The Impact of the Arab Spring on Central Asia: Regional and Macro-regional Implications

Abstract

The Arab Spring had a profound impact on international relations in the Middle East and beyond. The rising popular unrest in this part of the world provoked a new wave of debate about the hardships of transforming autocratic states into functioning democracies (Mansfield and Snyder, 2012; Przeworski, 2012). It has also revealed numerous challenges for countries mired in democratic transition. The incapacity of weak political institutions to address pressing social and civil needs, the difficulties of establishing a constructively functioning opposition, the danger of growing social imbalances and popular unrest against a background of intensified information exchange within and between countries constitute only a few such challenges. Moreover, the case of the Middle East particularly highlighted the perils of religious extremism once it becomes the last resort for expressing one’s disagreement. The enumerated challenges emanate from the conditions of tightly interconnected international and domestic environments and raise questions regarding optimal strategies for reforming hybrid regimes under these conditions. There have been voiced suggestions that the Arab Spring could have a potential spill-over effect for Central Asia, thus transforming the security situation in this overlapping neighbourhood between Russia, the European Union (EU) and Turkey and creating a belt of permanently politically unstable countries from Northern Africa to Afghanistan (Lillis, 2012; Zikibayeva, 2011).