The Arab Spring and Turkish-Iranian Relations, 2011–2016

Abstract

The origins of 2011 Arab Spring can be traced to the postcolonial political order that emerged in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region after World War II. Authoritarian regimes dominated all aspects of life in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, brutally repressing voices of dissent and preventing the establishment of liberal democratic open societies in the Arab world. Turkish policy-makers believe that long overlooked socioeconomic and political frustrations fueled the unprecedented mobilization of massive crowds across the so-called “Arab street” (i.e., the countries that experienced large-scale protests such as Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Bahrain). Accordingly, Arab Spring was about a popular demand for political change, freedom, and social justice. The protestors aimed to alter the nature of state-society relations via developing a new social contract that would empower the “ordinary citizen” vis-a-vis the elite that controlled authoritarian state mechanisms thus far. As such, the post-2011 Turkish foreign policy toward the Middle East has been shaped by a liberal idealist understanding of the Arab Spring.