across the continent, African states continue to be vulnerable to military takeovers and autocratic forms of power.</p>
<p>Multiple interpretations aim to explain this seeming contradiction. A popular explanation suggests that the world, and especially Africa, is entering a new phase of ‘<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2015.1045884">democratic backsliding</a>’. This follows a decades-long era during which several leaders were ousted by popular movements. </p>
<p>Nowhere was this more evident than in North Africa. Here, the democratic aspirations of the 2011 Arab Spring were overshadowed by a return to authoritarianism and conflict. Yet, in many of Africa’s <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/competitive-authoritarianism/20A51BE2EBAB59B8AAEFD91B8FA3C9D6">competitive autocracies</a>, the removal of leaders is not associated with revolutionary change. In fact, there is a remarkable stability of senior elites and institutional practices across regimes. This seems to point to their resilience in the face of a supposed trajectory towards democracy.</p>
<p>The literature on <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/logic-political-survival">political survival</a> provides a more compelling narrative to explain political change in competitive autocracies. A leader’s survival is conditioned on the support of senior elites. Leaders can typically spread power among their ‘rival allies’ to keep it and co-opt enough of those elites in exchange for political support. </p>
<p>These actors can in turn leverage their collective power to secure greater influence and rewards from the centre. The concept of a ‘<a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/projects/conflict-research-programme/political-marketplace">political marketplace</a>’ has aptly captured the transactional nature of regime strategies to determine association, loyalty and alliances with senior elites.</p>
<p>Drawing on these insights, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X21000240">our recently published paper</a> seeks to explain political change in African competitive autocracies using the notion of ‘regime cycles’. This framework, which produced rich insights into the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40060127">failed democratisation processes</a> of the post-communist states during the 1990s, suggests that elites must act collectively if they are to challenge the leader, identifying four stages within a regime cycle.</p>
<p>Our research seeks to explain political change in African autocracies by looking at the role of political elites, focusing on cycles of power between a leader and their rivals which determine their survival. In doing so, we propose an alternative conceptual framework to interpret dynamics of change in African autocracies.</p>
<h2>Four stages of the autocratic regime cycle</h2>
<p>Each stage of the cycle is determined by the nature of contestation between the incumbent and senior elites. The balance of power between these actors varies in each stage, according to the level of fragmentation of authority within and across those groups.</p>
<p>The four stages are accommodation, consolidation, factionalisation and crisis. But they do not necessarily follow a chronological order. </p>
<p>During the accommodation phase, leaders build coalitions by distributing rents and authority among senior elites. The intention of this stage is to reward loyalists and co-opt prospective allies. The incentive is integration and inclusion. </p>
<p>The narrowing of competitive influences leads to the consolidation stage. The leader seeks to assert authority over a coalition of ‘rival allies’. This phase coincides with the height of a leader’s authority, where the threat of being removed is lowest.</p>
<p>At this stage, the leader may be perceived to be excessively centralising power. One sign is, for example, replacing security chiefs with loyalists. This may be a threat to other elites. Senior elites may organise along factional lines to create opposition within the regime. This creates factions.</p>
<p>Factions can consist of rival senior elites, who tactically join forces to get the leader to spread power. The intention is not to depose the leader or split the regime, but rather to bargain the terms of inclusion. Leaders also use disorder to try to prevent elite cooperation to lessen the strength of senior elite coalitions.</p>
<p>However, a crisis may occur when factions decide to take advantage of a critical juncture to forcibly reshuffle the ruling coalition. The jostling for power among senior elites typically leads to such crisis moments. This can result in military takeovers, forced resignations, constitutional coups or power-sharing agreements. </p>
<p>Regime crises reshape the existing power structures by disposing of the old leader. They also reshuffle senior elites into a narrow ruling coalition.</p>
<h2>Culmination of ripened factionalism</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/regime-cycles-and-political-change-in-african-autocracies/E9F73B8C9C658DB171BD44F9FBDA32A3">our paper</a>, we apply these observations to the removal of three of the longest-serving heads of state in Africa. </p>
<p>Between 2017 and 2019, Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe were ousted after a combined 90 years in power. Our analysis shows that their removal was the culmination of ripened factionalism. In each case, this had blossomed after the leaders’ attempts to centralise power. It was not a direct consequence of mass protests and economic downturns. </p>
<p>Senior military and security elites took advantage of the crisis moment to dispose of the leaders and their loyalists and reshuffle the regime. Naturally, they were once regime insiders and allies of the ageing autocrats. Stages of accommodation, consolidation, factionalisation and crisis preceded and followed the removal according to a cyclical logic.</p>
<p>Our analysis emphasises elite dynamics over the role of mass protests and popular opposition. True popular demonstrations can spark crises within a regime. But leaders and senior elites are more likely to produce significant and durable changes. </p>
<p>Democratic breakthroughs cannot be ruled out. But they are typically the product of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/421307">political stalemate</a>. They are not ideological preferences or public appeals for political change. </p>
<p>The forceful removals observed in 2021 seem to conform to this cyclical logic of political change. Senior elites took advantage of a crisis moment to seize power and reconfigure the regime to their own advantage.</p>
<p><em>This is a reedited version of <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2022/01/13/what-causes-regime-change-in-african-autocracies-dictatorships-political-cycle/">this blog</a> first posted on January 13, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carboni is affiliated with Mercy Corps, where he is a Humanitarian Analyst.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clionadh Raleigh receives funding from the European Research Council - ERC grant no. 726504. She is affiliated with ACLED, where she is the Executive Director. </span></em></p>Leaders typically spread power among their ‘rival allies’ to keep it and co-opt enough of those elites in exchange for political support.Andrea Carboni, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of SussexClionadh Raleigh, Professor of Political Geography, School of Global Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1682102021-09-27T12:45:52Z2021-09-27T12:45:52ZWhy global food prices are higher today than for most of modern history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423316/original/file-20210927-15-1h60fxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5615%2C3741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fruits-market-la-boqueriabarcelona-famous-marketplace-169180895">Curioso.Photography/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Global food prices shot up nearly 33% in September 2021 compared with the same period the year before. That’s according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)‘s monthly Food Price Index, which also found that global prices have risen by more than 3% since July, reaching levels not seen since 2011.</p>
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<p>The Food Price Index is designed to capture the combined outcome of changes in a range of food commodities, including vegetable oils, cereals, meat and sugar, and compare them month to month. It converts actual prices to an index, relative to <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/worldfood/Reports_and_docs/FO-Expanded-SF.pdf">average price levels between 2002 and 2004</a>. This is the standard source for tracking food prices – nominal prices, as they’re known, which means they’re not adjusted for inflation.</p>
<p>While nominal prices tell us the monetary cost of buying food in the market, prices adjusted for inflation (what economists call “real” prices) are much more relevant to food security – how easily people can access appropriate nutrition. The prices of all goods and services tend to rise faster than average incomes (<a href="https://theconversation.com/inflation-or-deflation-which-would-be-worse-right-now-138030">though not always</a>). Inflation means that not only do buyers need to pay more per unit for food (due to its nominal price increase), but they have proportionately less money to spend on it, given the parallel price increases of everything else, except their wages and other incomes. </p>
<p>Back in August, I analysed the FAO’s <a href="https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/po901/entry/a_climate_reality_1/">inflation-adjusted Food Price Index</a> and found that real global food prices were actually higher than in 2011, when food riots contributed to the overthrow of governments in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-shortages-idUSTRE71R7GY20110228">Libya</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/17/bread-food-arab-spring">Egypt</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph comparing nominal and real food prices between 1961 and 2021." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422337/original/file-20210921-25-fjz9wk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nominal prices are lower today than in 2011, but real prices are higher.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alastair Smith/FAO data</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Based on real prices, it is currently harder to buy food on the international market than in almost every other year since UN record keeping began in 1961. The only exceptions are 1974 and 1975. Those food price peaks occurred following the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/03/1970s-oil-price-shock">oil price spike of 1973</a>, which drove rapid inflation in many parts of the global economy, including the production and distribution of food.</p>
<p>So what’s now pushing food prices to historic levels?</p>
<h2>Fuel prices, bad weather and COVID-19</h2>
<p>The drivers of average international food prices are always complicated. The prices of different commodities rise and fall based on universal factors, as well as those specific to each commodity and region.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil">oil price rise</a> which started in April 2020 has affected the prices of all food commodities on the FAO index, by increasing the costs of producing and transporting food. Labour shortages resulting from the <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/when-will-the-covid-19-pandemic-end">COVID pandemic</a> have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/09/15/food-inflation-faq/">reduced the availability</a> of workers to grow, harvest, process and distribute food, another universal cause of commodity price rises.</p>
<p>The real average price of food has actually been increasing since the year 2000, reversing the previous trend of a steady decline from the start of the 1960s. Despite global efforts – that have, in part, responded to targets set by both the UN Millennium Development and the subsequent Sustainable Development Goals to reduce hunger – prices have made food steadily less accessible.</p>
<p>No single commodity has been continually responsible for the average real price increase from 2000. But the price index of edible oil crops has grown significantly since March 2020, driven mainly by the price of vegetable oils shooting up by 16.9% <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/cb1993en/CB1993EN.pdf">between 2019 and 2020</a>. According to <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/cb1993en.pdf">FAO crop reports</a>, this was due to the growing demand for biodiesel and unsupportive weather patterns.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph depicting commodity price change between 1960 and 2021." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423105/original/file-20210924-20-1ewnye3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Food oil prices recently hit a 20-year high.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alastair Smith/FAO data</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The other food category adding most to the overall food price rise is sugar. Here, again, unfavourable weather, including <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1437401/icode/">frost damage in Brazil</a>, has reduced supply and inflated prices.</p>
<p>Cereals have added less to overall price increases, but their accessibility worldwide is <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-malnutrition-why-cereal-grains-could-provide-an-answer-156786">particularly important for food security</a>. Wheat, barley, maize, sorghum and rice account for at least <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919220301809">50% of global nutrition</a>, and as much as <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/bk-2011-1089.ch001">80% in the poorest countries</a>. Global buffer stocks of these crops have been <a href="http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/">shrinking since 2017</a>, as demand has outstripped supply. Running down stores has helped stabilise global markets, but prices have increased sharply from 2019. </p>
<p>Again, the reasons for individual fluctuations are complicated. But something that deserves attention is the number of times since the year 2000 “unpredictable” and “unfavourable weather” has been reported by the FAO to have caused “<a href="http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/">reduced harvest expectations</a>”, “weather-stricken harvests” and “<a href="http://www.fao.org/3/cb4479en/cb4479en.pdf">production decrease</a>”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-climate-is-like-reckless-banking-before-the-crash-its-time-to-talk-about-near-term-collapse-128374">Our climate is like reckless banking before the crash – it's time to talk about near-term collapse</a>
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<p>Europeans might worry about the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/sep/09/penne-in-your-pocket-uk-shoppers-could-pay-up-to-50-more-for-pasta">price of pasta</a> as Canadian droughts slash wheat harvests. But, as the real price index for cereals creeps towards levels that escalated riots over the price of bread into general uprisings in 2011, there is an urgent need to consider how communities in less affluent regions can weather these stresses and avoid unrest.</p>
<p>Our technological capacity and socioeconomic organisation cannot successfully manage unpredictable and unfavourable weather. Now would be a good time to imagine food supply in a world warmer by more than 2°C – an outcome now considered <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/">increasingly likely</a> according to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. </p>
<p>Without radical changes, climate breakdown will continue to reduce international access to imported food, well beyond any historical precedent. Higher prices will reduce food security, and if there is one solid law of social science, it’s that hungry people take radical steps to secure their livelihoods – especially where leaders are perceived to have failed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Extreme weather is already having an influence on global food prices.Alastair Smith, Senior Teaching Fellow in Global Sustainable Development, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668662021-09-13T17:55:36Z2021-09-13T17:55:36ZWhat does the future hold for Middle Eastern states?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418112/original/file-20210826-4978-1qkh6c4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C3763%2C2987&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/middle-east-under-magnifier-162063665">Popartic/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From independence until the advent of the Arab Spring, Middle Eastern states have suffered due to their constituting principle, a notion that can be traced back to the motivations and arrangements of former colonial powers.</p>
<p>Independence may have satisfied the demands of the region’s inhabitants for autonomy, Arabness and sovereignty, but for citizens, elites and leaders alike, these states have served as little more than artificial entities created and divvied up haphazardly by Western diplomats.</p>
<p>The region’s recent history has then been marked by the consequences of wars between Arabs and Israelis, particularly by the plight of the Palestinian people. A situation that dates back to the <a href="https://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/asie/syrie-Sykes-Picot-1916.htm">Sykes-Picot Agreement</a> and <a href="https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/declaration-balfour/">Balfour Declaration</a> which, over time, have turned the Arab cultural renaissance into a nationalistic and ideologically driven enterprise.</p>
<h2>The impact of decades of Arab nationalism</h2>
<p>Arab nationalism has been a major obstacle to achieving political diversity and civil debate within the region. Many countries have essentially used war with Israel as an excuse to justify multiple coups d’État and a military stranglehold on public life and constitutional affairs.</p>
<p>The most radical and totalitarian experience was that of the Ba’athists in Iraq and Syria, particularly following the rise to power of Hafez al-Assad (1970) and Saddam Hussein (1979). The Ba’ath Party took on a mission to deconstruct the Iraqi and Syrian states for more than three decades. In their schoolbooks, and even in the Constitution, citizens and students were taught that the Arab states were illegitimate, temporary, and doomed to oblivion.</p>
<p>Alongside this deification of political figures and the promise of Arab unity through Ba’athist revolution came a denial of minority rights, especially the Kurds. This denial culminated in <a href="http://guerredugolfe.free.fr/kurdes.htm">thousands of Kurdish villages being levelled</a> in northern Iraq during the First Gulf War, as well as <a href="https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/03/NEZAN/3615">mass killings by chemical weapons</a> committed under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>In Syria, the Kurdish population still has no recognized cultural rights, despite <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-droit-constitutionnel-2015-1-page-e29.htm">changes to the constitution in 2014</a>, part of an attempt to re-legitimise the Assad regime during the ongoing civil war.</p>
<p>It appears unlikely that a territorial <em>status quo</em> can be installed to preserve the existing states while also helping regimes to evolve and establish pluralistic, inclusive systems. Even post-Arab Spring, with all its social and post-ideological assertions, the current situation remains one of stagnation and corresponds more to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/moyen-orient-le-retour-a-letat-de-nature-64399">post-state indecision</a>.</p>
<h2>The relationship between regime and state</h2>
<p>The Syrian crisis began in 2011 with <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2012/03/14/quand-la-syrie-se-revolta_803029/">mass protests</a> for political reform under the Bashar al-Assad regime. The demands were not concerned with identity or Syrian national borders. Rather, the revolutionary nature of these protests was defined by their social, post-ideological conscience, and a constitutionalist mindset for the state.</p>
<p>In the Middle East, there are no intra-state governments but rather regime-states. Within the various monarchies of the region, the monarch does not constitutionally stand for unity among his people, but bestows his subjects with their name and nationality. Such is the case of Arabia, whose various peoples are known as “Saudi” referring to the sovereign power of the Saud family. This flaw is less obvious in other Gulf regimes, but these countries are no less bound by the rules of absolute monarchy, an outdated political regime with no judicially secure future. Similarly, under the region’s “republican” regimes, states are not made to serve citizens but are instead driven solely by ethnic hierarchy: Jewish nationalist state, Arab nationalist state and, soon, perhaps, Kurdish nationalist state.</p>
<p>In other words, any normative homogeneity is totally lacking and all conflict is fated to bypass the dialectics of justice vs. injustice, freedom vs. tyranny or people vs. political regime. To date, there is no finalised state apparatus under the authority of which political views could oppose each other. This is because the issue of political legitimacy focuses on <a href="https://theconversation.com/espace-legal-et-espace-legitime-au-moyen-orient-49002">the nature of the state</a> rather than the social and political struggles occurring within it.</p>
<p>The opening up of the Syrian-Iraqi domain to regional and international influences is the best proof of this, particularly when we consider the surprising emergence of various nascent statelets.</p>
<p>The Turkish, the Qataris and the Muslim Brotherhood did not generally aspire to constitutional, pluralistic democracies in Syria or elsewhere in the region. They sought instead to establish constitutional law upon electoral majorities, following the constitutional practices under the likes of Morsi in Egypt, Erdogan in Turkey or Putin in Russia. According to a number of Syrian opponents, the Muslim Brotherhood’s sponsors have managed to monopolise and hijack the representative bodies of the Syrian opposition, both in diplomacy and on the war field.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Iran and Hezbollah enjoy a very vocal presence in Syria and Iraq, proclaiming revolutionary Shia Islam and the political system of mullahs and ayatollahs. They prey upon minorities in the region, steering conflicts into the area of irreconcilable opposition between Shias and Sunnis. Daesh first belonged to the same category as the Saudi medieval absolute monarchy; it then added to the mix the religious duty of jihad and territorial expansion. Then we have the Kurds, who have copied and continue to copy the Arab and Jewish mistake of a nationalist, monolithic state – and so the story goes on.</p>
<p>Normative homogeneity means <a href="http://www.revistasconstitucionales.unam.mx/pdf/3/art/art8.pdf">judicial security</a>. When applied to the Middle East, this can be viewed as a two-fold concept. It is both philosophical (the contract), as any political system is bound by legitimacy from the people, and legal (the Constitution), as state institutions are bound by the supremacy of law and human rights.</p>
<p>If regime change were to occur today in a Middle Eastern state, it could lead to the overhaul or even destruction of the said state, followed by a multitude of unpredictable territorial shifts and transformations. The legal existence of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or the state of Israel could all very easily be called into question. And the constituent alternatives to these states are as varied as the number of minorities and ethnicities present across the region (Kurds, Palestinians, Druzes, Shias and so on).</p>
<h2>Questions for the future</h2>
<p>Initially, the Arab Spring offered a glimpse into the possibility of states moving away from identity-based ideologies and political regimes toward an institutional foundation and a more constitutionalised system. If this idea is still alive and if we want to ensure that it is nurtured to fruition, we must consider the following issues:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>What was the circumstantial history of the right to self-determination? Was it an illusory-but-necessary ideal in achieving emancipation from The 19th century’s European empires? In this century, should the state still be defined as an exclusive identity-based expression?</p></li>
<li><p>Is there sufficient space or demographic homogeneity to territorially and constitutionally satisfy all the identities of the region? Where does the individual stand in all this, with their personal identities and social and political rights?</p></li>
<li><p>Should the Kurdish and Palestinian peoples continue their fight in pursuit of self-determination and independence, or should the future of the region be thought of through the lens of pluralistic, democratic states that serve all their residents and citizens? Would this not also resolve the existential issues of certain emerging minorities, such as Alawis in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq, and Shias in Lebanon and elsewhere?</p></li>
<li><p>Have we thought about emerging and urgent questions for the region’s future, such as environmental challenges, sustainable management, and fair distribution of natural resources between states? Would the appearance of multiple new states not represent an even more serious threat in this regard than in matters of identity-based conflicts?</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, what solutions should civil and private initiatives offer in response to the ethical challenges of technology, online spread of radical ideologies, and limited access to education and information among millions of refugees? How can a <a href="https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-03264927/document">socio-digital power</a> be formed that operates beyond borders and regimes, contributing to civil and civilian representation in political affairs?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These are just some of the many necessary questions that will require answering in the coming years.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is published as part of <a href="https://www.ipev-fmsh.org/fr/transition-from-violence-lessons-from-the-mena-region/">Transition from Violence: Lessons from the MENA</a>, from the International Panel on Exiting Violence (IPEV).</em></p>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Enda Boorman for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en">Fast ForWord</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mohamad Moustafa Alabsi has received funding from the Mellon Foundation Program for Displaced Scholars. </span></em></p>The events of the past decade in the Middle East have upended the states in the region. What will the future hold?Mohamad Moustafa Alabsi, Chercheur postdoctoral au Mellon Fellowship Program, Columbia Global Centers, Amman, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668082021-09-03T12:36:20Z2021-09-03T12:36:20ZAl-Qaida, Islamic State group struggle for recruits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418733/original/file-20210831-25-jkbd75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C19%2C3165%2C2342&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 2014, the Islamic State group could draw crowds of supporters, like these in Mosul, Iraq. But actual fighting recruits have been harder to come by.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Iraq/f15b627c445b4d5ca1949944c72f5462/photo">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Al-Qaida was planning two sets of terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001. On Sept. 11, 2021, as Americans commemorate and mourn the lives lost that Tuesday morning 20 years ago, it is important to remember the second plot as well – the attacks that didn’t happen.</p>
<p>Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the organizer of the 9/11 operation, originally envisioned simultaneous attacks on the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States. He <a href="https://archive.org/details/mastermindsofter0000fawd/page/114/">bragged about having had dozens of recruits</a> to choose from.</p>
<p>But the numbers were smaller than he expected. Several people dropped out of the plot and could not be replaced. Ultimately al-Qaida could find only 19 sufficiently trained militants who were willing to die for the cause. As a result, the <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060209-4.html">West Coast plot had to be canceled</a>.</p>
<p>As strange as it may sound, revolutionary Islamist groups suffer from recruitment problems as any other organization does. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=riNVcLgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">My</a> <a href="https://kurzman.unc.edu/islamic-terrorism/">research</a> on Islamist terrorism has found that al-Qaida and its <a href="https://doi.org/10.2870/271061">rival offshoot</a>, the Islamic State group, have long had chronic difficulties replenishing their ranks.</p>
<p>These groups complain about their recruitment problems frequently. “We are most amazed that the community of Islam is still asleep and heedless while its children are being wiped out and killed everywhere and its land is being diminished every day,” al-Qaida wrote in one of its online publications in 2004. It is a sentiment that the group has repeated over many years.</p>
<p>The Islamic State group has also expressed disappointment in Muslims’ lack of militancy. In June 2017, for example, it published an article in an online magazine criticizing Muslims who “drag the tail of shame” by remaining “safe in your homes, secure with your families and wealth” instead of joining the revolutionary movement. The problem, according to a November 2017 article in the Islamic State’s online daily newspaper, is “love of life and hatred of death,” a “disease of weakness whose final result will be the supremacy of the enemy over the Muslims.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people push through a wide street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418739/original/file-20210831-15-s3j99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Arab Spring movement in 2011 was just one of a long line of pro-democracy movements in Islamic societies through the centuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ArabSpringADecadeLater/346b74d8eb2d46f1b47b5002d32bd242/photo">AP Photo/Ben Curtis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Democracy, not revolution</h2>
<p>Love of life is only one of the militants’ recruitment problems. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190907976.001.0001/oso-9780190907976-chapter-4">social science surveys</a>, the bulk of the world’s <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/">1.8 billion Muslims</a> find these groups abhorrent. Most Muslims support policies that encourage or enforce Islamic piety, but they don’t support revolutionary violence. A large majority of Muslims support democratic elections, which the revolutionaries consider un-Islamic.</p>
<p>Democratic thought has deep roots in Islamic tradition, including the “<a href="https://kurzman.unc.edu/modernist-islam/">nahda</a>” renaissance of Arab intellectuals in the 19th century, <a href="https://kurzman.unc.edu/democracy-denied/">mass pro-democracy moments</a> in the early 20th century in the Ottoman Empire and Iran, and the <a href="https://meridian.allenpress.com/mobilization/issue/17/4">Arab Spring</a> movement that started in late 2010.</p>
<p>Islamist militants such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State group view democratic efforts as a threat and have repeatedly targeted pro-democracy Muslim scholars and activists for assassination. For instance, Muhammad Nu'man Fazli, a cleric in Afghanistan, was among the recent victims of this sort of violence. His mosque outside Kabul was bombed by the Islamic State group in May 2021 during a cease-fire between the Taliban and the Afghan government, <a href="https://kyleorton.co.uk/2021/05/22/islamic-state-gaza-war-jerusalem-afghanistan-pakistan-kashmir-india-africa/">specifically because of his support of democracy</a>, according to a statement in the Islamic State group’s newspaper.</p>
<p>The world’s governments have made it very hard for people to find and join militant groups. There are few safe places for training, and the ones that do exist are typically in <a href="https://undocs.org/S/2021/655">remote areas that are hard to reach</a>, such as the mountains of northwest Pakistan, the deserts of eastern Mali, the forests of the Lake Chad basin and northern Mozambique, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-defeats-the-islamic-state-remains-unbroken-and-defiant-around-the-world-128971">islands of the southern Philippines</a>.</p>
<p>Even online, militants must constantly seek new methods to avoid detection. Every message they send or receive <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/3834325/how-police-hunted-ontario-terror-suspect-isis-anonymous/">risks exposing them to arrest</a> or <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Press%20Releases/DNI+Release+on+CT+Strikes+Outside+Areas+of+Active+Hostilities.PDF">drone attack</a>.</p>
<h2>Competing for recruits</h2>
<p>Nationalist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban are also trying to <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190907976.001.0001/oso-9780190907976-chapter-3">recruit Islamic extremists</a>. Like al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, these movements also aim to impose an austere version of Islamic law, at least partly through force of arms. But their ambitions are primarily local, as opposed to the global agendas of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.</p>
<p>The nationalists and globalists may cooperate at times – most notably, the tense alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaida in the years leading up to 9/11. Still, they are fundamentally rivals when it comes to recruitment, and the nationalists are far more successful in drawing on trusted local networks. </p>
<p>In Afghanistan today, the Taliban have <a href="https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2019-01-30qr-section3-security.pdf">tens of thousands of militants</a> among their recruits, according to U.S. government estimates. The Islamic State group’s regional branch, often referred to as ISIS-K, has <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/">approximately 1,000 fighters</a>, and al-Qaida has <a href="https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/11/analysis-us-military-grossly-underestimates-taliban-al-qaeda-force-levels-in-afghanistan.php">fewer than 1,000</a>.</p>
<p>Twenty years after 9/11, al-Qaida has never found enough recruits to carry out its second wave of mass-casualty attacks on America. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, <a href="https://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/169/include/terrorism.whitepaper.pdf">only a dozen people</a> in the United States were convicted in the years after 9/11 for links with al-Qaida, and none were involved in large-scale plots. </p>
<p>The Islamic State group has <a href="https://kurzman.unc.edu/muslim-american-terrorism/annual-report">organized or inspired several dozen attacks</a> in the United States, but the numbers fell off sharply in the middle of 2015, when the Turkish government closed its border with Syria. And those were do-it-yourself operations involving <a href="https://kurzman.unc.edu/muslim-american-terrorism/annual-report">small arms, homemade explosives, vehicles and knives</a>, averaging 14 fatalities per year. The Islamic State group has never mobilized enough militants in the West to “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161107092054/https://pietervanostaeyen.com/2015/03/13/so-they-kill-and-are-killed-audio-statement-by-abu-muhammad-al-adnani-as-shami/">destroy the White House, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower</a>, by Allah’s permission,” as it threatened to do in 2015.</p>
<p>Al-Qaida and the Islamic State group remain serious about targeting the United States. But the good news for Americans, on this anniversary of 9/11, is that militants face a recruitment bottleneck – a mundane organizational problem that afflicts these very unconventional organizations.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Kurzman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A second plot was planned on 9/11, but there were too few terrorists to carry it off. Twenty years later, al-Qaida and its offshoot the Islamic State group still have trouble attracting recruits.Charles Kurzman, Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1656982021-08-06T14:52:40Z2021-08-06T14:52:40ZTunisia: the complex issues behind the presidential power-grab<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414813/original/file-20210805-19-vrockg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C2005%2C1499&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tunisian president Kais Saied has dismissed the prime minister and taken power.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Presidency of Tunisia handout</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ten years on from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/arab-spring-after-a-decade-of-conflict-the-same-old-problems-remain-154314">Arab uprisings</a>, Tunisia has often been presented as a rare success story. Elsewhere Egypt sank into an army dictatorship, Syria, Libya and Yemen into bloody civil war. In other countries, meanwhile, such as Bahrain, the protests were put down with ferocity and the old regimes dug in against change.</p>
<p>In Tunisia, the protests toppled the corrupt regime of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12196679">Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali</a>. An interim government called elections and parties previously banned, such as the Islamist Ennahda, were allowed to campaign and take their place in the political mainstream. A new constitution was written and the country appeared to be on a road to democracy. </p>
<p>So, there was widespread international consternation when, on the evening of July 25, Tunisian president, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/tunisia-kais-saied-displayed-authoritarian-streak">Kais Saied</a> – an independent politician and former law professor – dismissed the prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, froze the activities of the parliament and revoked the immunity of parliamentarians. To give himself cover, he invoked <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/News/north-africa/2021/07/27/What-is-article-80-and-how-did-Tunisia-s-president-use-it-to-back-his-decisions-">Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution</a> that allows for the president to take emergency measures in situations of imminent danger.</p>
<p>Many people I’ve been speaking to have been wondering whether what seemed like a positive transition towards democracy is under threat. On the other hand, some foreign policy analysts speculated that maybe Tunisians “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210727195740/https:/foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/27/saied-coup-tunisia-might-not-want-democracy/">never wanted democracy</a>”.</p>
<p>Both positions represent a simplistic view of political developments in Tunisia over the past ten years. What’s happening now is not a sudden diversion of an otherwise linear democratic transition. Nor can we infer from current events that Tunisian democracy has been “doomed to fail” all along.</p>
<p>Economist Branko Milanovic complained on Twitter that political scientists “(…) after ten years of praising democracy in Tunisia, (…) suddenly have nothing to say.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1421576784546603009"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s complicated. What has been praised by observers over the past ten years – and what Tunisians have been proud of – is interwoven with issues that have drawn criticism from both observers and protesters within Tunisia.</p>
<p>The decade has been marked by political and social struggles, both in and outside of political institutions. Divisions are not clear cut. Tunisia has managed to organise a peaceful handover of power and three free and fair elections for both presidency and parliament, which were followed by often tortuous negotiations around the formation of a government based on the results. The country also started dealing with its repressive past through an ambitious <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17502977.2021.1882756">transitional justice process</a>.</p>
<p>But actually finishing the 2014 constitution proved problematic. To overcome a deadlock in the process of writing the constitution, a conflict-resolution mechanism was established: the 2013 National Dialogue. This mechanism was internationally praised and four Tunisian civil society organisations <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2015/tndq/facts/">won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize</a> for its “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia”.</p>
<p>This forum included members of parties represented in the National Constituent Assembly, but each party had the same number of participants, rather than representation being based on their strength in the Assembly. Outside parliament, participating politicians negotiated compromises on the broader lines of political conflict, to bring the constitutional process back on track. It also led to a rapprochement between the Ennahda party and Nidaa Tounes, a party that included many members of the “old regime”.</p>
<p>While finishing of the constitution was a milestone in Tunisia’s democratic development, several of the people I interviewed at the time mentioned that the conflict-resolution mechanism paved the way for political decisions being taken through deals made between elites. Since it led to a reconciliation of adversarial political factions, there was not much interest in dismantling “the system” – structures in politics, economy and the justice sector that had enabled repressive rule – at a deeper level.</p>
<p>My research involved interviewing politicians from different parties, representatives of civil society organisations, international organisations, and NGOs. Especially civil society representatives frequently remarked that with the departure of Ben Ali, only the “head of the corrupt regime” had left the country, while the deeper structures were still in place.</p>
<p>Political deal-making became the order of the day and the push for transitional justice and accountability became less important. People told me that badly needed reforms of the justice and security sector were only pursued on a superficial level and not systematically. The revolution had paved the way for some previously excluded actors to get into positions of political power – <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190670757.001.0001/oso-9780190670757">Ennahda</a>, for example, whose members had been persecuted, has been either the strongest or second strongest party in parliament.</p>
<p>But, instead of working towards dismantling repressive structures, working towards an even more inclusive political system, and reforming institutions, Ennahda made deals with politicians from the “old regime” and staffed institutions with <a href="https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/the-tunisian-exception-success-and-limits-of-consensus-french.pdf">their own people</a>. This merely perpetuated the impression of a nepotistic and corrupt political class. In addition, police violence <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2021/0707/Why-police-violence-proves-a-stubborn-problem-for-democratic-Tunisia">remains a problem</a>, emphasising the need for further structural reforms. </p>
<p>In the same vein, Ennahda’s on-again, off-again support for transitional justice was perceived as an attempt to steer financial benefits through reparations towards its own constituents. </p>
<p>Against <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2e7de0c4-d9ad-4150-a163-05795cd91584">the background</a> of a poorly performing economy and a catastrophic pandemic situation, the party’s recent demands for €3 billion (£2.5 billion) in reparations caused <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/07/tunisians-decry-coup-while-presidents-supporters-claim-second-revolution">public outrage</a> at the end of July 2021. The protests that followed were cited by Saied as a reason to take over power. </p>
<p>The failure to establish a Constitutional Court – which was supposed to be set up by 2015 – shows the limits of this deal-making logic. Parliament has been unable to agree on the nomination of judges. Under the constitution is is supposed to be the Constitutional Court’s role to decide on ending the emergency situation. </p>
<p>So it remains unclear when and how things will return back to “normal functioning of state institutions and services” as Article 80 dictates. But it is clear that it is not only necessary to appoint a new government to ensure democracy in Tunisia, but to work towards reforms of repressive structures, social justice and accountability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mariam Salehi is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Marburg and a guest researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. She received funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research.
</span></em></p>Viewing Tunisia as an Arab Spring success story was always too simplistic.Mariam Salehi, Visiting Researcher of Global Governance, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1613942021-05-26T19:02:43Z2021-05-26T19:02:43ZHow the Arab Spring changed the Middle East and North Africa forever<p>Ten years after people rose up against their leaders in country after country around the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunisia to Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, what can we say about how society, politics and religion have changed in the region?</p>
<p>To put it mildly, the social, cultural, religious, political and strategic events that history will remember as the “Arab Spring” sent a shockwave across an entire region. Today, the legacy of this chain of events is contested and to an extent still uncertain, but one thing is clear: the conditions for engaging in politics in these countries have shifted completely.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Lire cet article en français:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/revolutions-arabes-an-x-des-societes-a-jamais-transformees-161029">“Révolutions arabes, an X: des sociétés à jamais transformées”</a></p>
<hr>
<p>It’s true that in many places, like Egypt, we’ve seen a return to some form of the authoritarianism that reigned before the people asserted their right to take part in politics at the beginning of the 2010s. But social powers are the forces that write the definitive version of history, and these have seemingly been disrupted forever.</p>
<p>Citizens now know that ruling power is fragile; it can be shaky; it does not last forever. In 2021, the question is no longer whether it’s possible to topple a regime, or at least make it grant concessions, but rather what the cost-benefit analysis is for a process of political change. What price are people prepared to pay to see their situation improve?</p>
<h2>The power of protest</h2>
<p>The most obvious change has been the redefinition of political space in Arab societies. This has been shown again and again in the years since 2011, from the recent protests in <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210309-protesters-in-lebanon-block-roads-over-worsening-poverty">Lebanon</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50595212">Iraq</a>, to the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/end-line-algerias-hirak-movement">Hirak movement</a> in Algeria.</p>
<p>Across North Africa and the Middle East, protests and demonstrations of public anger are no longer simply seen as signs of a challenge toward authorities, but rather as the potential forewarning of an uprising, or even a revolution.</p>
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<p>Each social crisis opens the floodgates for real and uninhibited challenges to the regimes in power. Even <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200921-protests-against-sisis-rule-break-out-across-egypt/">Egypt</a>, which in 2013 saw a return to authoritarianism that would make previous regimes in other Arab countries pale in comparison, <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200929-even-egyptians-in-rural-areas-are-protesting-again/">is not exempt</a>. Activists and groups have learned how to speak out against the government, often at <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/13/egypt-no-end-escalating-repression">great personal risk</a>. A majority of citizens are now reasoning based on the hypothesis that the players currently holding power can be removed.</p>
<h2>Secularism v religion</h2>
<p>Across the region, the social and political spheres have become more secular, as both a cause and a consequence of the Arab Spring. The push for democratisation both fed into and was fed by the belief in egalitarian citizenship. Regimes, feeling challenged, encouraged sectarian attitudes and divisions, hoping to transform a vertical conflict (between society and authority) into a series of horizontal disputes (Sunnites against Shiites, Muslims against Copts, Arabs against Kurds, and so on).</p>
<p>In other words, by changing the original narrative, which was mainly secular and drew on political and social progress as a foundation, certain regimes placed their survival above that of their country’s unity. Syria is a <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/sectarianizing-faith-safeguarding-authoritarianism-in-syria">textbook example of this</a>.</p>
<p>While a number of religious groups, Islamists among them, took the side of popular uprisings during the Arab Spring, it is nevertheless difficult to give a definitive judgement on the role of specific religious groups, both at the time and since. It would be hard to compare Tunisia’s <a href="https://carnegie-mec.org/2019/09/05/ennahda-s-uneasy-exit-from-political-islam-pub-79789">Ennahda</a>, for example, with Hamas in the Palestinian Territories, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, given how widely communication, strategies, and even long-term goals vary from one group to another.</p>
<p>This is partly because the Arab Spring uprisings were not religious by nature; they were never built on the necessity of defending religious traditions, and even less so a threatened Muslim identity. Nor was the Islamist narrative the engine for these changes. Religious figures and movements jumped on the bandwagon, but they never managed to control the direction of these wide-reaching movements.</p>
<p>However, in burgeoning democracies, starting with Tunisia, the power distribution phase gave way to other laws, specifically those regarding the ability to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23210458?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">siphon off votes</a>. Islamist groups were clearly masters of this game, boosted by their claimed capital of moral and political purity and long-established abilities to mobilise people.</p>
<p>And so over the past ten years we have seen the subject of religion take centre stage, as social revolutions, in becoming constitutional and partisan, had a duty to tackle the question at the same time as Islamist parties were integrating themselves into national political scenes in transition. Right now, the key takeaway is undeniably the rupturing of the Islamist landscape.</p>
<h2>The rise of jihadism</h2>
<p>Though jihadism has been an important part of the political and religious landscape in Arab countries and elsewhere for several decades, this phenomenon was indirectly strengthened by the uprisings in the early 2010s.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://mepc.org/journal/jihadism-arab-world-after-2011-explaining-its-expansion">rise of jihadism over the past ten years</a> is connected to the fact that parts of these societies, particularly the youth, saw the Arab Spring uprisings from two related perspectives. On one hand, it was clear that the revolutions were not going to bear fruit immediately. On the other, they were no longer exclusively rooted in the present time and in their country’s society as it had always been. Another utopia existed, and jihadism competed with that promised by revolution.</p>
<p>As a result, certain countries such as Syria, which is still gripped by civil war and a serious sovereignty crisis, became echo chambers for Arab tensions, or even laboratories for new kinds of violent, radical movements to spread, as illustrated by Islamic State’s caliphate in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Smoke rises from buildings in the Islamic State’s former caliphate in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province near the Iraqi border, a day after the group was declared defeated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Islamic State’s former caliphate in eastern Syria, a day after the group was declared defeated by the Syrian Democratic Forces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Guiseppe Cacace/AFP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The undeniable politico-religious violence that has arisen since 2011, driven by jihadi movements, is also social and generational. Jihadism attests to the fact that the political realities in the regions are currently at an unprecedented crossroads, between the shift away from traditional religion, the plight of governments, and the many social, economic and psychological tensions weighing on entire populations desperate to see their hopes come to pass.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is published as part of <a href="https://www.ipev-fmsh.org/fr/transition-from-violence-lessons-from-the-mena-region/">IPEV Live: Transition from Violence, Lessons from the MENA</a>, a series of eight live conversations held every Tuesday from May 18 to June 29, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mohamed-Ali Adraoui ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>In the ten years since the Arab Spring, the countries affected have transformed completely. Here’s how.Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, Chercheur, London School of Economics & Membre du Panel international sur la sortie de la violence, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1589092021-04-14T12:32:24Z2021-04-14T12:32:24ZMyanmar: could defecting security forces bring down the military regime?<p>Just over ten years ago there were hopes that Myanmar might become a fully functioning democracy. Today there are concerns that the country may disintegrate into civil war. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/myanmar-memes-and-mantras-of-a-new-generation-of-democracy-protesters-155223">widespread opposition</a> to the military’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters also includes possibly as many as three-quarters of the soldiers in Myanmar’s army, according to an officer who has <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/myanmar-defector-says-most-soldiers-willing-to-oppose-regime-kqkzrqvp9">recently defected</a>. If this is accurate, there could be large-scale defections in the near future. </p>
<p>But what does this mean for the future of democracy in Myanmar? And is Myanmar on the precipice of civil war? </p>
<p>Myanmar’s <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/myanmar-coup-will-test-loyalty-security-forces">security apparatus</a> is large, consisting of an army of about 350,000-400,000, most of whom are ethnic Bamar Buddhists, another 80,000 police (who have been relied on heavily to confront protesters), as well as state intelligence service members.</p>
<p>Defections from the military have happened from time to time, such as after <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/08/08/209919791/as-myanmar-opens-up-a-look-back-on-a-1988-uprising">pro-democracy uprisings in 1988</a> and during the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43133778">Saffron revolution</a> in 2007. But over the past 60 years the military has remained a fairly cohesive unit, supported by a system of rewards and punishments and a rigorous indoctrination process.</p>
<iframe src="https://player.acast.com/60087127b9687759d637bade/episodes/myanmars-collective-fury?theme=default&cover=1&latest=1" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="110px" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
<p>Yet today’s military in Myanmar has had more exposure to the outside world since the country opened up in 2010. While it is still very brutal, it is not an organisation that is as blindly obedient as it was in the past.</p>
<p>Defections from the army or other elements of the security apparatus are important, because the success of any revolution is dependent on this – though this would need to be on a wide scale. The police and the military are the only organs of the state that can use tools of violence to enforce the will of an authoritarian regime. </p>
<h2>Why soldiers change sides</h2>
<p>There are several factors that are important for understanding what drives military defection. Not surprisingly, military cohesion is important to preventing revolution, as a cohesive military that stays firm in its support of the regime is near impossible to overcome. The worst-case scenario for Myanmar is if some of the military defects, but not enough to overturn the regime peacefully, which could lead to a protracted civil war, as in Syria. </p>
<p>Typically, militaries that consist of one ethnic or sectarian group are more cohesive but considered less legitimate in the eyes of the public, and are usually less professionalised as they are not recruited on the basis of merit. Militaries that are professionalised and not ethnically recruited tend to be more likely to <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Failed_States_and_Institutional_Decay/tozFAgAAQBAJ?q=natasha+ezrow&kptab=overview#f=false">side with their citizens</a> in the face of sizeable protests. </p>
<p>The role of the ethnic composition of the military is illustrated by the Arab Spring. Both Egypt and Tunisia did not have ethnically recruited militaries, and in both countries the military ended up siding with protesters – although in Egypt’s case this was ostensibly to oust the then president, Hosni Mubarak, and rule behind the scenes.</p>
<p>In contrast, both <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022343313476529">Bahrain and Syria</a> had militaries where recruitment was based on sectarian ties to some extent. In the case of the former, foreigners were also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/17/bahrain-security-forces-sunni-foreign">widely recruited</a> to decrease the chances of members of the security apparatus siding with any public protests.</p>
<p>Other drivers of military defection are how the military is being treated (mostly financially) and the political influence and social status that it has acquired. The <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0095327X17708194">popularity and legitimacy</a> of the military are also important. </p>
<p>Connected to this point is how popular and widespread the protests are. Notably, the current protests in Myanmar are very different from the past – they are widely popular and involve different ethnicities, religions and occupations. Due to the large volume of people taking to the streets, important institutions – <a href="https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/banks-closed-myanmar-anti-coup-protests-financial-chaos-continue">including banks</a> – have been closed due to lack of staff, causing financial chaos. </p>
<p>Military personnel are also increasingly aware that the regime’s use of violent tactics to maintain power, such as shooting at everyone, including children, tarnishes any legitimacy it may have had. </p>
<p>This all affects the calculations of military defectors. There has also been a <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/police-breaking-ranks-amid-rising-unrest-in-myanmar/2165936">rise in defections</a> among police, which is usually under the military’s control. </p>
<h2>Chances of revolution or war?</h2>
<p>But is there much chance of a successful revolution? Revolutions are often hyped as a common way of ending authoritarian regimes. But in reality, they take place infrequently. In the 1960s and 1970s, <a href="https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/twq/v37i1/f_0030502_24672.pdf">fewer than 5%</a> of autocrats were ousted through public revolt, with more than half ousted through military coups. That number more than doubled in the 2010s, but revolution is no more likely to oust a dictatorship than a civil war.</p>
<p>Myanmar’s chances of war are amplified by the presence of various ethnic armed organisations. Technically Myanmar has faced <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/06/peace-and-war-in-myanmar/">continuous conflict</a> since the country gained independence in 1948, making it one of the longest ongoing insurgencies. A ceasefire took place in 2008, but calls for greater federalisation and increased autonomy of ethnic states have never dissipated. </p>
<p>Some of these ethnic groups are able to rule in de facto zones (through funds from drug trafficking) without much government interference. Though the military is well trained and experienced in combat, it does not have the capacity to fight simultaneously in the north, east, west and centre of the country.</p>
<p>In addition to being unpopular with its citizens, General Min Aung Hlaing’s regime has not gained much international support either. Though Russia and China are major arms suppliers to Myanmar’s military – the Tatmadaw – there are <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/can-myanmars-protesters-win/">serious international concerns</a> that the regime’s actions are causing too much instability. At a UN Security Council briefing, an <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/myanmar-brink-state-failure">expert warned</a> that Myanmar was “on the brink of state failure”.</p>
<p>The crisis is taking place in a context of dire poverty, economic chaos, a raging pandemic, and where few political elites (including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy) are truly committed to democracy. Thus, even though the increase in military defections might seem promising to protesters, Myanmar appears more likely to collapse than to democratise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Lindstaedt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History tells us that the stability of a country’s security forces is key to the success or failure of a popular uprising.Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1570412021-03-22T18:48:24Z2021-03-22T18:48:24ZTen years after the Arab Spring, Libya has another chance for peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390459/original/file-20210318-19-rjpl8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C0%2C6429%2C4464&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Under tight security, Libyans mark the 10th anniversary of their 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow and killing of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi in Martyrs Square, Tripoli, Libya. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Hazem Ahmed)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ten years ago, <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2011/sc10200.doc.htm">the United Nation’s no-fly zone over Libya marked</a> the beginning of the Libyan revolution and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12796972">the West’s bombing campaign</a>. </p>
<p>I spent much of the war embedded with the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210960.001.0001">fighters in Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, studying the insurgency</a>. The fighting stopped with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/africa/qaddafi-is-killed-as-libyan-forces-take-surt.html">the death of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya’s ruler for four decades</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, hope gave way to turmoil as Libyans watched <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/after-key-expiration-libya-has-no-western-recognized-government/2015/10/20/792e1a9c-773e-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html">duelling governments</a> and <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/de/about-us/highlights/highlight-after-the-fall.html">hundreds of armed groups</a> fight over the country’s oil riches. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/1/22/why-peace-initiatives-in-libya-are-failing">Peace initiatives repeatedly failed</a> — until just recently.</p>
<p>On March 16, the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring and NATO’S intervention, a <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2021/0310/With-interim-government-established-Libya-looks-for-unity">government uniting the east and west of Libya took power for the first time since 2014</a>. This opportunity is Libyans’ last and best chance for stability and prosperity. There are three reasons for hope, but they are equally compelling reasons to despair.</p>
<h2>1. Military victory impossible for either side</h2>
<p>In April 2019, the leader of Libya’s eastern militias,
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27492354">Khalifa Haftar</a>, attacked Libya’s capital, Tripoli. <a href="https://www.libyaherald.com/2019/04/09/unsmil-postpones-ghadames-national-conference-until-conditions-are-right/">He wanted to take control before the Libyan National Congress could meet to set up elections</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a moustache and suit and tie" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390461/original/file-20210318-13-zkdyo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In this August 2017 photo, Libyan militia commander Gen. Khalifa Haftar meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the time, he had the military advantage, <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/averting-egyptian-military-intervention-libya">backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and France</a> and <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/turning-tide-how-turkey-won-war-tripoli">wielding advanced drones and fighter aircraft</a>. Haftar was on the verge of victory despite efforts by armed groups from Tripoli, Misrata and Zintan to stop him. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51003034">That was until Turkey intervened a few months ago</a> — turning the tide of the fighting and upsetting the military balance in Libya. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/western-europemediterranean/turkey/257-turkey-wades-libyas-troubled-waters">Turkey wanted to check Russian and Egyptian power in the region and secure undersea drilling rights in the Mediterranean Sea. </a> Turkey’s intervention was decisive, leading to the retreat of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/25/hundreds-more-russian-mercenaries-flee-western-libya-gna-forces">Haftar’s militias and Russia’s mercenaries.</a> </p>
<p>This defeat fundamentally altered Libyan politics. It became clear to Haftar and his backers that there was, for now at least, no military solution to Libya’s conflict. This stalemate turned the United Nations’ political and military dialogue into an actual negotiation for power and the future of Libya.</p>
<h2>2. The pandemic: A breaking point for Libyans</h2>
<p>Libyans are furious with their political class. It’s hard to overstate the hell Libyans have lived through over the past decade, and the pandemic only exacerbated the situation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/libya-where-ghosts-guns-and-crooked-politicians-hold-sway-19079">Libya: where ghosts, guns and crooked politicians hold sway</a>
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<p>Libya’s <a href="https://www.who.int/health-cluster/countries/libya/Health-Sector-Bulletin-August-2020.pdf?ua=1">health-care system collapsed during the revolution</a>, leaving Libyans vulnerable to COVID-19. Over the summer, many families had to choose between waiting out shelling or <a href="https://www.cspps.org/Polarised-Nation-covid19-libya">exposing their families to COVID-19 if they fled</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A nurse places a blanket over an infant" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390464/original/file-20210318-23-4w1v26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390464/original/file-20210318-23-4w1v26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390464/original/file-20210318-23-4w1v26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390464/original/file-20210318-23-4w1v26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390464/original/file-20210318-23-4w1v26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390464/original/file-20210318-23-4w1v26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390464/original/file-20210318-23-4w1v26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A nurse places a blanket over an infant as she recovers from heart surgery in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Tripoli, Libya, in February 2020. The World Health Organization says Libya’s health-care system is overburdened, inefficient and short of medicine and equipment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)</span></span>
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<p>Libya was a well-off country before the 2011 revolution. With only six million people and vast oil reserves, Libya should look more <a href="https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/overview/still-prospering-growing-economy-and-abundance-resources-continue-provide-high-standard-living">like Qatar</a> or the <a href="https://gulfnews.com/uae/high-living-standards-in-uae-1.391517">United Arab Emirates</a>, both wealthy nations with high standards of living.</p>
<p>Libyans know this and they are fed up. <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/libya-update-4">This anger has unsettled Libya’s political leaders on all sides of the conflict</a> and is a driving force behind recent, unexpected political progress. The fact that <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=262330855292593">Haftar and other leaders</a> are supporting the new government is further evidence of pressure from average Libyans given these leaders have rejected compromise until now.</p>
<h2>3. Regional powers seek Libyan stability</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-19567353">After U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in 2012 in Benghazi</a>, the international community abandoned Libya. Compare that response to European and American resolve in Iraq and Afghanistan, where thousands of diplomats remained despite extreme violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man looks at the ruins of the U.S. Consulate building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390471/original/file-20210318-13-1flu7g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390471/original/file-20210318-13-1flu7g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390471/original/file-20210318-13-1flu7g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390471/original/file-20210318-13-1flu7g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390471/original/file-20210318-13-1flu7g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390471/original/file-20210318-13-1flu7g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390471/original/file-20210318-13-1flu7g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this September 2012 photo, a Libyan man investigates the inside of the U.S. Consulate after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, a night earlier in Benghazi, Libya.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/b069-stopping-war-tripoli">Regional powers filled the void, with an eye on Libya’s wealth</a>. Egypt, Russia and the UAE bet on Haftar, supplying him with sophisticated weapons systems and the mercenaries to operate them. But Turkey’s intervention in 2019 changed that.</p>
<p>Now, in order for regional players to benefit from Libya, they need a functioning government that’s in full control of its oil wealth. Turkey is also interested in the success of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2020/01/08/turkey-libya-maritime-deal-upsets-mediterranean-energy-plan/?sh=31ee959b6bee">the marine treaty</a> it signed with Libya a few days before it intervened, strengthening its broader strategy for the eastern Mediterranean Sea. </p>
<p>What else needs to go right?</p>
<h2>U.S., Europe must get involved</h2>
<p>The reasons for hope are, unfortunately, not plentiful enough. Libya’s new prime minister, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/interim-libya-government-assumes-power-smooth-handover-76489055">Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, also needs to catch few breaks</a>. Most crucially, Europe and the United States need to step up. </p>
<p>Europe has the greatest interest in doing so since Libya is a <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/migration-route-length-and-intent-migrate">major route for migration</a>. <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/once-destination-migrants-post-gaddafi-libya-has-gone-transit-route-containment">A functioning Libyan state would go a long way</a> to stop thousands of men, women and children from drowning off European shores every year. </p>
<p>Because the U.S. is Egypt’s largest foreign aid donor, it must encourage the Egyptians to pressure Haftar to continue supporting the new government.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with dark hair speaks into a microphone and gestures with her right hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390474/original/file-20210318-17-mo7e76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In this November 2020 photo, Stephanie Williams speaks during a news conference in Tunis, Tunisia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Walid Haddad)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Finally, the international community must support the UN’s efforts in Libya, including the enforcement of the arms embargo, which has been “<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1087562">totally ineffective</a>.” Stephanie Williams, the <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/note-correspondents/2021-02-05/note-correspondents%C2%A0acting-special-representative-of-the-secretary-general-for-libya-stephanie-williams-remarks-following-the-closing-of-the-vote-the-new">UN’s acting representative in Libya</a>, is the unsung hero of the political negotiations that led to Libya’s new unity government. </p>
<p>By creating a political dialogue that was gradual and inclusive, Williams used the public pressure to push politicians to act. The hope is that the UN’s new representative in Libya, <a href="https://unsmil.unmissions.org/leadership">Slovakia’s Ján Kubiš</a>, won’t squander this momentum by ignoring the principles that brought success: humility, transparency and the centrality of Libyans’ voices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McQuinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ten years after the Arab Spring, hope has given way to turmoil as Libyans have watched duelling governments and armed groups fight over the country’s oil riches. Is a new chance for peace afoot?Brian McQuinn, Assistant Professor, International Studies, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1550582021-02-11T19:57:14Z2021-02-11T19:57:14ZArab Spring: when the US needed to step up, it stood back – now, all eyes are on Biden<p>The tenth <a href="https://theconversation.com/arab-spring-ten-years-on-the-middle-east-is-still-impoverished-divided-and-angry-154314">anniversary of the Arab Spring</a> has been an opportunity for some to declare the protests a failure – not least in the face of ongoing conflict in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Looking back on those turbulent events, it’s become fairly common for analysts <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/middle-east-egypt-us-policy/409537/">to blame</a> shortcomings in American foreign policy for this failure and the unrest still seething in many parts of the Arab world. </p>
<p>It would be wrong to hold America responsible for all of this. Yet we also cannot ignore the consequences of decades of US involvement in the Middle East. Nor can we overlook the way the US has effectively <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/17/us-withdrawal-power-struggle-middle-east-china-russia-iran/">pulled back</a> over the past decade in particular – refusing to get fully involved in a political crisis that it helped start.</p>
<h2>Obama’s legacy</h2>
<p>The Arab Spring’s failure connects back to Barack Obama’s lack of action ten years ago. After the former president’s famous <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">Cairo speech</a> in 2009, in which he talked about a “new beginning” for US foreign policy in the region, many expected that he would help install democracy once the protests started. But this was not the case.</p>
<p>Blindsided and unprepared for the uprisings – and also fearful of getting bogged down in the Middle East the way the previous administration had after the War on Terror and the 2003 invasion of Iraq – Obama was cautious of anything that looked like a US project to promote democracy. Perhaps overly so. He thought he could simply let autocratic rulers – such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria – fall, and democracy would take care of itself. </p>
<p>Obama was wrong. Assad fought back, setting his military on the protesters. Syria descended into civil conflict as he <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/29/obama-never-understood-how-history-works/">reasserted his position</a>.</p>
<p>When America did get involved, its efforts were severely limited. Obama went into Libya with Nato under the guise of humanitarian intervention, but was accused of exceeding his mandate and quickly left the situation to France and Britain to clean up. Obama would later call failure to plan for the aftermath of the Gaddafi regime the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/barack-obama-says-libya-was-worst-mistake-of-his-presidency">worst mistake</a>” of his presidency.</p>
<p>In Yemen, US action was less overt. While Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was forced to resign in response to the uprising, Obama allowed both Saleh and forces loyal to him to continue to exert influence in the country, further fuelling the civil unpheaval. Saudi Arabia then intervened in 2015 to protect its interests against the rebellion and its Iranian backers.</p>
<p>Donald Trump proved no better. With no commitment to democracy in the region, Trump looked on as the autocrats continued to reassert power – and actually backed <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39478096">Egypt’s crackdown on dissent</a> as well as shoring up Saudi action in Yemen through arms sales and vetoing a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/politics/trump-veto-yemen.html">Congressional bill to end US support</a> for the conflict. He also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/18/trumps-turkey-deal-hands-power-to-ankara-and-leaves-syrian-kurds-for-dead">effectively abandoned</a> Syria’s Kurds by refusing to use American troops to help protect them against Turkey.</p>
<h2>Whose fault?</h2>
<p>It would be easy to say that the US should not have intervened in the Arab Spring, or that this was not Washington’s fight. The problem with these arguments is that the US was already involved – not least in terms of bolstering the very regimes the uprising sought to bring down. While Obama tried to portray the protests as none of America’s business, the US was instrumental in the history of why they happened.</p>
<p>But when the US did intervene, it did so only out of self-interest. This meant policies concerned with regional stability and not democracy. The US did not focus foreign policy on the core issues of the uprisings and by this neglect, effectively undermined protesters. As a nation supposedly committed to democracy as the cornerstone of its own identity, the apparent hypocrisy of this pullback reduced America’s credibility.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/arab-spring-after-a-decade-of-conflict-the-same-old-problems-remain-154314">Arab Spring: after a decade of conflict, the same old problems remain</a>
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<p>Intervention was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-administrations-half-hearted-push-for-mideast-democracy/2012/02/03/gIQAPa1znQ_story.html">half-hearted</a>, as seen in Libya – hardly surprising then that this has not been effective. A partial response is sometimes worse than none at all.</p>
<p>The US has also lacked a clear foreign policy that could have supported the region better. That Washington did not see the uprisings coming says more about a wider failure to understand the Middle East than anything else. Successive administrations have repeatedly and naively gone along with policies of simply sustaining their interests in the area – to the extent that they were unprepared for a crisis or how to deal with it. As such, the US was never in a position to give real support to the region.</p>
<p>All this creates an interesting position for the new US president. Joe Biden <a href="https://theconversation.com/joe-bidens-first-foreign-policy-speech-an-expert-explains-what-it-means-for-the-world-154757">recently announced</a> an ostensibly strong vision for future foreign policy. This plan includes a commitment to the Middle East – specifically, Biden said he would deal with Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Yemen.</p>
<p>But for someone who was vice president when Obama stood by on the Arab Spring, it remains to be seen whether Biden will take a more proactive line. Biden is clearly assertive in his words and his commitment to democracy, but would he actually take a stronger line? Or is the Arab Spring now just a page in the history books?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Bentley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A decade ago, the lack of a clear policy by the Obama administration let the region down. But might US have another opportunity in the Middle East?Michelle Bentley, Reader in International Relations, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1543142021-02-10T13:34:25Z2021-02-10T13:34:25ZArab Spring: after a decade of conflict, the same old problems remain<p>As the popular refrain of “<em>ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam</em>” rang out across the Middle East in the early months of 2011, the nature of political life and relations between rulers and ruled began to fragment. The chant – which roughly translates as “the people want the fall of the regime” – became the slogan of the Arab uprisings, a wave of protests in states across the region. </p>
<p>The uprisings highlighted the fractious nature of political life and relations between the people and their governments, resulting in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-27/arab-spring-showed-autocracy-is-anything-but-stable">toppling of authoritarian rulers</a> in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. </p>
<p>But these were limited victories – and protesters elsewhere were not as successful. Over the course of the following ten years, close to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/29/the-guardian-view-on-the-arab-spring-a-decade-on-a-haunting-legacy">1 million people have been killed</a> and more than 10 million displaced from their homes. The protests revealed a profound political crisis that continues to resonate across the region. And in most cases, the issues that provoked the protests – economic inertia, a lack of political accountability, rampant corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor – continue today. </p>
<h2>It begins</h2>
<p>Triggered by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/16/he-ruined-us-10-years-on-tunisians-curse-man-who-sparked-arab-spring">self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazizi</a>, a Tunisian street vendor, the protest movements emerged from longstanding frustration at the economic conditions facing many across the region, fuelled by endemic corruption. With a burgeoning youth population facing serious obstacles to employment, the opulent wealth of those in power and unwillingness to offer even token reforms meant that latent frustrations erupted in protests from Tunis to Muscat. </p>
<p>The responses of regimes varied across the region, ranging from <a href="https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/oman-ten-years-after-the-arab-spring-the-evolution-of-state-society-relations/">token reforms in Oman</a>, which involved the removal of unpopular ministers, and economic incentives designed to engender support in the other Gulf states, to more draconian strategies deployed elsewhere. This included the use of emergency powers, detention, torture, the closing down of space for political engagement, citizenship revocation and death. In Syria, Libya and Yemen, the violent repression that followed protests culminated in the onset of devastating conflict that continues today.</p>
<p>Developments in Tunisia and Egypt initially offered hope to many following the toppling of the authoritarian regimes of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zine-al-Abidine-Ben-Ali">Ben Ali</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51630142">Hosni Mubarak</a>. But in Egypt, the coup d’etat that toppled Mubarak’s successor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mohamed-morsi-death-of-egypts-former-president-shows-deep-state-was-always-going-to-triumph-119031">Mohamed Morsi</a> – the country’s first democratically elected president – reflected broader regional trends of regimes using mechanisms of control to prevent the emergence of protest movements, seemingly crushing the dreams of protesters in the process. </p>
<h2>Divide and rule</h2>
<p>One of the most common strategies was the manipulation of sectarian strife, which saw regimes capitalise on social divisions for their own ends – a form of “divide and conquer”. The repercussions of such processes were devastating. The increased divisions within – and between – states may have arisen from sectarian differences but were manipulated by political self-interest by elites seeking to secure their position in the face of a range of serious challenges. </p>
<p>In Syria, members of violent Sunni Islamist groups who were in jail <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/syrias-civil-war">were released</a> by Bashar al-Assad in an attempt to frame the struggle against the Arab Spring protesters as a fight against Islamic extremism. Similarly, in Bahrain, the government sought to frame protesters as “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12753727">fifth columnists</a>”, doing the bidding of Iran – albeit with very little evidence to support such claims. </p>
<p>In pursuit of this, key regime officials <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mei/mei/2019/00000073/00000001/art00003;jsessionid=al44536h19ffu.x-ic-live-02">spoke of</a> nefarious Iranian involvement supporting protesters by providing arms and training. After Bahrain’s protest movement was defeated, <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/king-of-bahrain-says-subversive-external-plot-has-been-foiled-1.600506">King Hamad declared</a> that an “external plot” had been foiled, with a clear nod to Iran. </p>
<p>In the years that followed, acts of protest became more isolated as regimes cracked down on oppositions. In Bahrain this involved the revocation of citizenship from <a href="https://salam-dhr.org/?p=3967">990 Bahraini nationals</a> while elsewhere – in other Gulf states and Egypt – it resulted in increasingly draconian terrorism laws designed to prevent both violent extremism and challenges to regime power. In the years after the protests, the spectre of war in Syria loomed large – an example regularly used by those in power across the Gulf to <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526126474/9781526126474.00013.xml">caution against demands for democracy</a>. </p>
<p>The years after the uprisings were largely shaped by this broader struggle for survival and efforts to reassert sovereign power in the face of shifting national and international pressures. At the same time, many of the structural factors that had caused the protests of 2011 remained unresolved. </p>
<p>This unwillingness to address underlying social, economic and political factors is hardly surprising. It reflects decades in which such grievances have remained unresolved, prompting often violent confrontations between rulers and ruled over the nature of the state and its resources. </p>
<h2>Crisis and collapse</h2>
<p>Moments of unrest punctured the region across the 20th century – leaving aside interstate conflict – predominantly emerging from the ability of rulers to address underlying grievances around social, economic and political issues. Processes of <em><a href="https://www.fekr-magazine.com/articles/what-is-neoliberalism-and-infitah">infitah</a></em> (economic liberalisation) took place as part of a broader global move towards neoliberal agendas during the 1980s. </p>
<p>But across the Arab world rising birth rates, institutional weakness and bureaucratic ineptitude left a gloomy picture of unbalanced development and systematic exclusion. This was often exacerbated by regimes becoming extractors rather than distributors – leaders and their coteries taking out money from state resources for personal needs and desires – leading to widespread failures of governance. By 2004, a UN report titled Towards Freedom in the Arab World referred to the Arab “state” as a “<a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/arab-human-development-report-2004">black hole</a>”. </p>
<p>The economic crisis of 2008 had a dramatic impact on the Middle East. At the height of the crisis, Saudi Arabia lost a range of contracts <a href="https://gfintegrity.org/report/2011-global-report-illicit-financial-flows-from-the-developing-world-over-the-decade-ending-2009/">worth US$958 billion</a> (£693 billion) while the UAE lost US$354 billion in contracts. </p>
<p>Estimates of a further US$247.5 billion in capital flight from the Middle East only exacerbated these challenges. The impact on people was devastating. By 2011, the situation was dire: 41% of people across the Middle East were <a href="https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/ResearchAndStudies/Pages/The_2014_Arab_Opinion_Index_In_Brief.aspx">living in need</a>. </p>
<p>Underpinning this was the loss to economies across the region caused by the endemic corruption, which some estimates put at <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/arab-human-development-report-2016-youth-and-prospects-human-development-changing-reality">around US$1 trillion</a> in the five decades leading up to the Arab uprisings. </p>
<h2>Unhappy ending?</h2>
<p>It was hardly surprising that having faced neglect, repression and corruption over the course of the 20th century <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526126474/9781526126474.00009.xml">people turned to groups</a> such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Fatah, Hezbollah and Hamas. Many of these groups, as well as political and sometimes paramilitary activities, engaged in huge social welfare programmes and accrued a great deal of popular support as a result. </p>
<p>Over the years that followed, structural grievances that had triggered the protests in 2011 once again rose to the surface. But this time they were played out across an increasingly divided region beset by sectarian schisms and geopolitical rivalries, frustration with political elites, and – most recently – <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-middle-east-and-north-africa-and-covid-19-gearing-up-for-the-long-haul/">exacerbated by COVID-19</a>. </p>
<p>By 2015, 53% of the region’s population <a href="https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/ResearchAndStudies/Pages/The_2014_Arab_Opinion_Index_In_Brief.aspx">required financial support</a> from non-state actors. In Lebanon and Iraq, protesters <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/19/heres-what-protests-lebanon-iraq-are-really-about/">took to the streets in 2019</a> articulating their frustration at the status quo. It is hardly surprising that widespread anger has resulted in further instances of protest across the past decade, driven by anger at many of the same issues. Understanding the roots of the protest movement and their evolution are essential in gaining awareness of the region’s trajectory into a new decade and under a new US administration.</p>
<p>The root causes of the protests <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/arab-spring-10-year-anniversary-lost-decade/">remain unaddressed</a> – and the situation may have even deteriorated as economic crises are worsened by the pandemic. While turning towards authoritarianism has given regimes additional measures to regulate life, until these deeper political issues have been addressed, latent frustrations will result in intermittent acts of protest and broader processes of repression.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Mabon receives funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Simon Mabon is a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre. </span></em></p>The underlying issues of inequality, corruption and poverty are still dogging the region, ten years after the protests.Simon Mabon, Professor of International Relations, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1533542021-01-18T14:55:13Z2021-01-18T14:55:13ZDebate: A geopolitical reading of fear<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379056/original/file-20210115-15-1w3rrnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C2048%2C1299&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White supremacists clash with police in Charlottesville in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_supremacists_clash_with_police_(36421659232).jpg">Evan Nesterak/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his 2009 book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/115907/the-geopolitics-of-emotion-by-dominique-moisi/"><em>The Geopolitics of Emotion</em></a>, Dominique Moïsi divided the world into three emotional regions: the territory of hope (emergent countries), the territory of humiliation (the world of Islam), and the territory of fear (the old powers, also known as “the West”). A lot has changed since 2009.</p>
<p>According to Moïsi, the territory of fear is inhabited by those “who are apprehensive about the present and expect the future to become even more dangerous”. Perhaps today we should realize that fear has conquered the world. Otherwise put, we live in a time, which is spatially organized by globalized fear, and this, politically speaking, is not a good omen.</p>
<p>The old powers remain the pioneers, so to speak, of this globalized emotion. The concern for the present and the conviction that the future may only get worse have been materializing for decades now in two areas of mass behavior, the nature of which is intrinsically antisocial: the explosion of public expenditure (and debt), and the drop in birth rates. The connection is that when no good is expected to come from the future, it is better to spend everything immediately, even what you do not have. Similarly, it is better not to have children, who would be plagued by the burden of debts developed with such nonchalance.</p>
<p>In the territory of fear, the cry of “every man for himself” echoes in sinister ways. A few days after the arrival of the pandemic in France, President Emmanuel Macron qualified the “return of fear” as an opportunity to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9667bd73-a809-497e-a3ca-8781c0549901">rediscover solidarity and “human values”</a>.Yet nature and history suggest otherwise: rarely does fear allow us to reconnect with “human values”. To take refuge from danger is <em>human</em> only because it is a spontaneous reaction of organisms, guided by the instinct of self-preservation. Such an individualistic form of resilience often lacks constructive, collaborative features; when running away from danger, it is easier to run past (rather than rescue) your neighbor.</p>
<h2>Past confidence</h2>
<p>Why did the prevailing optimism of the 1950s and 1960s look confidently at the future, producing more than was consumed and resulting in a baby boom? Because post-war reconstruction was made of “economic miracles” that made life easier and more prosperous. During the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses"><em>trente glorieuses</em></a> (the “30 glorious years”, the idiom used for France’s economic boom), experience taught us we could quickly move from worn shoes to a bicycle to a motorcycle to a compact car. Then we bought cars big enough for the family and used them to reach tourist destinations, where we would stay in affordable hotels, and where eventually we would buy a holiday home. Everything seemed so easy.</p>
<p>The constantly rising living standards and conditions in general was a reality unfolding before our eyes, and something that could not be overlooked. Then, in 1973, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis">first crisis hit</a>. The myth of an exponential welfare growth started cracking. The first new competitors, at the time cautiously called “newly industrialized countries”, began to loom on the horizon. At the end of the decade, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00253359.2011.10708948">South Korea had become the second shipbuilder in the world</a>, behind Japan, with a production twice as large as Germany, and four times larger than that of the United States. </p>
<p>The world domination of the old powers was experiencing a crisis. These powers could no longer exploit all the resources of the world’s market undisturbed, they had to share them with emerging competitors, which meant that also the benefits derived from that undisturbed exploitation could not continue to be the same.</p>
<h2>Loss aversion</h2>
<p>We know that the fear of losing what we have is more anxiogenic than the fear of not gaining assets we do not own in the present. The perception of risk in decision making is relative to the present condition, and depends on past experience, making humans more loss averse, as the <a href="https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789814417358_0006">Nobel Prize–winning prospect theory</a> has shown. </p>
<p>What a geopolitical reading adds to this awareness is that such a fear of losing what people think belongs to them creates enraged reactions. It prompts the need to rely on leaders who promise to give citizens back what was taken from them (or what people believe was taken away from them). </p>
<p>People therefore entrust their destinies to whomever promises to give their countries back to them, or make them great again. Even better if these miracle pushers publicly mock or attack the social groups presumed to be the key responsible for our anxieties: the immigrants, Muslims, Jews, large corporations, the rich, the Freemasons, Wall Street, Big Pharma, the globalists, Bill Gates, the Vatican… you name it.</p>
<h2>Fear and politics</h2>
<p>The 2008 crisis and especially the following slow and incomplete recovery have transformed social fear in a political weapon in the hands of voters. Brexit, the election of Donald Trump of 2016, the Italian elections of 2018, are just some examples. Joe Biden won the 2020 US elections with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html">more than 81 million votes</a>, but despite all the scandals and the first of two impeachments, Trump still got 74 million. </p>
<p>India, the Philippines, Brazil, Russia, Venezuela and, to a certain extent, also China have abandoned the territory of hope. The attempt of Muslim countries to break free from the territory of humiliation was frustrated by the bloody repression of various versions of the “Arab spring”. Everyone converged toward the territory of fear.</p>
<p>Thucydides, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes and many others explained how fear is a tool for princes to control their subjects. Today, fear has become the dominant sentiment of subjects, who expect miracle recipes from their princes. But those recipes, as we have witnessed in recent years, do nothing more than render the world even more frightening.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Despite moments of hope, worries about the present and fears that the future may be even worse have been rising for decades. What can geopolitics teach us about the global impact of fear?Fabio James Petani, Assistant Professor (Geopolitics, Strategy, Business Ethics and CSR), INSEEC Grande ÉcoleManlio Graziano, Assistant professor, geopolitics and geopolitics of religions, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1492522020-11-12T16:15:05Z2020-11-12T16:15:05ZJoe Biden’s empathy may result in a ‘therapeutic’ foreign policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368861/original/file-20201111-15-9bkguy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5853%2C3899&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President-elect Joe Biden speaks on Nov. 10, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. Can he bring compassion to foreign policy?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Both in the United States and abroad, President-elect Joe Biden finds himself with the unenviable task of trying to reverse the psychological and emotional effects of “<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/11/ptsd-expert-seth-norrholm-americans-are-being-psychologically-abused-by-donald-trump/">post-Donald Trump stress disorder</a>” that has set in over the last four years. </p>
<p>Although foreign policy received scant attention from the candidates during the election campaign, the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/11/world-leaders-trump-has-insulted-congratulate-biden/">international wave of congratulations</a> pouring in for Biden and Kamala Harris (and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-2020-election-results/2020/11/09/933030235/russia-china-among-countries-holding-off-on-congratulating-biden">the few notable holdouts</a>) show that the world is paying close attention. </p>
<p>And so, it seems like an opportune time to ask a simple question: what now? </p>
<p>My suggestion: therapeutic diplomacy. </p>
<h2>Emotions and foreign policy</h2>
<p>I don’t mean literal therapy, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/opinion/26strenger.html">though that’s been recommended in some diplomatic impasses</a>. Rather, I mean paying more attention to psychology and emotions to mend global relationships.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40607979?seq=1">No foreign policy-maker should dismiss emotions</a>. And no foreign policy-maker is ever above emotions.</p>
<p>Even the prince of realpolitik himself, Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser, talked a lot about feelings and psychology. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Henry Kissinger talks to Egypt's Hosni Mubarak." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368865/original/file-20201111-23-1i8wcao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Kissinger is seen with Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in 1980 in Cairo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ahmed Tayeb)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two examples: During the India-Pakistan crisis of 1971, Kissinger saw supporting Pakistan as an attempt to “<a href="https://books.google.ca/books?redir_esc=y&id=YuP_RVdlHLkC&q=%22psychological+balance+of+power%22#v=snippet&q=%22psychological%20balance%20of%20power%22&f=false">prevent a complete collapse of the world’s psychological balance of power</a>.” </p>
<p>And when selling the ill-fated “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230348936_6">Year of Europe</a>” to European partners shaken by <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/detente">détente with the Soviet Union</a>, he explained to the French foreign affairs minister that he sought to “create an emotional commitment in America.” All this talk of feelings unfolded under Richard Nixon, once referred to as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S089803060909006X">the first therapeutic president</a>.” </p>
<p>Kissinger should not provide a road map for Biden, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/opinion/nixon-racism-india.html">who can aim higher</a>. But Biden, who is performing well as an emotional manager in the days since Nov. 3, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/11/07/biden-wilmington-delaware-remarks-bash-phillip-analysis-elexnight-bts-vpx.cnn">calmly urging patience</a> and compassion, seems ideally suited to this therapeutic task given that empathy has been described as his “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/joe-bidens-superpower/616957/">superpower</a>.” </p>
<p>Historians are generally far more accurate at parallels than predictions. So let me draw two admittedly imperfect but analogous historical examples that might help guide a therapeutic Biden foreign policy. </p>
<h2>The spectre of communism</h2>
<p>The winter of 1947, one of the harshest on record, witnessed a still-devastated post-war Europe starting to look to communist parties for answers to basic survival. </p>
<p>In this <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809015740">volatile Cold War context</a>, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall pitched the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Marshall-Plan">European Recovery Program</a> in the spring. It attended to more than the economic needs of European allies — it also targeted their demoralized psyches. </p>
<p>According to Marshall’s <a href="https://www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/marshall-plan-speech/">speech unveiling the plan</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Between 1948 and 1952, the $13-billion Marshall Plan, as it became known, invested in the oversimplified calculation that happy, prosperous people don’t turn to communism. And it paid off handsomely, forming the basis of one of the longest periods of economic growth in history and creating mutual trust among allies for years to come.</p>
<h2>The spectre of COVID-19</h2>
<p>With Biden now set to take the helm during what promises to be an equally harsh COVID-19 winter, a similar approach to the global pandemic is conceivable. An analogous <a href="https://joebiden.com/covid-plan/">Joe Biden-Kamala Harris COVID-19</a> plan that pledges to share the vaccine could help attend to the world’s health needs, both physical and psychological. </p>
<p>And it might restore some trust with allies, slowing down the already wary drift of friends in Asia into Beijing’s orbit or emboldening NATO partners to stand up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-will-place-asia-back-at-the-centre-of-foreign-policy-but-will-his-old-school-diplomacy-still-work-148095">Biden will place Asia back at the centre of foreign policy – but will his old-school diplomacy still work?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is not to say that the coronavirus crisis should be seen as an opportunity — taking an international approach to the vaccine is simply the right thing to do. But the psychology of moral leadership may be significant in dealing with the rise of “<a href="https://hir.harvard.edu/covid-authoritarianism/">authoritarianism in the time of COVID-19</a>.” </p>
<p>Trump’s “America First” policies have meant <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/opinion/trump-travel-ban-nigeria.html">racist travel bans</a>, white supremacist talk of “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/shithole-countries/580054/">shithole countries</a>,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/26/breaking-down-trumps-shove-the-internet-debates-and-montenegros-leader-shrugs/">running roughshod over allies</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/politics/donald-trump-dictators-kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin/index.html">embracing authoritarian leaders</a>. Four years of bluster and bullying have had a demoralizing effect, leaving U.S. friends feeling insecure and foes feeling emboldened — and everyone in between feeling disoriented. </p>
<h2>The U.S. as a force for good</h2>
<p>Biden himself has referred to an “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again">Obama-Biden</a>” foreign policy. </p>
<p>Like Biden, Barack Obama had to pick up the pieces of a broken foreign policy bequeathed by his predecessor, George W. Bush: a global recession and a sprawling U.S. war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. </p>
<p>After years of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html">Islamophobia</a> and talk of “<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/bush-crusade/">crusades” against terror</a>, the Obama approach was also therapeutic: soothing hurt feelings and reminding the world, especially those in the Middle East, that at its best, the U.S. could be a force for good. </p>
<p>This tonal shift is perhaps best captured by two words uttered by Obama in Cairo in 2009: “<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09">Assalaamu Alaykum</a>.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B_889oBKkNU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Obama makes his famous speech in Cairo in 2009. Courtesy of CSpan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using an Arabic greeting (“peace be upon you”) captured Obama’s goal, outlined in his speech, of ushering “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” </p>
<p>Obama’s <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/barack-obama-middle-east-policy-speech_n_56745edae4b06fa6887d3e4f?ri18n=true">conservative response to the 2011 Arab Spring</a> provided a stark example that he never fully lived up to the promise of those two words: there were limits placed on U.S. support for “justice and progress.” But neither did pro-democracy protesters witness the U.S. at its interventionist worst. </p>
<h2>Post-Trump therapy?</h2>
<p>It’s possible to imagine Biden playing the role — perhaps even better than a sometimes <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/11/07/for-us-presidents-egocentrism-often-comes-with-the-territory-but-donald-trumps-narcissism-is-something-new/">aloof Obama</a> — of <a href="https://positivepsychology.com/emotion-focused-therapy/">an emotion-focused therapist</a> for the rest of the world, mending strained global relationships. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Biden hugs a supporter." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368864/original/file-20201111-21-1n627ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Biden embraces a supporter on the campaign trail in Las Vegas in January 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Locher)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-11-07/joe-biden-victory-speech-2020-election-transcript">His emphasis on healing</a> in his victory speech suggests he’s likely up for the task.</p>
<p>Biden is not a saviour, however, and a return to “normalcy” is not enough. But a therapeutic Biden foreign policy might well go a long way in staving off what some have called <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-empire-decline/">the “end of the American Century</a>” by easing tensions around the world stoked by Trump.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthieu Vallières does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s been said that empathy is Joe Biden’s superpower. A therapeutic approach to foreign policy under Biden might go a long way in easing tensions around the world exacerbated by Donald Trump.Matthieu Vallières, Sessional Lecturer in History, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444112020-09-01T16:51:45Z2020-09-01T16:51:45ZWhy the Gulf monarchies have survived<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355671/original/file-20200901-24-tot2o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2046%2C1196&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saudi King Salman accompanies Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, left, during the 40th Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in December 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/arab-spring-egypt">Arab Spring</a> protests erupted in 2010, many <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/11/13/yes-the-gulf-monarchs-are-in-trouble/">political pundits predicted</a> the uprisings would ripple through the entire region and ultimately reach the oil-rich Gulf states, sweeping away monarchies.</p>
<p>But ultimately, the Gulf monarchies of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates — and to a lesser extent, Bahrain — were the least affected by the Arab Spring. These six Gulf monarchies <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2012/04/understanding-the-resilience-of-monarchy-during-the-arab-spring/">were more successful in weathering the political storm</a> than their republican neighbours, which in some cases <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/01/arab-spring-five-years-on/">were plunged into civil wars</a> with a heavy humanitarian and economic toll.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man wearing a head scarf and sunglasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Haitham bin Tariq Al Said is seen in this November 2016 photo. He was named Oman’s new sultan earlier this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I spent a good deal of my life in the region and during the uncertain times of the Arab Spring, so curious colleagues ask me how the Gulf monarchies continue to hold on. In response, I draw not on my memories but on my political training. And I believe there are lessons to learn from the durability of these regimes that could enhance global efforts to understand the region and build sustainable peace in the Middle East.</p>
<h2>Most Middle East countries are oil-rich</h2>
<p>I generally scoff at the argument that Gulf monarchies have only managed to navigate the tricky waters of the region’s geopolitics and avoided a mass exodus of their citizens because of their oil wealth. <a href="https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/06/21/how-oil-transformed-the-gulf">This popular wisdom holds</a> that <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/petrodollars.asp">petrodollars</a> allow the Gulf monarchies to coax people into submission, and that’s why they endure.</p>
<p>Missing from this assessment is acknowledgement that the Gulf monarchies <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/mena/04econ.htm">aren’t the only countries in the broader region with ample hydrocarbon riches</a>. Yet petrodollars in the broader region that often benefited citizens of those countries didn’t prevent public anger or major challenges to authority.</p>
<p>Brief comparisons between the Gulf monarchies and other oil-producing countries in the region reveal other common ground besides oil, such as culture and religion. Yet their respective trajectories since the 1950s — Gulf monarchies modernized quickly, while other oil-exporting countries (for example <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14546763">Iraq</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13755445">Libya</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14118856">Algeria</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14542438">Iran</a>) have undergone political crises, coups and even regime change. That’s only added to the sense that Gulf monarchies and other oil-producing countries in the region are heading in different directions. </p>
<p>So oil alone doesn’t explain the longevity of the Gulf monarchies. Other factors help explain their success.</p>
<h2>Monarchies accepted in Gulf region</h2>
<p>First and foremost is whether people in the Gulf region see monarchy as a legitimate form of government. In Western political thought, elections represent one of the key benchmarks for judging the legitimacy of government. This is the foundation of participatory democracy. </p>
<p>By this token, only leaders from presidential republics pass muster in terms of Western legitimacy. After all, these countries hold regular presidential elections. </p>
<p>But are those elections themselves legitimate?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A man gestures in a dark suit and red tie gestures while speaking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elliott Abrams, now the State Department Special Representative for Venezuela, speaks recently on Capitol Hill in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2011, at the height of the Arab Spring, Elliott Abrams, deputy national security adviser to former U.S. President George W. Bush, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rid-ding-syria-of-a-despot/2011/03/25/AFSRRVYB_story.html">wrote that</a> “Arab monarchies … are more legitimate than the false republics.” This assessment raises two critical issues.</p>
<p>The first is the reliability of elections in the Gulf. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/02/syria-election-vote-for-assad-or-else">Presidential elections in Middle Eastern republics</a> have often <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/20/why-irans-rigged-elections-matter/">been fraudulent</a>. It would make a mockery of democracy to consider these elections proof of legitimacy.</p>
<p>The second concerns the compatibility between society and its political institutions. This is one of the pillars of stability in any society. Hereditary monarchies like the ones in the Gulf aren’t a novelty for the native cultures of the region. These monarchies therefore derive legitimacy from the fit between their royal institutions and the cultural norms of their people. This is a <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/#:%7E:text=According%20to%20Weber%2C%20that%20a,virtue%20of%20which%20persons%20exercising">traditional form of political legitimacy</a>.</p>
<p>With their emphasis on tradition, hierarchy, loyalties and social alliances, monarchies are accepted by many of the cultures of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21534764.2014.971647">the Arabian Peninsula</a>. The Gulf monarchies were borne out of their own socio-cultural heritages, and this gives them more legitimacy.</p>
<h2>Ruling at a distance</h2>
<p>This legitimacy however sets certain limits on executive authority and places demands on the monarchs, who are expected to be arbiters between competing interests — benevolent stabilizers, so to speak. In fact, problems have arisen when monarchs fail to project this image or perform this role. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in mid-sentence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is seen in this May 2017 photo in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An example is <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/25/nine-years-after-bahrains-uprising-its-human-rights-crisis-has-only-worsened">Bahrain’s mass protests in 2011</a>, when many citizens felt their king showed little commitment to the principles of compromise and moderation that had largely characterized his predecessors’ reign.</p>
<p>The arbiter status gives the monarchs respect and authority, which enables them to rule at distance.</p>
<p>This has helped them maintain power with less reliance on force than their non-monarchy neighbours, which base their claims for legitimacy on political ideology like nationalism and independence. More often than not, these ideologies don’t resonate with people. This poses a major challenge to their ability to maintain power, so the republics rely more on force and security to maintain power. </p>
<p>This best expresses itself in Syria, where <a href="http://www.understandingwar.org/report/assad-regime">the Al-Assad regime</a> has ruled for decades through a network of overlapping security agencies to enforce questionable legitimacy.</p>
<p>That’s why the regional republics <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/kings-for-all-seasons-how-the-middle-easts-monarchies-survived-the-arab-spring/">were hit harder by the Arab Spring</a>. Popular uprisings there were fuelled by greater discontent.</p>
<h2>Creating stability</h2>
<p>This has spared the Gulf monarchies from frequent legitimacy crises and allowed them to divert resources to other aspects of governance, like building <a href="https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5g50071k&chunk.id=d0e3492&toc.depth=100&toc.id=0&brand=ucpress&query=qatar">state capacity</a>. This refers to the ability of governments to employ administrative and technical processes, rather than force, to address societal challenges and create stability.</p>
<p>State capacity is bound with a country’s investment in education and human capital, which in turn create a capacity for informed decision-making. This is evident in the volume of publications by Gulf universities. Despite the relative youth of universities in Gulf monarchy states — most of them were founded in the mid-1970s — they outperform their counterparts in Arab republics in terms of quantity of publications.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A table shows the number of published documents among Gulf State universities." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Number of published documents from Clarivate Analytics Web of ScienceTM: InCites Dataset (Retrieved August 2020)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The future success of the Gulf monarchies probably hinges on further investment in education. </p>
<p>Doing so will enhance the quantity and quality of intellectual activity and produce citizens who can share power, steer economies in response to societal and technological challenges and guarantee long-term stability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmund Adam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gulf monarchies emerged from the Arab Spring relatively unscathed, while some Middle East republics were devastated by civil war. Here’s how they managed — and how education may have played a part.Edmund Adam, PhD candidate of Higher Education (Comparative, International and Development Education) at OISE, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1399682020-06-05T04:18:29Z2020-06-05T04:18:29ZWhy do protests turn violent? It’s not just because people are desperate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339709/original/file-20200604-67393-133dp6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C30%2C6699%2C4416&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SOPA Images/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We have seen ten days of protests in the United States over the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-impact-george-floyds-death-minneapolis/story?id=70999322">death of George Floyd</a>. </p>
<p>While thousands of people have gathered to express their outrage peacefully, some demonstrations have been marred by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52921418">vandalism and violent clashes with police</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-minneapolis-burns-trumps-presidency-is-sinking-deeper-into-crisis-and-yet-he-may-still-be-re-elected-139739">As Minneapolis burns, Trump's presidency is sinking deeper into crisis. And yet, he may still be re-elected</a>
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<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146167213510525">Research</a> has shown that people generally see confrontational protests as unwarranted and ineffectual. </p>
<p>So why do some protests turn violent? And as we watch this mass movement gather pace around the world, what makes people come out into the streets in the first place? </p>
<h2>Why do some protests turn violent?</h2>
<p>Research suggests people who are prepared to use violent confrontation can be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10463283.2015.1094265">psychologically different</a> from those who are not. People who are prepared to adopt violence are more likely to report <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-07958-001">feelings of contempt</a> for political adversaries whom they hold responsible for wrongdoing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339720/original/file-20200604-67364-1qken5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339720/original/file-20200604-67364-1qken5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339720/original/file-20200604-67364-1qken5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339720/original/file-20200604-67364-1qken5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339720/original/file-20200604-67364-1qken5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339720/original/file-20200604-67364-1qken5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339720/original/file-20200604-67364-1qken5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People who turn violent at protests are more likely to have contempt for authorities they hold responsible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">TNS/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the US, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/opinion/george-floyd-protests.html">some commentators</a> have suggested the violence on their streets stems from a deep sense of despair and helplessness that things never change. </p>
<p><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-07958-001">Psychological research</a> offers some support for this analysis. Where people don’t believe their appeals to authorities will be heard, protesters may be more likely to adopt violent methods of protest. </p>
<p>Under these circumstances, people think they have “<a href="https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.12126">nothing to lose</a>”. </p>
<h2>Heavy-handed policing can lead to violence</h2>
<p>However, there is another key element here. Feelings of contempt and helplessness do not arise in a vacuum - they stem from real-world interactions between people and groups. </p>
<p>We know from decades of research into <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963662516639872">policing and crowds</a> that violent, heavy-handed treatment from the police is a major catalyst of protest violence. Such experiences lead people to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1348/014466600164642">redefine their understanding</a> of the demonstrating group’s purpose. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fury-in-us-cities-is-rooted-in-a-long-history-of-racist-policing-violence-and-inequality-139752">The fury in US cities is rooted in a long history of racist policing, violence and inequality</a>
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<p>Over the past week, people who initially turned out to express their constitutional right to protest peacefully have found they are now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/donald-trump-protests-george-floyd-dominate">enemies of the state</a> - <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167211407076">dissidents in their own country</a>. Under these circumstances, the purpose of the protest suddenly adopts <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1368430217712835?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.1">a much broader meaning</a>. </p>
<h2>Protesters can change their tactics</h2>
<p>A good way to make people feel contempt is to disregard their safety and purpose. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339946/original/file-20200605-67377-wk99jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339946/original/file-20200605-67377-wk99jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339946/original/file-20200605-67377-wk99jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339946/original/file-20200605-67377-wk99jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339946/original/file-20200605-67377-wk99jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339946/original/file-20200605-67377-wk99jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339946/original/file-20200605-67377-wk99jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Heavy-handed treatment from police can also be a catalyst for violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">TNS/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, even though people tend to think confrontational protests do not work, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146167213510525">our research shows that their assessment changes</a> when an authority is seen to be corrupt and immoral. </p>
<p>Put differently, even the average punter may come to see violence as more acceptable if the state responds in a way that seems unjustified and disproportionate.</p>
<h2>Why do people protest in the first place?</h2>
<p>Given the recent restrictions on public gatherings, who could have imagined that we would be witnessing a global solidarity movement of this scale in the middle of a deadly pandemic? </p>
<p>It has long been observed that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2380">specific events can serve as tipping points</a> that catalyse social movements. Consider the actions of US activist <a href="https://www.biography.com/activist/rosa-parks">Rosa Parks</a>, who famously refused to give up her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus in 1955, inspiring mass resistance to the racial segregation policies of the time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339724/original/file-20200604-67372-1ebdfjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339724/original/file-20200604-67372-1ebdfjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339724/original/file-20200604-67372-1ebdfjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339724/original/file-20200604-67372-1ebdfjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339724/original/file-20200604-67372-1ebdfjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339724/original/file-20200604-67372-1ebdfjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339724/original/file-20200604-67372-1ebdfjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People protest because they believe they can make a difference by acting together.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alive Coverage/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Tunisian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/20/tunisian-fruit-seller-mohammed-bouazizi">fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi</a> set himself on fire in response to police corruption and harassment in December 2010, his actions were broadcast all over the world, laying the foundation of the mass <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12060">protests that would become the Arab Spring</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-08177-005">Research shows</a> people who engage in protest do so because they feel angry about injustices perpetrated against groups they are committed to and believe they can make a difference by acting collectively.</p>
<p>Critically, in the 21st century, specific events - and our reactions to them - can now be broadcast online and <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MzDOCQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=castells+networks+of+outrage+and+hope&ots=BZanfUfCZB&sig=ZGJKaz8lTzJSisGIhVG3DTi7tZo#v=onepage&q=castells%20networks%20of%20outrage%20and%20hope&f=false">shared with millions of people</a>, across the world, within a matter of hours. </p>
<h2>Online interactions generate outrage and common purpose</h2>
<p>These online interactions are <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2094">more than just chatter</a>. Research shows <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617741107">online interactions about injustice</a> can be the very means through which people’s protest commitments are formed and maintained. </p>
<p>As people interact online, it generates <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963721417719319">a sense of shared outrage</a>, as well as a belief that if <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-08177-005">“we” act together</a>, things could be different. </p>
<p>Research has specifically shown that people who interact online about the police killings of Black people are <a href="http://www.munmund.net/pubs/BLM_ICWSM16.pdf">more likely to attend protests</a>, especially if they live in an area with historically high rates of police killings of Black people. </p>
<h2>What does this mean for Australia?</h2>
<p>The George Floyd protest movement has also reached Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339725/original/file-20200604-67399-18l9nox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339725/original/file-20200604-67399-18l9nox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339725/original/file-20200604-67399-18l9nox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339725/original/file-20200604-67399-18l9nox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339725/original/file-20200604-67399-18l9nox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339725/original/file-20200604-67399-18l9nox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339725/original/file-20200604-67399-18l9nox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Australians have taken to the streets this week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Gourley/AAP</span></span>
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<p>There have already been a number of peaceful demonstrations <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/police-join-woorabinda-community-for-black-lives-matter-rally/12319504">around Australia</a> to protest <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-432-indigenous-deaths-in-custody-since-1991-no-one-has-ever-been-convicted-racist-silence-and-complicity-are-to-blame-139873">Indigenous deaths in custody</a> and support <a href="https://theconversation.com/brands-backing-black-lives-matter-it-might-be-a-marketing-ploy-but-it-also-shows-leadership-139874">Black Lives Matter</a>. More are planned for the weekend. </p>
<p>How Australians <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-psychology-says-about-how-you-should-respond-to-racist-behaviour-45599">respond to racism in our own country</a> is a matter for Australians in our own individual and collective ways. </p>
<p>But authorities should take note: heavy-handed responses from police can provoke more violent responses from otherwise peaceful protesters. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-you-socially-distance-at-a-black-lives-matter-rally-in-australia-and-new-zealand-how-to-protest-in-a-coronavirus-pandemic-139875">Can you socially distance at a Black Lives Matter rally in Australia and New Zealand? How to protest in a coronavirus pandemic</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Thomas receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Defence Science and Technology Group. </span></em></p>Protests don’t simply turn violent because people have “nothing to lose”. Police behaviour and group psychology also plays a part.Emma Thomas, Associate professor, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1324302020-03-18T14:53:19Z2020-03-18T14:53:19ZWhy investors can feel confident doing business in Tunisia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319659/original/file-20200310-61070-clgxb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C1000%2C479&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite the 2015 terrorist attack in Sousse, Tunisia, shown in this photo, the north African country remains a relatively safe country for investors compared to some of its neighbours.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Investors regularly seek to identify opportunities in emerging markets, where <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/12/mapping-frontier-economies">potential risks and rewards are often not well understood</a>. </p>
<p>Only a few countries in emerging markets provide an attractive business environment with low-cost access to export destinations across several continents. In these lesser-known markets, the main challenge in evaluating risks is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/06/why-companies-like-microsoft-and-google-are-betting-big-on-africa.html">that they are frequently exaggerated</a> and highly idiosyncratic. Prior biases and a lack of information about a country can distort reality, magnifying the perception of risk.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319213/original/file-20200308-118890-hl15tr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tunisia’s location with projected geographic proximity to three continents: Europe, Africa and Asia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google maps with illustrations by Svetlana Lukoyanova</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14107241">Tunisia</a> may be <a href="http://www.investintunisia.tn/En/competitive-economy_11_19">one of the locations</a> that offers good investment opportunities. </p>
<p>Yet the northern African country is often overlooked by companies seeking access to multiple markets in Europe, Africa and Asia because of perceived <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2016/06/23/trends-in-global-restrictions-on-religion/#rise-in-religion-related-terrorist-activity">high-security risks in the region</a>. </p>
<p>To uncover risks in the Tunisian business landscape, <a href="https://www.ibinmena.com/">we interviewed business managers</a> across 15 industries and six cities on the Mediterranean coastline.</p>
<h2>Former police state</h2>
<p>Tunisia remained <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S179381201350003X">politically closed as a police state</a> prior to <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2019/07/tunisia-timeline-jasmine-revolution">the 2011 Jasmine Revolution</a> that ended the Ben Ali dictatorship. Bordering Algeria and Libya, Tunisia is often seen in the same light as other countries in <a href="https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups">Middle East and North African region, known as MENA</a>, which are reputed to be some of the <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2019/08/27/as-mena-states-grow-increasingly-repressive-businesses-should-lead-reform/">most repressive</a> and <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-terrorism-index-2019">volatile</a> in the world. </p>
<p><a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3518616">A media predilection for sensationalized and tragic stories</a> ensures that dramatic events become the most widely known facts about the country. That has made it difficult for some investors to overlook or forget <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tunisia-beach-hotel-attack-leaves-38-dead-36-wounded-1.3128737">the 2015 attack that targeted tourists and killed 38 people</a>, the deadliest non-state terrorist attack in Tunisian history. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, outsiders tend to perceive Tunisia’s risks as comparable to those of its neighbours, especially <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190423-escalating-fighting-in-libya-capital-threatens-tunisia/">the civil war-ridden Libya that poses security risks to Tunisia</a>. However, the perceptions of those actually conducting business in Tunisia are drastically different. For them, Tunisia is a low-risk business environment, despite <a href="https://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/tunisia_poll_june_2017.pdf">increased political uncertainty</a> and some political violence episodes since the revolution. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319185/original/file-20200308-167285-12i2xsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Violence against civilians in Tunisia in relation to other MENA countries, 2000-2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) data with authors' figures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These insiders generally agree that overall security in Tunisia has substantially increased since 2015, and political violence risks are low. The outsiders’ assessment glosses over the reality that Tunisia <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/development-tunisias-domestic-counter-terrorism-finance-capability/">does better than its neighbours on effective counter-terrorism measures</a>, and there’s also a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mepo.12403">relatively low level of religious extremism</a> in <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/tunisian-civil-society-s-unmistakable-role-in-keeping-the-peace/">Tunisian society</a>.</p>
<h2>Arab Spring uprisings mostly succeeded</h2>
<p>Politically, too, <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/tunisia/2019-10-15/tunisia-model">Tunisia is an exception in the MENA region</a> — it remains the only country where the Arab Spring uprisings have not failed. </p>
<p>And, while the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/07/20/how-new-governments-deal-with-old-elites-matters-more-than-you-might-expect/">democratic transition</a> is <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2019/07/current-situation-tunisia">incomplete</a>, the main characteristics of liberal democracy — the <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/02/24/quiet-revolution-tunisian-military-after-ben-ali-pub-62780">de-politicization of the military</a>, <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2020">rule of law, respect for human rights, freedom of speech</a>, <a href="https://mk0rofifiqa2w3u89nud.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/The-State-of-Civic-Freedoms-in-MENA-FINAL.pdf?_ga=2.118452873.1438988700.1583621305-1847174004.1583621305">freedom of association</a> — are the characteristics of <a href="https://infographics.economist.com/2020/democracy-index-2019/">today’s Tunisia and among the most pronounced in emerging markets</a>.</p>
<p>The majority of respondents in our study, in fact, relished their new freedom to discuss politics and social issues in public and private spheres, without the need to whisper or check their surroundings for spies.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/90cyeB6WGcw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tunisia in 2020, Foreign Investment Promotion Agency of Tunisia (FIPA-Tunisia)</span></figcaption>
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<p>Our field work indicates that despite its location, security and safety are among the least concerning business risks in Tunisia. Another important finding was that the impact of significant political events (the 2011 revolution and the 2015 terrorist attacks) varied across companies depending on how and where a company operated. </p>
<p>During and immediately after the revolution, some companies, including those in <a href="http://www.investintunisia.tn/En/presentation_128_276">the textile sector</a>, lost foreign clients: “A lot of brands would not allow operators to come to Tunisia to see the production process, do quality control,” citing security concerns, one respondent told us.</p>
<p>However, other companies, for example those in <a href="http://www.investintunisia.tn/En/presentation_128_641">the automotive sector</a>, “worked with no problem,” said another.</p>
<p>The biggest nuisance for one respondent was the garbage piling up for a couple of weeks until the new government organized pick-ups. </p>
<p>One of our respondents also quipped: “Revolution and terrorism do not reduce the demand for men’s underwear.” </p>
<p>Still, in the five years after the revolution, security measures lagged, culminating in the 2015 terrorist attacks in Sousse.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tunisia-was-attacked-for-its-success-not-its-challenges-39159">Tunisia was attacked for its success, not its challenges</a>
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<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2018.09.002">Tunisia’s tourism industry suffered the most</a>, as the attacks targeted tourists who tend to choose travel destinations based on perceptions of safety. </p>
<p>A Tunisian hotel manager noted that the foreign tourists in his hotel, 85 to 90 per cent of the hotel’s business, left immediately after the attack. The hotel remained empty until the tourist season began for Tunisians after Ramadan. </p>
<h2>Security upgrades</h2>
<p>Since then, Tunisian hotels have been required <a href="https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/overview/recovery-road-smart-policy-increased-security-and-focus-new-segments">to upgrade their security</a> to meet new national and international standards. In contrast to the tourism industry, these attacks had less of an impact on <a href="http://www.investintunisia.tn/En/presentation_128_185">manufacturers</a> and <a href="http://www.investintunisia.tn/En/presentation_128_80">agricultural producers</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/tunisia-turns-a-corner-against-the-jihadist-movement">Since 2015, Tunisia has successfully eased security and safety concerns</a> due to a combination of the government’s immediate responses to security threats, its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2018.1538971">new long-term security policy</a>, security intergovernmental partnerships as well as the short-lived nature of politically disruptive events. By the summer of 2019, the managers we interviewed were almost unanimous in their feelings of safety.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it’s not all rosy. There have been suicide attacks <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5437148/suicide-bomb-attacks-tunisia-capital/">targeting security forces in Tunis</a>, the most recent one <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/world/europe/us-embassy-tunisia-bomber.html">near the United States embassy</a>. That shows threats may be significantly reduced but they haven’t been eliminated entirely in Tunisia, <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/terrorism-index/">a trend similar to other countries</a>. </p>
<p>But the respondents to our study still have a valid point about safety: “Definitely, Tunisia is much better security-wise than Mexico. Terrorism is not a problem today.” </p>
<p>In contrast to Mexico, our respondents’ companies have never needed security guards for transportation in Tunisia, even during the revolution, and they reported that security expenses at their operations have always been low.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tatiana Vashchiko and other co-authors of this article receive funding from SSHRC. The five co-authors of this article were awarded a three-year partnership development grant (PDG) by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada in March 2018 to establish an international academic partnership in Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreea Mihalache-O'Keef receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada; the Maurice L. Mednick Memorial Fund of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges. She is a volunteer member of the Board of Directors of the not-for-profit group Breastfeeding Rights, Education, Advocacy, and Support Team (BREAST), Roanoke, VA.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:anne.kleffner@haskayne.ucalgary.ca">anne.kleffner@haskayne.ucalgary.ca</a> received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:ekarakoc@binghamton.edu">ekarakoc@binghamton.edu</a> received funding from SSHRC of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:martin.halek@haskayne.ucalgary.ca">martin.halek@haskayne.ucalgary.ca</a> received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada</span></em></p>Those who conduct business in Tunisia consider it a low-risk security environment compared to some of its neighbours in North Africa and the Middle East.Tatiana Vashchilko, Assistant Professor, International Business and Strategic Management, University of CalgaryAndreea S. Mihalache-O'Keef, Associate Professor, Geo-politics, Roanoke CollegeAnne E. Kleffner, Professor, Risk Management and Insurance, University of CalgaryEkrem Karakoç, Associate Professor, Comparative Politics, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkMartin Halek, Associate Professor, Risk Management and Insurance, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.