The Theories Behind the Arab Spring

Fatima Mohammad Al Khadire
Jordanian lawyer and Human Rights activist

The concept of the Arab uprisings from four interrelated perspectives to clarify the uprising's reality and how the Arab uprisings are a process that began with the first step as a collective action and becomes missed to a different type of movement and actions and this makes the Arab Uprising different from other democratic demonstration in the world.

The term “Arab Spring” was popularized by the Western media in early 2011 when the successful uprising in Tunisia against former leader emboldened similar anti-government protests in most Arab countries, but the history of this term "Arab Spring" is a reference to the Revolutions of 1848, a year in which a wave of political upheavals occurred in many countries throughout Europe, many resulting in an overthrow of old monarchical structures and their replacement with a more representative form of government But the events in the Middle East went in a less straightforward direction.

Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria entered an uncertain transition period; Syria and Libya, and Yemen were drawn into a civil conflict and armed conflict, the use of the term the “Arab Spring” has since been criticized for being inaccurate and simplistic and I agree with this opinion.

Change: Reform and Revolution

The difference between reform and revolution is that reform deals with limited changes, as Blumer (1995) stated, “A revolutionary movement has a broader aim than reform, it seeks to reconstruct the entire society; reform movement accepts the existing orders, but revolutionary movement always challenges the existing rules, for example social movements in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia evolved into revolutionary social movements; while those in Algeria, Morocco, and Yemen became reformative social movements. In each of these cases, a social movement led to revolution or reform.

To understand more the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia fall into the category of political revolutions, because of the political structures after the revolutions one can see the change in the location of political sovereignty in these states from undemocratically elected rulers to “relatively” democratically elected rulers these uprisings did not result in social revolution because revolutionary changes within the economic and social structures have yet to occur. Repressive, corrupt, and unjust rulers played an important role in the revolutions in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia because the long-term cruelty and pressure created a culture of resistance within the public. Tunisia constitutes successful revolutionary movements since the protestors deposed the existing anti-democratic regimes. However, these revolutions were political, not social, revolutions because there have been only revolutionary changes in political structures. however in the Case of Syria Although Syria might be included in the series of Arab uprisings, the strong stance of the regime against protestors, and more importantly, key international actors’ tentative involvement in this issue—because of the acute polarization between Western (US, Europe, and Turkey) and Eastern (Russia, Iran) powers—has propelled the uprisings into sectarian civil war or in opinion (a business weapon) As a result, Syria’s resistances have escalated into an all-out civil war, rather than a revolutionary, reformative, or abortive social movement

Adding to what is happening in Syria; an armed conflicts, and terrorist groups which not related to any religion and many other crimes against the humanity is happening tell now in Syria displaced around 7 million refugees spread in the whole world.

After all this we cannot just consider what is happening in Syria just only internal issue against the current regime not at all its about foreign interests who use the beginnings of the revolution in Syria.

Social movements and Insurrectionary

To distinguished between social movements and insurrectionary or protest movements, as “the social movements tend to construct alternative institutions and value system also attempt to establish alternative institutions and value systems before a total change”, but insurrectionary and protest movements do not have always an alternative agenda (Bayat1998)

In the case of the Arab uprisings, collective action resulted in social movement because the uprisings developed into more than a simple protest or the amassing of angry or violent crowds.

However, that collective action does not always lead to a social movement, collective actions might also result in outbursts, such as mass panic and this is what happened in some Arab countries with the help of supporters of the dictator regimes, or from individuals that do not have a goal of modifying, restructuring, or redefining the norms and values of society, In the case of the Arab uprisings, collective action resulted in social movement because the uprisings developed into more than a simple protest or the amassing of angry or violent crowds.

The main reason for the emergence of social movement is general dissatisfaction within a specific class or classes, during the Arab uprisings, true social movements emerged because of general dissatisfaction among specific class or classes relative deprivation theory provides four criteria that aid in measuring the sources of discontent: possessions, status, behavior, and worth the exclusion of these four factors create frustration among the people that they tend to focus on their rulers.

Analyzing the applicability of current theories that explain the political unrest on the Arab Spring revolutions and the Arab Spring revolutions have special attributes, as well as the reasons for political unrest outbreak. The reasons in the case of the Arab Spring are accompanied by social and political reasons at the same importance of economic and religious reasons.

The division of the Arab countries into three groups was affected by the events of these revolutions. First the states of the relatively peaceful revolutions (Tunisia and Egypt), second, the states with non-peaceful revolutions (Libya, Yemen, and Syria), and third the states are self-reform (Jordan, Morocco, and the Arab Gulf countries).

Obviously, at this moment these countries were a “tempting meal “to intervene the external in these regards The United States Israel, China, Russia, Iran, and some European countries following the collapses of some of these regimes, undoubtedly these lead to an impact on the balance of power in the whole region and inevitably the world.