Making Sense of Ongoing Revolutions: Geopolitical and Other Analyses of the Wave of Arab Uprisings Since December 2010

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. There have been many attempts to make sense of the Arab uprisings. Apart from the books under review and books otherwise sited in this essay, earlier attempts include K. M. Pollack (ed.), The Arab Awakening, America and the Transformation of the Middle-East (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press 2011). Later ones: Merlini, Cesare, and Olivier Roy (eds.), Arab Society in Revolt: The West's Mediterranean Challenge (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press 2012); and Isakhan, Benjamin, Fethi Mansouri, and Shahram Akbarzadeh (eds.), The Arab Revolutions in Context: Civil Society and Democracy in a Changing Middle East (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press 2012). A very recent one: Amaney A. Jamal, Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy or No Democracy at All? (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2012) that offers a comparative case studies of Jordan and Kuwait with anti-Americanism as independent variable. Last but not least, not yet released at the time of writing is the much expected Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring, edited by Larbi Sadiki (London: Routledge). 2. A similar setup is found in the French language dictionary of preconceived notions about the Arab World discussing a wide list of statements about the Arabs in six thematic sections; see: Pierre Vermeren (dir.), Idées reçues sur le Monde arabe (Paris: Le Cavalier Bleu 2012). Filiu applies a similar scheme to present ten simple lessons from the uprisings; see: Jean-Pierre Filiu, La Révolution arabe; Dix leçons sur le soulèvement démocratique (Paris: Fayard 2011), also published as The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011). Other French language publications (not discussed here) include: Ahmed Bensaada, Arabesque Américaine: Le rôle des États-Unis dans les révoltes de la rue arabe (Montréal: Éditions Michel Brûlé 2011); Pierre Blanc (dir.), Révoltes arabes; Premiers regards (Paris: L'Harmattan 2011); S. Boussois (Coord.), Le Moyen-Orient à l'aube du printemps arabe; Sociétés sous tension (Paris: Éditions du Cygne 2011); F. Charillon and A. Dieckhoff (dir.), Afrique du Nord Moyen-Orient 2012; Révolutions sociales, bouleversements politiques, ruptures stratégiques (Paris: La Documentation Française 2011); Jean-Pierre Estival (dir.), L'Europe face au printemps arabe. De l'espoir à l'inquiétude (Paris: L'Harmattan 2012); Mathieu Guidère, Le choc des révolutions arabes (Paris: Autrement 2011); Mathieu Guidère, Le printemps islamiste: Démocratie et charia (Paris: Ellipses 2012); Éric Denécé (dir.), La face cachée des « révolutions » arabes » (Paris: Ellipses 2012); as well as updates in more established introductory texts to the Arab World such as Georges Mutin, Géopolitique du Monde arabe, quatrième édition mise à jour et augmentée (Paris: Ellipses 2012). 3. Council on Foreign Relations, The New Arab Revolts; What Happened, What It Means, What Comes Next (New York: Council for Foreign Affairs 2011); Gassam Haddad, Rosie Bsheer, and Ziad abu-Rish, The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings, End of an Old Order? (London: Pluto Press 2012). Foreign Affairs is an American magazine on international relations and US foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations, augmented with a website at <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/>. Jadaliyya (dialectic) is a transnational and trilingual (English, Arabic, French) online journal founded in 2010 by academics (Arab Studies Institute in Washington/Beirut) and offering nuanced, in-depth coverage see <www.jadaliyya.com/>. 4. Tariq Ramadan, L'islam et le réveil arabe (Paris: Presses du Châtelet 2011). 5. See also note 3 for volumes featuring similar but multi-authored anthologies. 6. The English translation of the open letter can be found on +972magazine at <http://972mag.com/young-mizrahi-israelis-open-letter-to-arab-peers/>, accessed 26 Feb. 2013). This binational blog is named after the international telephone area code that Israel and the Palestinian territories share. 7. C. Barnett, ‘Theory and Events’, Geoforum 42/3 (2011) pp. 263–265. 8. Forum on the 2011 “Arab Spring”, The Arab World Geographer 14/2 (2011) pp. 111–187. 9. L. Bialasiewicz, ‘On Borders’, Political Geography, 30 (2011) pp. 299–300. See also her later article: L. Bialasiewicz, ‘Off-Shoring and Out-Sourcing the Borders of Europe: Libya and EU Border Work in the Mediterranean’, Geopolitics 17/4 (2012) pp. 843–846. In a similar fashion James Sidaway saw the NATO intervention in Libya as an invitation to consider the changing ways that Libya has been represented in Western narratives; see: James Sidaway, ‘Commentary: Subaltern Geopolitics: Libya in the Mirror of Europe’, The Geographical Journal 178/4 (2012) pp. 296–301. 10. Sara Fregonese, ‘Beyond the Domino: Transnational (In)Security and the 2011 Protests, 2011, available at <http://societyandspace.com/2011/10/20/sra-fregonese-arab-protests/>, accessed 16 Jan. 2013. 11. Sara Fregonese, ‘Mediterranean Geographies of Protest’, European Urban and Regional Studies 20/1 (2013) pp. 109–114. The issue features eight papers, pp. 115–158. 12. Éric Verdeil, ‘Villes arabes en révolution: quelques observations’, 2011, available at <http://www.metropolitiques.eu/Villes-arabes-en-revolution.html> (also available in English at <http://www.metropolitiques.eu/Arab-Cities-in-Revolution-Some.html>), accessed 10 Jan. 2013.