Online seminar
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2021-01-14-Programme-10 Years after the Arab Spring ENG downloadIn late 2010, protests against the authoritarian regime started in Tunisia and were followed by a wave of uprisings in other countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The immediate consequences were the fall of many authoritarian governments and rising hope of citizens to renew their political system and improve their living conditions. A decade after the Arab Revolutions, however, their achievements remain ambivalent. Except for Tunisia, no other country in the Middle East managed to establish a democratic government. Instead, the power vacuum in the aftermath of the revolution became exploited by Islamist and Jihadist groups. In the majority of the Arab countries today, authoritarian regimes are back in power while countries such as Syria, Libya and Yemen suffer from the consequences of ongoing civil war and terror. Was a sustainable system change in the Middle East unrealistic? Which main obstacles prevented a successful process of a democratization?
Today, the conditions of people living in the MENA region turn out to be worse compared to the start of the Arab Spring. Political instability, repression, poverty and unemployment create a popular feeling of hopelessness and frustration. Over the past two years, citizens in Sudan and Algeria started anti-government uprisings and protests calling for more political engagement and social justice. The pictures of the series of demonstrations in the Middle East reminded of the Revolutions in 2010 and prompted a discussion about the possibility of an ‘Arab Spring 2.0’. How likely is a second wave of revolutions in light of the current situation in the Arab world? What is left from the optimism that systemic change is achievable which triggered the Arab Revolutions ten years ago? Can a fresh democratic spring follow after a long Islamist fall?
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