Internet Revolution or Just Fitna: Towards the Tenth Anniversary of the Arab Spring

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Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the tenth anniversary of the revolutionary events in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), called the Arab Spring. The relevance of the study of the consequences of political transformations in Arab countries is due to the incompleteness of the modernization processes in such areas as public administration, justice and human rights, which gave rise to the discontent of the active part of society, which had initiated the protests. The idea of the research was to compare the causes of popular uprisings, the methods of political struggle, the main actors and the results of the Arab Spring for most of the countries affected by this process. Particular attention has been paid to the growing popularity of Islamist political forces, which have given their answers and pseudo-answers to acute societal issues. With the help of comparative and typological analysis, the peculiarities of different models of political development in the Middle East and North African countries have been studied. Over the past decade, world science has accumulated a significant layer of research on the Arab Spring phenomenon. The authors have taken into account a wide range of opinions of scholars from Europe, the United States, Turkey, Israel, and the Arab states. Aiming to assess the political transformation of the MENA region over the past 10 years, this study analyzes changes in the position of external actors such as Russia and the USA. The authors conclude that the influence of the US as a whole in the region has decreased, while the influence of Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia has increased. Israel has managed to strengthen its own security by establishing normal relations with a number of Arab states in the region. The popular unrest that erupted again in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Algeria, and Tunisia in 2018-2021 was objectively caused by the same conditions that had given rise to the Arab Spring and with the same uncertain results so far.

About the authors

Aleksey Mikhailovich Vasiliev

Institute for African Studies Russian Academy of Sciences; Peoples Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)

Author for correspondence.
Email: vasilyev-am@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0372-9775

PhD, Dr. of Sc. (History), Аcademician, Professor, Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences; Head, Department of African and Arab Studies, RUDN University

Moscow, Russian Federation

Natalia Aleksandrovna Zherlitsina

Institute for African Studies Russian Academy of Sciences; Peoples Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)

Email: zherlitsyna-na@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8647-9419

PhD in History, Leading Research Fellow, Center for History and Cultural Anthropology, Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences; Associate Professor, Department of African and Arab Studies, RUDN University

Moscow, Russian Federation

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Copyright (c) 2021 Vasiliev A.M., Zherlitsina N.A.

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