The role of the Arab Spring

In the current study piece, the role of the Arab Spring (Islamic awakening) in advancing the Islamic form of democracy in North Africa and the Middle East was explained. The main objective was to determine whether democracy had significantly improved following the Arab spring. In 2011 and 2012, a wave of protests known as the Islamic awakening surged through the Muslim world. The revolution was mostly populated by people from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, and Syria (Howard et al., 2). The Arab Spring's epicenter was Tunisia, when protests were sparked by Mohamed Bouzazi's self-immolation after being publicly humiliated by law enforcement. The experiences of Bouzazi resonated with the common masses who were economically disenfranchised by the government of Ben Ali (Howard et al. 3). Following the unprecedented scale of the protests, Ben Ali’s administration collapsed and he fled the country. The analysis of the democratic transition after the Arab spring was critical in light of the fact that the quest for democracy and economic empowerment were the primary drivers of the revolution. The autocratic rule before the Arab spring, the key drivers of the evolution and the democratic space post-revolution were discussed in the subsequent sections.

Research Questions

Did the Arab Spring improve Islamic democracy in the respective countries?

Were there any prospects that the respective countries would transition into full-fledged democracies?

Thesis Statement

The Arab spring gave birth to some semblance of Islamic democracy; however, most of the democratic reforms were superficial.

Literature Review

Notably, the spread of the Arab spring was mediated by the social media after by-standers took and shared images of Mohamed Bouzazi’s self-immolation. Notably, the images were circulated widely via social media and they consequently inspired other dissents who found new courage to challenge authoritarians such as Muammar Gadhafi and Ben Ali.

Before the Arab spring, it had been largely presumed that countries North Africa and the Middle East were totally immune to democracy (Moghadam 398). In fact, leading scholars had argued that the robust structures instituted by authoritarian regimes of Gaddafi, Ben Ali, and Hosni Mubarak made it impossible for democracy to flourish in the Arab world (Moghadam 398).

Drivers for the Arab Spring

Key drivers of the Arab spring was the widespread unemployment, inflation, corruption by the elite, and market reforms attributed to the adoption of flexible policies including the privatization of government assets. The authoritarian regimes provided temporary reprieves when faced with growing public displeasure (Moghadam 398). Some of the reprieves included oils subsidies that made it cheap for the citizens to fuel their cars, cook, and air condition homes. The convergences of the endogenous factors were the root causes catalyzed the pro-democracy movement (Moghadam 395). In light of the underlying factors that fueled the Arab spring, it was deduced that the citizens were fundamentally concerned about social and economic welfare; the inability of authoritarian regimes to meet such needs was what catalyzed the revolution. In essence, the Arab spring was not solely about democracy but also the economic empowerment of the marginalized.

Islamic Democracy after the Arab Spring

After the fall of Ben Ali’s regime, former dissents formed various parties in an attempt to capture power. An interim government was established with the promise of observing gender balance. In the transitional period, the country also drafted a new constitution. Notably, parties that were previously outlawed by Ben Ali’s government such as the An-Nahda Party were re-instated and they won close to 40 percent of the seats in the assembly (Moghadam 400). Therefore, based on these developments, it was deduced that Tunisia, experienced a renewal of Islamic democracy after the Arab spring because parties that had been previously banned were now legal (Moghadam 400). However, it was of note that the new democratic space did not directly benefit the Algerians; the political elite were the key beneficiaries. Besides, in relative terms, the Arab spring yielded other unintended consequences such as the influx of refugees into the EU (Fargues and Fandrich 5), destruction of livelihoods and civil wars in Libya and Syria that continue unabated to this day.

According to (Alnani 466) the only tangible benefit of the Arab spring was that it resulted in the inflation of the number of Islamist parties in the two countries. Besides, the Arab spring brought to a closure the misconception that the Arab world was traditionally a victim of authoritarianism. Nonetheless, it was projected that the growing involvement of Islamists in the democratic transition would likely result in the incorporation of Islamist doctrines and ideology into the democratic process. Therefore, from a broader perspective, the Arab spring did not yielded any significant benefit to the citizenry because it had only shifted power from authoritarians to Islamists (Alnani 466). Notably, the Islamists who had now become the custodians of the new democratic dispensation were not genuinely committed to the adoption of democracy as part of the governance system. Therefore, the advancement of democracy post-revolution was a fallacy. The resurgence in Islamists was also witnessed in Libya. In contrast to Tunisia, Libya had not witnessed any significant democratic process. In fact, the Arab spring had transformed Libya into a semi-failed state.

In Egypt, the Arab spring triggered a series of events that culminated in a broader democratic space compared to the limited democracy under Hosni Mubarak’s rule. A case in point, at the height of the conflict in 2011, Mubarak was necessitated to appoint a vice president; something he had not done for the past 30 years. Subsequently, the authoritarian handed over power. As the Arab spring in Egypt ended, the citizens elected their first democratic president, Mohamed Morsi, under the Muslim Brotherhood party. The election was temporarily considered as part of the democratic dispensation in the country. However, the military under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi commandeered the nascent democracy. Back then, El-Sisi was the head of the army and he used his position to intimidate key members of the Muslim Brotherhood (Masoud 222). With time the military seized power and El-Sisi was elected as president. However, the events that led to his election were an illustration that the Egyptian Arab Spring was a failure.

The administration of El-Sisi was defined by the growing suppression of the democratic space in the country. A case in point, most of the civil society organizations were subjected to state control while dissent voices were muzzled. In principle, the El-Sisi presidency bore notable similarities to Mubarak’s. A recent report by the Carnegie Endowment, indicated that El-Sisi had turned against the very groups that helped him ascend to power (Acconcia).

The start of the Arab spring in Syria was marked by some measure of success as the Assad’s administration made some reforms. The reforms included freedom of assembly, speech, and press. Additionally, the administration also provided new rights for the previously marginalized Kurds and suspended the emergency law. However, to the protesters, the democratic reforms were considered as unsatisfactory. The escalation of the conflict resulted in the murder of innocent civilians, and the rationing of food, electricity, and water by the government. Notably, the ethnic politics of Syria had contributed to the failure of the Arab spring in the country (Cornell University Library).

The Arab spring in Algeria was a complete failure given that it was a non-starter. The protests did not culminate in the removal of Abdelaziz Bouteflika as president. In fact, the well-paid security forces were able to neutralize the protests with minimal cases of bloodshed. The authoritarian regime in Algeria did not deviate from its authoritarian practices after the Arab Spring; the status quo remained (Volpi 104). Thus, the Arab spring had also failed in Algeria.

Conclusion

In light of the recent developments in the Middle East and Northern Africa after the revolution, it was noted that the Arab Spring had yielded mixed outcomes. The Islamic awakening managed to topple repressive regimes of Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, and Ben Ali among others. However, attempts to overthrow Assad’s regime in Syria had resulted in a prolonged civil war. Besides, Egypt’s Arab spring was considered a failure because it essentially replaced one authoritarian regime with another. The anticipated democratization of the Arab countries had also been taken hostage by Islamists who intended to introduce their Islamic ideology at the expense of democracy. Therefore, with the exception of Tunisia, the Arab spring had failed to yield tangible democratic reforms after the revolution.

Works Cited

Acconcia, Giuseppe. “The Shrinking Independence of Egypt’s Labor Unions.” Carnegie Endowment, 2016. http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/64634. Accessed 8 Dec. 2017.

Alnani, Khalil. “Islamist Parties Post-Arab Spring.” Mediterranean Politics vol. 17, no. 3, 2012, pp. 466–472.

Cornell University Library. “Arab Spring: A Research & Study Guide.”, 2017. http://guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31688&p=200753. Accessed 8 Dec. 2017.

Fargues, Philippe, and Christine Fandrich. “Migration after the Arab Spring.” MPC Research Report, 2012, pp. 22.

Howard, Philip N et al. “What Was the Role of Social Media during the Arab Spring ?” Project on Information Technology and Political Islam, 2011, pp. 1–30.

Masoud, Rezaei. “Egypt and Democracy Dilemma.” African Journal of Political Science and International Relations vol. 9, no. 6, 2015, pp. 217–224.

Moghadam, Valentine M. “What Is Democracy? Promises and Perils of the Arab Spring.” Current Sociology vol. 61, no. 4, 2013, pp. 393–408.

Volpi, Frédéric. “Algeria versus the Arab Spring.” Journal of Democracy vol. 24, no.3, 2013, pp. 104–115.