The Roots of the Arab Spring and the Domino Effect of Collapsing Arab Regimes; the Determining Role of Short-Run Factors and Political Management

Between 2010 and 2013, during what was called the Arab Spring, the Arab world witnessed a wave of popular uprisings that led to the overthrow of four governments (in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen), serious difficulties for three states (in Bahrain, Jordan and to some extent, Saudi Arabia), and a civil war (in Syria). Other Arab states have seemed to be stable. These different outcomes raise the question of what were the causes of those uprisings, and why were some of them successful, but not others. In order to answer these questions, by employing the systemic model and the historical sociology method the involved factors are explored in six segments, namely, political, economic, social, cultural, military and external. These uprisings show that popular dissent is deep-rooted in the Arab countries, and can come to surface unexpectedly. However, what played the determining role in the collapse of some regimes and survival of the others was the specific composition of short-run factors in each country. Those events show those governments that by their political management attracted the allegiance of a considerable part of their population (even an important minority) and maintained the loyalty of the body of their army survived. When the shock of Bin Ali’s demise subsided, the Arab governments gradually learned from each other how to deal with the crisis caused by the Arab Spring, using various tactics to control their own population and to avoid the formation of an international consensus against them.