Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-7-2015
Publication Title
Mediterranean Politics
Abstract
Drawing on the research presented by contributors to this special issue, this article assesses the analytic opportunities that emerge when the Arab uprisings are conceptualized as moments of transformation rather than as incipient, awed or failed transitions to democracy. Highlighting critical issues that cut across and link the experiences of political relevant elites (PREs) and mobilized publics in the cases of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen, it identifies three sets of issues that warrant further comparative research: the effects of stateness and patterns of state-society relations on the trajectory of Arab uprisings; the role of identity politics and non-state forms of solidarity as drivers of political mobilization and collective action, and the impact of these forms of collective action on possibilities for establishing stable, legitimate forms of governance; and the limits of civil societies and civic sectors in influencing transformational processes.
Volume
21
Issue
1
First Page
192
Last Page
204
DOI
10.1080/13629395.2015.1081450
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights
© 2015 the author(s). Published by taylor & Francis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Recommended Citation
Heydemann, Steven, "Explaining the Arab uprisings: Transformations in Comparative Perspective" (2015). Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/mes_facpubs/1
Comments
Archived as published.