Angst springs eternal: Dangerous times and the dangers of timing the ‘Arab Spring’

Andrew R Hom

doi:10.1177/0967010615617684

Abstract

Various reflections on the ‘Arab Spring’ evince a common view of the relationship between change and time that imbues events with a sense of intrinsic peril. Based on a framework developed from Norbert Elias’s concept of timing, this article elaborates the relationship between time and the ‘Arab Spring’ by unpacking and explaining three rhetorical tropes prevalent in academic responses to the revolts. The first two construct a problem to which the third proffers a solution. First, analysts treat time itself as a problematic force confounding stability and progress. Second, they deploy fluvial metaphors to present dynamic events as inherently insecure. Third, they use temporal Othering to retrofit the ‘Arab Spring’ to the familiar arc of liberal democracy, which renders the revolts intelligible and amenable to external intervention. These moves prioritize certainty and order over other considerations and constrain open-ended transformations within a familiar rubric of political progress. They also constitute an active timing effort based on a conservative standard, with important implications for our understanding of security and for scholarly reflexivity. The article concludes with three temporal alternatives for engaging novel changes like the ‘Arab Spring’.

Highlights

After unprecedented changes, scholars often grapple with questions about how they happened, what they mean, and their future implications
The literature on time and international politics remains incomplete for our purposes in three respects. It does not treat any of the specific temporal tropes running through the ‘Arab Spring’ – the problem of time,6 fluvial metaphors, and temporal Othering – and as such cannot delineate their implications for understanding security
Difficult or easy, the more we engage in timing, the more we describe it with a symbolic language whose figural qualities encourage us to think and speak ‘in terms of reifying substantives’ and ‘static conditions’ rather than active processes or dynamic relations (Elias, 2007: 43) – that is, to talk about ‘time’ rather than ‘timing’

Summary

Introduction

Scholars often grapple with questions about how they happened, what they mean, and their future implications. The conclusion reflects on the implications of the ‘Arab Spring’ for time, timing, and security as well as for scholarly reflexivity and poses three alternative temporalities for grappling with surprising events.

Results

Conclusion