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Monarchical presidential regimes in the Arab world looked as though they would last indefinitely—until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. This is the first book to lay bare the dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century, and the popular opposition they engendered.

Monarchical presidential regimes in the Arab world looked as though they would last indefinitely--until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. This is the first book to lay bare the dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century, and the popular opposition they engendered.

The transition paradigm has traditionally viewed civil society activism as an essential condition for the establishment of democracy. The democracy promotion strategies of Western policy-makers have, therefore, been based on strengthening civil society in authoritarian settings in order to support the development of social capital -to challenge undemocratic regimes. This book questions the validity of the link between an active associational life and democratization. It examines civil society in the Arab world in order to illustrate how authoritarian constraints structure civil society dynamics in the region in ways that hinder transition to democracy. Building on innovative theoretical work and drawing on empirical data from extensive fieldwork in the region, this study demonstrates how the activism of civil society in five different Arab countries strengthens rather than weakens authoritarian practices and rule. Through an analysis of the specific legal and political constraints on associational life, and the impact of these on relations between different civic groups, and between associations and state authorities, the book demonstrates that the claim that civil society plays a positive role in processes of democratic transformation is highly questionable. Offering a broad and alternative vision of the state of civil society in the region, this book will be an important contribution to studies on Middle Eastern politics, democratization and civil society activism. Francesco Cavatorta is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Middle East Politics at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. His research interests lie in processes of democratisation in the Arab world, the political role of Islamist movements and civil society activism. He has published his research in a number of journals and has previously authored a book on failed transition in Algeria. Vincent Durac is a Lecturer in Middle East Politics and Politics of Development in the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin. He is interested in political reform, the role of civil society and the impact of external actors on the Middle East He is also a visiting lecturer in Middle East Politics at Bethlehem University in Palestine. Introduction 1. Civil Society in the Arab world 2. Associational Life under Authoritarian Constraints 3. Algeria 4. Morocco 5. Jordan 6. Yemen 7. Lebanon 8. The Dynamics of Civic Activism in the Arab World \"Cavatorta and Durac have produced an interesting study that re-examines the assumed connection between an active civil society and democratization... their argument is worthy of consideration by scholars and students of Middle East and North African politics, Islamist socio-political movements, and comparative politics.\" - Christopher Anzalone, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University; Journal of Islamic Studies, vol 23, no 1, January 2012

The Arab uprisings of 2011 are still unfolding, but we can already discern patterns of their effects on the Middle East region. This article offers a brief chronology of events, highlighting their inter-connections but also their very diverse origins, trajectories and outcomes. It discusses the economic and political grievances at the root of the uprisings and assesses the degree to which widespread popular mobilization can be attributed to pre-existing political, labour and civil society activism, and social media. It argues that the uprisings' success in overthrowing incumbent regimes depended on the latter's responses and relationships with the army and security services. The rebellions' inclusiveness or lack thereof was also a crucial factor. The article discusses the prospects of democracy in the Arab world following the 2011 events and finds that they are very mixed: while Tunisia, at one end, is on track to achieve positive pohtical reform, Syria, Yemen and Libya are experiencing profound internal division and conflict. In Bahrain the uprising was repressed. In Egypt, which epitomizes many regional trends, change will be limited but, for that reason, possibly more long-lasting. Islamist movements did not lead the uprisings but will benefit from them politically even though, in the long run, political participation may lead to their decline. Finally, the article sketches the varied and ongoing geopolitical implications of the uprisings for Turkish, Iranian and Israeli interests and policies. It assesses Barack Obama's response to the 2011 events and suggests that, despite their profound significance for the politics of the region, they may not alter the main contours of US foreign policy in the Middle East in a major way.

The \"Arab Spring\" was a surprising event not just because predicting revolutions is a difficult task, but because current theories of revolution are ill equipped to explain revolutionary waves where interactive causal mechanisms at different levels of analysis and interactions between the units of analysis predominate. To account for such dynamics, a multidimensional social science of revolution is required. Accordingly, a meta-framework for revolutionary theory that combines multiple levels of analysis, multiple units of analysis, and their interactions is offered. A structured example of theory building is then given by detailing how the development of world cultural models and practices challenge existing political structures, affect mobilization processes, and make diffusion more likely. A structured example of study design using qualitative comparative analysis of 16 Middle Eastern and North African countries provides support for the interaction of subnational conditions for mobilization, statecentered causes, and transnational factors, including a country's linkage to world society, as one explanation of the Revolutions of 2011.

The emergence of Arab existentialism as a major category of Arab thought coincided with the worldwide process of decolonization and the rise of the first generation of Third World regimes. Between the end of World War II, when pro-colonial Arab monarchies teetered, and the 1967 Six-Day War, when the revolutionary Arab states that had replaced the monarchies were defeated, a young generation of Arab intellectuals employed variants of existentialism in order to meet the multiple challenges of decolonization: cultural contradictions, uneven development and the consequent social injustice, a struggle for full physical liberation, and the derivative search for an alternative Cold War political space. Here, Di-Capua looks at the emergence of Arab existentialism as a major category of Arab thought.

The Arab uprising that began in 2010 saw the fall of rulers in states that had republican governments, yet the monarchs in their states survived. This is ironic in light of the fact that many monarchs throughout history have been vulnerable to revolutions. What explains this discrepancy? Although the literature has emphasized the impact of petrodollars in preserving the rule of the monarchs, this article stresses ideological and institutional factors. Like the Soviet Union's embrace of Marxism–Leninism, the Arab republics had regimes based on the failed ideology of revolutionary nationalism. Although revolutionary nationalism, which fused the nation and state, declined by the late 1960s, it left an institutional legacy that made it difficult for the republican states to change. On the contrary, in defining themselves in opposition to revolutionary nationalism, the monarchs provided for security and stability in making themselves somewhat immune to transnational revolutionary movements like the Arab uprising. In differentiating the state from the nation, the monarchs, paradoxically, showed more respect for different societal interests within the nation than the republican rulers.

Why has Jordan’s authoritarianism remained so stubborn? What makes the country’s Hashemite monarchy exceptional is that virtually no constituency apart from domestic oppositionists and international human-rights organizations puts consistent pressure on the kingdom to democratize. Western policy makers and Jordanian officials have successfully cultivated the kingdom’s image as a “moderate” Arab state, an oasis of stability and key ally in the world’s most strategic and turbulent region. Foreign aid from the United States and its allies remains the kingdom’s economic lifeline, and thus the best means by which to encourage the regime to actually take popular demands into account in its next reform gambit. With stability on the line, the next five years will prove to be the crucible for the Jordanian crown.

This article considers religious, social, political, and economic dimensions of the Saudi-Wahhabi state imagination. Since the inception, the Saudi state has relied on two main pillars: the monarchy and Wahhabism, which have been in a symbiotic relationship. In time, the state imagination in Saudi Arabia has been determined and reconstructed by factors like Wahhabism, monarchism, rentierism, internal and international political and economic obligations, and modernization efforts imposed by being a “nation state.” Those factors made Saudi Arabia a sui generis state. The legitimacy of the monarchy has been ensured through tribalism and, on a larger scale, religion. Foreign aid, booties, oil revenues, and, on a rather insignificant scale, tax revenues have created a material infrastructure to build citizenship.