Durac, Vincent, and Francesco Cavatorta. "After the Awakening". In Politics and Governance in the Middle East, by Vincent Durac and Francesco Cavatorta, 271-289. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Durac, Vincent, and Francesco Cavatorta. "After the Awakening". In Politics and Governance in the Middle East, by Vincent Durac and Francesco Cavatorta, 271-289. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

• Too many people discuss the Arab Spring in terms of a democratic revolution, of the kind that affected Eastern Europe in 1989, thereby subsuming it into a broader 'end of history' narrative of liberal democracy that it fails to match up to. Rather than look at the Arab Spring within paradigms of democratization or authoritarian resilience, it is best to look at it in terms of what has changed and what has remained the same (271-272).
• Prior to the Arab Spring, political systems in the Middle East were stagnant and dominated by the security forces, who had succeeded in destroying or co-opting civil society, political parties, and trade unions (273).
• The Arab Spring revolutions formed without depending of these traditional, but weak, centers of social organization. They used new technologies and a common goal of regime change to unite a large and disparate group of actors behind the revolution (273).
• The revolution gradually gained the support of different segments of the population, beginning with poor and disenfranchized youth (273-275). In Tunisia, they then gained the support of organized labor and the middle classes (273).
• The weak basis of social organization and absence of a clear ideology for the Arab Spring revolutions meant that they were not prepared to compete for political power, leaving them at a disadvantage compared to established political groups (275-276).
• These youth movements were unprepared and unorganized for political competition because they did not intend to take control of the state (278).
• The prominent role of social media during the Arab Spring revolutions should be highlighted, as it focused international attention on those areas and allowed activists to organize while avoiding the security forces, but the use of social media did not guarantee the success of these revolutions. The attention from social media did not prevent Iran from cracking down on the 2009 Green Revolution and the Syrian government has used social media to generate support for the al Assad government. Moreover, protesters showed themselves capable of widespread organization without social media after several governments shut down the internet (277).
• Since the youth movements that drove the Arab Spring revolutions were largely unable to take political power, post-revolution politics became dominated by older establishment forces: the Army and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennadha in Tunisia, and the political establishment in Yemen (278-279).
• This lead to growing dissatisfaction among Arab youth and their increasing disengagement from politics, as they feel their concerns are still marginalized in political debates. This is demonstrated by the turnout for Tunisia elections, which was 50% in 2011 and even low among the youth (278).
• Sectarian divisions have become more prominent in the aftermath of the Arab Spring: Islamists versus secularists in Tunisia, with many youth joining extreme factions on either side; Copts versus Muslims in Egypt; Alawis, Christians, and Sunnis in Syria; and tribal divides in many other parts of the Arab world. These divisions divide the opposition and aid established governments (279-281).
• Through failing to address corruption, nepotism, political oppression, and severe socioeconomic decline, the governments of Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia lost the support of large swathes of their populations (282).
• Despite facing all of these problems, Syria and Bahrain were generally able to retain political support among a significant minority of the population, largely among national minorities, like the Shiites in Syria or the Sunnis in Bahrain (283).
• Foreign and domestic experiences of revolution impacted the willingness of certain nations to participate in the Arab Spring. Algerians were reluctant to cause instability due to the experience of massive bloodshed during the civil war of the 1990s, while Jordanians feared revolution due to the threat posed by Israel and the experiences of Iraq following 2003 and Syria following 2011 (283).
• The role of the military in the Arab Spring revolutions was determined by the social mobilization of the protesters -- the military is less likely to repress large, well organized, and popular protests -- and the stake of the military in the old regime. Where the military had strong economic interests, as in Egypt, or was designed as a sectarian institution, as in Syria or Bahrain, it was more likely to crush protesters (283-285).
• International support has played a role in the success or failure of the Arab Spring revolution, with those dictators lacking international support, like Muammar Ghaddafi or Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, being toppled more easily. The influence of actors like the USA, Russia, and the Gulf states have made the situation in Syria or Egypt much more complicated (285-286).
• One of the most significant effects of the Arab Spring has been the return of political contestation to many parts of the Middle East where political life was formerly stagnant and controlled. Moreover, these politics include those in direct opposition to neoliberal democracy and thus represent a dissatisfaction with the global political order (286-287).