The Arab Spring and Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation

Abstract

The wave of mass protests that swept through the Middle East and North Africa in early 2011 raised the hope for an ‘Arab Spring’ that would bring greater freedom and democracy to the Arab world. Following the Tunisian example, people took to the streets throughout the region in order to voice socio-economic and political grievances, and demand more or less radical changes to redress these deficits, holding their governments accountable for ‘bad’ governance. While it quickly became clear that these protests would not trigger a new wave of democratization in the short run, the unexpected course of events challenged the general outlook on regime stability and change in the region (Abdelali 2013; Bellin 2012; Cause III 2011; Pace and Cavatorta 2012; Teti and Gervasio 2011; Valbjorn 2012). In the end, only few countries experienced a transition, but the overthrow of even a few longtime rulers demonstrated that regime survival was more fragile than assumed, even in seemingly stable countries such as Tunisia. Protests were obviously ‘contagious’ (Heydemann and Leenders 2011; Mekouar 2014) and the Arab Spring represented an exceptional moment of popular contestation, challenging the authority and survival of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the overthrow of Presidents Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak did not trigger a domino effect and the majority of rulers remained in power, using a mix of repression, economic, and political concessions to contain protests in their countries.