Arab Spring Research Articles

O bill Palmerston e o Império do Brasil

On August 24, 1839, the British Parliament passed the Palmerston Act as part of its global crusade against the smuggling of Africans to America. The measure, which signaled a radicalization of Britain's anti slave trade policy, classified the trade of Africans as trafficking, authorizing the country's navy to seize Portuguese vessels suspected of engaging in this activity. Based on the premise that the dispute between Portugal and Great Britain did not solely influence the fate of these countries, this article aims to analyze how the Brazilian press reacted to the Palmerston Act, especially in Rio de Janeiro. Additionally, the text intends to examine the consequences of this act for the future of the slave trade to the Empire of Brazil, particularly in its political dimension.

From text to allegory: ideological turns in Shamel Abatha’s translation of Animal Farm in the socio-political context of Egypt’s Pre-Arab Spring

ABSTRACT The influence of ideology on the process of translation has been one of the most controversial debates among scholars and translators who may undergo multiple challenges due to certain ideological demands, whether they be political, cultural or religious. In the Arab world, the socio-political scene has been dominated by ideological shifts since the outbreak of the Arab Spring. These shifts have influenced Arab scholars and translators in many possible ways, one of which is the reproduction of incisive narratives that not only account for the causes and effects of revolutions that swept different regions in the Arab world but also provoke political reform. In this vein, this article investigates Shamel Abatha’s translation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) to Arabic. It specifically explores Abatha’s political orientations which result in daring textual manipulations of Orwell’s text before the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011. Following Mona Baker’s narrative theory, the article demonstrates how Abatha’s target text turns into a socio-political national allegory that embodies critical ideological implications. The corpus consists of selected comparisons between Orwell’s Animal Farm and Abatha’s مزرعة الحيوانات [mazraat alḥywānāt] (2009) to show how translation strategies expound the impact of the latter’s political environment on his translation.

Women's Participation in the Arab Spring Protests and the Prevalence of Domestic Violence: Evidence From Egypt

During the Arab Spring protests, Egyptian women demonstrated in streets in unprecedented numbers, challenging societal norms about women’s roles and rights. Using a triple difference approach and nationally representative DHS data, this study exploits regional variation in protest intensity and women’s participation in the protests from 2011 to 2014 to examine the changes in women’s risk of experiencing domestic violence. Results show that women experienced a significant decline in their probability of experiencing physical, sexual, and psychological violence from their intimate partners in regions more exposed to women’s political participation in Arab Spring protests. Exploring potential channels, the study finds a significant increase in women’s decision-making power in more affected regions, without significant changes in attitudes toward domestic violence or labor market outcomes. These effects underscore the role of increased visibility of women in public spaces in empowering women and reducing their experience of intimate partner violence. HIGHLIGHTS Egyptian women protested in unprecedented numbers during Arab Spring demonstrations. Exposure to these events changed women’s risk of experiencing intimate partner violence. Women experienced a significant decline in intimate partner violence in more affected regions. Women also experienced an increase in decision-making power within the household.

Women entrepreneurs in violent conflict zones

Women entrepreneurs in violent conflict zones Read here for insights from a Libya-based study conducted by researchers at the University of Alberta about women entrepreneurs in violent conflict zones. In a couple of recent Open Access Government publications, Professor Jennifer Jennings from the University of Alberta collaborated with a former doctoral student to offer ideas for policy priorities and policy-oriented research related to gender and entrepreneurship. Here, she teams up with one of her current PhD students, Omima Elkailani, to share findings from a study of women’s entrepreneurship in one of the world’s most violent conflict zones: the African country of Libya after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Islamic Movements Face an Emerging Threat and Tunisian Political Environment: Presidential Coup, Democracy, and Aristocracy

In 2011, the popular revolt brought about change in the Tunisian presidential palace as it transitioned from authoritarianism to a condition of liminality. However, following the Tunisian President's proclamation, only the democratic success story of the Arab Spring is under jeopardy after ten years of democratic transition. This article seeks to show how the President has increased his authority by invoking Article 80 of the Constitution. It also explains how this action violates the constitution and has a detrimental effect on the political environment. As a result, Tunisia's Islamic movement has dominated the political landscape of the nation since the 2011 uprising and is seen as the leader of the Islamic identity and democratic movement. Finally, it comes to a conclusion that a coup from the Tunisian president occurred amid Rashid Al-Ghannouchi, the Movement's founder and speaker of the Parliament, showing leniency toward Islamic doctrine. Although it appears that the situation is still precarious, Al-Nahda leadership is once again playing a crucial role in fostering a stable political environment through discussion. The main and secondary data in this article have been evaluated using the Discourse Analysis method and its Critical Discourse Analysis method.

Islamic Medievalism and Mobility in Mathias Énard's Street of Thieves

ABSTRACTSet against the backdrop of the Arab Spring uprisings, Jihadist extremism, and the neoliberal exploitation of the Global South, Mathias Énard's 2012 novel Street of Thieves (Rue des voleurs) follows the fortunes of Lakhdar, a young man from Tangier who finds himself living as an undocumented migrant in Barcelona's notorious Carrer d’En Robador, the Street of Thieves. Lakhdar's misadventures are shaped by regional and global forces which have compelled Moroccan nationals to seek political and economic asylum in Mediterranean Europe. Although Street of Thieves is strikingly contemporary, this essay explores the novel's medievalism: its contrasting of the grim present with the premodern Islamic world as an era of sophistication, mobility and cultural exchange. The essay focuses on Lakhdar's preoccupation with his fellow Tangier native Ibn Battuta, the fourteenth‐century traveler and writer whose life becomes a frame through which Lakhdar views his own. It argues that contrary to the current tendency to view Ibn Battuta's world as a precursor to modern globalised culture, Énard's novel invokes cosmopolitan Islamic premodernity to comment on the turmoil of the modern Islamosphere and the harm done to the Islamicate world by Western neo‐colonialism and neoliberalism.

The grassroots and citymaking in the Middle East: The agency of tactical participation in Amman, Jordan

ABSTRACT In Middle Eastern contexts, like Jordan, the public participation spaces referred to as “invited spaces” for state-led participation are heavily controlled by the state and its representatives. This paper explores the various ways in which grassroots and civic organizations navigate and sometimes manipulate the state apparatus’ planning rules and grids to create alternative modes of meaningful participation in the production of the city. Following the Arab Spring in 2011, local grassroots organizations started adopting “new languages and taktikat” (تَكتِيكَات,’ tactics in English, words used by the grassroots to describe their practices) that allowed them to move beyond direct confrontation with the state in the so-called “invented” spaces of participation led by civil society. Building on de Certeau’s notion of “tactics,” this paper looks at these approaches as tactics used by grassroots to negotiate power and participation within neoliberal top-down authorities. Ultimately, it argues against viewing grassroots initiatives solely in terms of a binary lens of legality/informality or “invited”/“invented” dichotomies, as they neither function as insurgents nor remain passive.

Denying “The Right to Have Rights”: Europe’s Imposition of Mandates in Greater Syria and the Rise of Islamist Movements

Abstract In 1920, the Syrian Congress at Damascus ratified a democratic constitution that would have been beyond the dreams of activists in the 2011 Arab Spring. Under the leadership of the leading Islamic reformer of the day, Sheikh Rashid Rida, the constitution disestablished Islam as a state religion, guaranteed one-third of parliamentary seats to non-Muslim minorities, and promised autonomy to the majority Christian territory of Mount Lebanon. Unlike the Ottoman constitution that had once reigned in Greater Syria, the Syrian document granted the preponderance of power to parliament, not the monarch. Nonetheless, the British and French colluded in the willful destruction of this nascent democracy. And with League of Nations’ support, they divided the Syrian Arab Kingdom into sectarian mandatory states. By stripping Syrian Arabs of a self-determined political community, Europeans denied them the “right to have rights,” as Hannah Arendt argued. The political backlash against European rule transformed the minority question in Syria into a polarized and violent contest, leading to the sectarian conflicts that overwhelmed Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine in the remainder of the 20th century.

Complexity in Subtitling: Interacting Factors Influencing Decisions on Sensitive Content from English to Arabic

Subtitling approaches are constantly changing based on the factors surrounding their implementation. This qualitative secondary study seeks to explore the factors that influence subtitlers’ decision in translating English to Arabic sensitive audiovisual material. This study adopts complexity theory to unveil the intricate interplay of factors that influence these decisions. We move beyond a linear cause-and-effect model, exploring how social media, Turkish movies, globalization and the Arab Spring influence subtitlers’ decision in translation. The results of this qualitative secondary investigation indicate that many factors such as audience age and westernization among others influence subtitlers’ approaches in translation. Hence, it is essential for subtitlers to be dynamic and consistently review their subtitling approaches to ensure that they meet the needs of their target audiences, considering the presence of new and old target audiences of English to Arabic audiovisual translations.

From pharaoh to hero: contested constructions of Mubarak’s image in Egyptian post-uprising collective memory

ABSTRACT The 2011 Egyptian uprising, which ended President Husni Mubarak’s thirty-year rule, initially painted him as a pharaoh. However, more than a decade since his overthrow, Mubarak’s image is variedly invoked and embodied across Egypt. Schools, hospitals, streets, and squares proudly bear his name. Social media groups glorify his memory, while locals openly express longing for his era. Unlike other deposed Arab leaders during the ‘Arab Spring’, Mubarak received a state military funeral, elevating him to a revered patriot and hero. This paper explores the constructions of Mubarak’s image in Egyptian collective memory, at the official and vernacular levels. The paper’s core argument emphasizes that during the transition period, revolutionary forces shaped a negative public memory of Mubarak. Yet in recent years, the resurgence of authoritarianism has marginalized these forces, allowing pro-Mubarak factions to advance a positive depiction, idealizing his legacy, and fostering feelings of regret. The post-June 2013 official narrative regarding Mubarak delicately manoeuvres between these competing narratives. It exalts his military role in the 1973 war while undermining his political heritage, thereby preventing any single narrative from dominating and thwarting influential factions in civil society from challenging the regime’s resilience with a political alternative.

Reform bills in Jordan: A Dawn of a new era or continuous missed opportunities?

AbstractThis study aims to identify the concept, mechanisms and motives of political reform under the reign of King Abdullah II of Jordan. Concisely, the study attempts to identify obstacles to and opportunities for political reform in Jordan. To this end, the weaknesses and challenges facing the process of political reform in Jordan as well as opportunities to achieve political reform will be addressed. The opportunities are represented in the new constitutional amendments and the new laws governing political life (political parties and election laws). The main finding of this study is that since Jordan's problem today is not just economic, there is a pressing need for political reform. The political reform in Jordan, as a form of adjusting and accommodating, is the best alternative for the regime to face the popular pressures. This is probably so because Arab Spring regimes with minimal capacity to ‘bend’ or respond to change had eventually collapsed.

The Tunisian Economics’ Situations After the Revolution of Arab Spring 2011

The Tunisian economic facts after the so-called the Arab spring or social revolution have been marketed by numerous fluctuations and radical changes in the general situation of the management of the administrative affairs of the country. The most prominent of these facts, including the series of chaotic sit-ins and the political and security instability that has increased from 2011 to 2018, note in particular the emergence of the phenomenon of terrorism and assassinations. These negative results are too the expensive cost of the Tunisian national economy, which has been directed, affected by all vital sectors of the country’s economy, especially the tourism, trade and investment sectors. In addition, the increase in excessive wages during the first three years following the revolution and the increasing number of random sit-ins that led to the cessation of the production in the Gafsa phosphate mine and the failure to work for most of the public servants represented negative factors that led to a decline in productivity and an increase in the financial and trade deficit. Thus, the budget deficit and the accumulation of indebtedness represent the main obstacle to achieving social and economic stability.

Riding Samuel Huntington s Waves of Democracy: Unveiling the Middle East s Path and Egypt s Democratic Quest

This study explores the complex dynamics of democratization in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Egypt. Through an in-depth analysis of Egypt's political evolution, the paper examines the historical, social, and economic factors that have shaped its struggle for democratic governance. The research highlights the pivotal moments in Egypt's recent history, including the Arab Spring and its aftermath, to illustrate the challenges and opportunities faced by the country in its quest for democracy. By contextualizing Egypt's experience within the broader Middle Eastern landscape, the study provides insights into the region's unique political environment, the role of external influences, and the interplay between authoritarian legacies and democratic aspirations. The findings underscore the importance of addressing structural impediments, fostering inclusive political participation, and ensuring the protection of civil liberties to pave the way for sustainable democratization in Egypt and the wider Middle East.

Protests

Citizens have long taken to the streets to demand change, expressing political views that may otherwise be suppressed. Protests have produced change at local, national, and international scales, including spectacular moments of political and social transformation. We document five new empirical patterns describing 1.2 million protest events across 218 countries between 1980 and 2020. First, autocracies and weak democracies experienced a trend break in protests during the Arab Spring. Second, protest movements also rose in importance following the Arab Spring. Third, protest movements geographically diffuse over time, spiking to their peak before falling off. Fourth, a country's year-to-year economic performance is not strongly correlated with protests; individual values are predictive of protest participation. Fifth, the United States, China, and Russia are the most overrepresented countries in academic studies. We discuss each pattern's connections to the existing literature and anticipate paths for future work.

Róg Afryki jako pole rywalizacji pomiędzy państwami regionu Zatoki Perskiej w latach 2014-2023

THE HORN OF AFRICA AS THE FIELD OF RIVALRY BETWEEN THE GULF STATES 2014-2023 The Horn of Africa region gained particular importance for the Gulf states after the Arab Spring, and especially after the outbreak of the civil war in Yemen. While the Gulf states mainly sought to use their financial resources to pursue security interests and strengthen their position in the international arena, the governments of the Horn of Africa countries cooperated primarily for the benefit of domestic policy. Building on the theory of regional security complexes, the article attempts to answer the question of how the rivalry between the Gulf states influenced their policies towards the countries of the Horn of Africa and what effects it had on the stability and security in this region.

The impact of new millennium crises on the power of Islamic banks in deposit markets

AbstractWe investigate the impact of three crises on the power of Islamic banks in deposit markets: the Global Financial Crisis, 2007–2009 (GFC), the Arab Spring political crisis, 2011–2013, and the COVID‐19 health crisis, 2020–2022. Applying difference‐in‐difference (DID) and GMM techniques to panel data for 2004–2022, we find that the power of Islamic banks increased in countries most affected by the GFC, but only for oil‐exporters, as elevated oil prices inflated deposited liquidity. In contrast to the GFC, the market power of countries highly affected by the Arab Spring decreased as depositors withdrew en masse. For these countries, oil export status was irrelevant, and whilst government integrity is significant, it accounts for a small amount of heterogeneity in the country‐level cross‐section due to widely held public attitudes towards institutions during the crisis. For COVID‐19, the market power of Islamic banks initially increased at the outset of the pandemic due to a surge in precautionary deposits, but later decreased due to economic activity constraints. The stringency of lockdowns had little effect on market power in countries that suffered the highest COVID‐19 death rates. These and other findings specific to each crisis provide a rich array of private and public policy implications relevant to crises of different types for bank liquidity crisis management, financial conduct policies, and state‐backed lending stimulus packages.

The Arab Spring and Russia's Middle East Policy

Russia's Middle East policy has undergone a significant change following the occurrence of the Arab Spring. The main reason for this change was the new strategic realities created by the Arab Spring in the region. Russia first considered the Arab Spring as a regional domestic issue, but this perspective changed as outside influences became involved in the events. The Western powers viewing the Arab Spring as a new regional political configuration influenced the overall framework of this change. The development that had the greatest impact on Russia's approach to the Arab Spring was the events in Libya. NATO's military intervention in Libya has led to the disruption of Russia's gains in the region. In this context, the Libyan issue has provided an opportunity for Russia to radically reconsider its Middle East policy. Unlike the reluctant and cautious attitude in Libya, Russia's regional policy on Syria has taken a more concrete form. Russia’s military operation in Syria can be considered in this context. It is impossible to consider the military operation in 2015 in isolation from the developments that emerged after the annexation of Crimea, which led to Russia's relative international isolation. The paradigm shifts and differences in approach in Russian foreign policy after 2014 should not be ignored within this context.

Rethinking and advancing the movement of resistance, activism, and advocacy in health in four central arenas of the Middle East Region

AbstractThe Middle East region has a long history of resistance, activism, and advocacy movements in health, most recently as part of the 2011 region‐wide Arab Spring. Despite this storied history, however, movements of resistance, activism, and advocacy in health in the region are rarely unpacked, examined, or documented. This historical and contextual analysis aims to examine the long‐standing confiscated health rights and subsequent experiences of resistance, activism, and advocacy in health in populations in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq. Promoting a health equity and health rights‐based approach is key to achieving Universal Health Coverage and health‐related Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in contexts that experience fragile socioeconomic and humanitarian conditions and political instability such as many countries in the Middle East. Marginalized populations, including Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, Lebanese Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender+ (LGBT) communities, Egyptian women and girls affected by Female Genital Mutilation, and Iraqi refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, have been severely impacted by decades of oppression, conflict, and displacement. These populations have faced various forms of discrimination, neglect, and violence that have hindered their access to quality healthcare and basic health rights. Rather than relying on government efforts, local and international movements to advocate for and protect the health rights of these populations are key. Innovative approaches, strategic dialogue and collective actions are prerequisites for promoting resistance, activism, and advocacy in health in all country's systems structure. This analysis highlights the important of this social public health issue in the most turbulent region and provides evidence to guide all countries to realize equitable human rights for health for all populations.

Egypt's Post-Arab Spring Revolution Explanation for Democratisation Failure

The Arab Spring phenomena fueled international confidence in the Middle East's democratization process. The democratic election of Muhammad Morsi (Muslim Brotherhood) as President of Egypt was one of the Arab Spring Revolution's most significant victories. However, on July 3, 2013, General Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi, the Head of Egypt's Armed Forces, conducted a coup to topple Morsi's rule. That action is incompatible with democratic principles. The failure of this democratization process is the primary subject of this research. The purpose of this article is to understand the contributing causes to Egypt's democratization failure following the Arab Spring movement of 201. The author explains the phenomena using a qualitative technique with Miles and Huberman's descriptive-analysis methodology, as well as three theories: Seymour Lipset's modernization theory, Huntington's political actor theory, and Philip C. Schmitter's international environment theory. This report discovered that three causes contributed to Egypt's democratization failure: a lack of economic conditions, a relationship between the MB (Muslim Brotherhood) and Salafis, a lack of international backing, and GCC state meddling.

Law’s ideology: Neoliberalism and developmentalism in Egyptian jurisprudence

Abstract This article contrasts neoliberal and developmental Egyptian judicial responses to questions of social justice to examine the role of law in shaping the economy. It argues that the Supreme Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence, both before and after the Arab Spring, has advanced a neoliberal counterrevolution and legitimated an anti-egalitarian and unjust social order. In contrast, administrative courts’ rulings, particularly those that challenged the privatization of public assets after the Arab Spring, represent a developmental approach that exposes neoliberal fallacies and advances social justice and the common good. Notwithstanding neoliberal invocations of constitutional legitimacy and the rule of law, the existence of an alternative within the field of legal interpretation illustrates that constitutionalism is a site for ideological contestation between opposing visions of the social order.