A holistic and cross-disciplinary approach to understanding why a regional democratic transition did not occur after the Arab Spring protests, this accessible study highlights the salience of regime type, civil society, women's mobilizations, and external intervention across seven countries for undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars.

From the author of the book that uniquely predicted the Egyptian revolution, a new message about the Middle East: everything we're told about the Arab Spring is wrong. When popular revolutions erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, the West assumed that democracy and pluralism would triumph. Greatly praised author and foreign correspondent John R. Bradley draws on his extensive firsthand knowledge of the region's cultures and societies to show how Islamists will fill the power vacuum in the wake of the revolutions. This vivid and timely book gives an original analysis of the new Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain by highlighting the dramatic spread of Saudi-funded Wahhabi ideology, inter-tribal rivalries, and Sunni-Shia divisions. Bradley gives a boots on the ground look at how the revolutions were first ignited and the major players behind them, and shows how the local population participated in and responded to the uprisings. In Tunisia he witnesses secularists under violent attack and in Egypt observes radical Islamists taking control of the streets. He illuminates the ancient sectarian strife shaking Bahrain, fierce civil war pitching tribe against tribe in Libya and Yemen, and ethnic divisions threatening to tear apart Syria and Iran. Taking it one step further, Bradley offers a comprehensive look at how across countries, liberal, progressive voices that first rallied the Arab masses were drowned out by the slogans of the better-organized and more popular radical Islamists. With the in-depth knowledge of a local and the keen perspective of a seasoned reporter, After the Arab Spring offers a piercing analysis of what the empowerment of Islamism bodes for the future of the Middle East and the impact on the West.

Since 2013, the Middle East has experienced a double trend of chaos and civil war, on the one hand, and the return of authoritarianism, on the other. That convergence has eclipsed the political transitions that occurred in the countries whose regimes were toppled in 2011, as if they were merely footnotes to a narrative that naturally led from an "Arab Spring" to an "Arab Winter". This volume aims at rehabilitating those transitions, by considering them as expressions of a "revolutionary moment" whose outcome was never pre-determined, but depended on the choices of a large range of actors. It brings together leading scholars of Arab politics to adopt a comparative approach to a few crucial aspects of those transitions: constitutional debates, the question of transitional justice, the evolution of civil-military relations, and the role of specific actors, both domestic and international.

The Arab Uprisings were unexpected events of rare intensity in Middle Eastern history – mass, popular and largely non-violent revolts which threatened and in some cases toppled apparently stable autocracies. This volume provides in-depth analyses of how people perceived the socio-economic and political transformations in three case studies epitomising different post-Uprising trajectories – Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt – and drawing on survey data to explore ordinary citizens’ perceptions of politics, security, the economy, gender, corruption, and trust. The findings suggest the causes of protest in 2010-2011 were not just political marginalisation and regime repression, but also denial of socio-economic rights and regimes failure to provide social justice. Data also shows these issues remain unresolved, and that populations have little confidence governments will deliver, leaving post-Uprisings regimes neither strong nor stable, but fierce and brittle. This analysis has direct implications both for policy and for scholarship on transformations, democratization, authoritarian resilience and ‘hybrid regimes’.

Explores all aspects of the revolutionary protests that have rocked the Middle East since December 2010, looking at such topics as the role of youth, labor and religious groups and discussing the implications of the uprisings. Simultaneous.

The Arab uprisings of 2011 created unexpected opportunities for religious radicals. Although many inside and outside the region initially saw the uprisings as liberal triumphs, illiberal forces have benefitted disproportionately. In Tunisia, formally marginalized jihadi-salafi groups appealed for mainstream support, and in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood triumphed in elections. Even in Saudi Arabia, not known for either lively politics or for political entrepreneurship, a surprising array of forces praised the rise of 'Islamic democracy' under a Muslim Brotherhood banner. Yet, at the same time, the Arab Spring reinforced regional governments' advantages. The chaos engulfing parts of the region has convinced some citizens that they were better off with the governments they had, and many governments successfully employed old and new tools of repression to reinforce the status quo. In the Middle East, conflicts that many thought were coming to an end will continue, as will the dynamism and innovation that have emerged among radical and opposition groups. To face the current threats, governments will need to use many of their existing tools skillfully, but they will also need to judge what tools will no longer work, and what new tools they have at their disposal. The stakes could not be higher.

Cover -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Rethinking Mobilization after the Arab Uprisings -- James M. Jasper and Frédéric Volpi -- 1. The Social Life of Contentious Ideas -- Piracy and Unruly, Translocal Appropriation in the Arab Uprisings and Beyond -- John Chalcraft -- 2. Routines and Ruptures in Anti-Israeli Protests in Jordan -- Jillian Schwedler -- 3. Shaping Contention as a Salafi Movement -- The Rise and Fall of Ansar al-Sharia in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia -- Frédéric Volpi -- 4. Contingency and Agency in a Turning Point Event -- March 18, 2011, in Daraa, Syria -- Wendy Pearlman -- 5 .It Takes Two (or More) to Tango -- The Local Coproduction of the Alexandrian Revolutionary Moment -- Youssef El Chazli -- 6. Violence, Social Actors, and Subjectivation in the Egyptian Revolution -- Farhad Khosrokhavar -- Conclusion -- Unruly Protest -- Charles Kurzman -- Index