Introduction: The Third Arab Spring
1: Theorizing the Arab Spring
2: Lineages of Repression
3: Breakdowns and Crackdowns
4: Post-Breakdown Trajectories
5: Why Breakdowns Did Not Always Produce Transitions
6: Limits and Legacies of the Arab Spring
Jason Brownlee is an associate professor of Government and Middle
Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he
teaches courses on US foreign politics, Middle Eastern politics,
and authoritarianism. Tarek Masoud is an associate professor of
public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of
Government, where he teaches courses on comparative political
institutions, democratization, and Middle Eastern politics. Andrew
Reynolds is an
Associate Professor of Political Science at UNC Chapel Hill and the
Chair of Global Studies. He received his M.A. from the University
of Cape Town and his Ph.D. from the University of California,
San
Diego. His research and teaching focus on democratization,
constitutional design and electoral politics. He is particularly
interested in the presence and impact of minorities and
marginalized communities.
This is the best book yet on why the Arab Uprisings proved unable
to bring desired changes. Deftly blending theories of regime change
with attention to the details of the uprisings and post-breakdown
efforts to restore order, this authors clearly show why aspirations
for democracy were so often disappointed.
*JacK A. Goldstone, George Mason University and Woodrow Wilson
Center*
The uprisings collectively described as the Arab Spring are the
most dramatic political events, to date, in our young century. If
we hope to understand this critical region, our current political
era, and the prospects for democracy to take root in unfamiliar
soil, we need to make sense of the Arab Spring. Brownlee, Masoud,
and Reynolds are uniquely equipped for this task, bringing
expertise on the history, culture, economy, geopolitics, and
institutions that drove the uprisings and the politics that
followed. The book reveals patterns amid complexity and separates
solid evidence from speculation. We will be debating the Arab
Spring for generations and updating how we understand it. But
Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds provide the foundation. All the
scholarship to come will build on this book.
*John M. Carey, Dartmouth College*
The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform is one of the
most comprehensive accounts of the politics underlying the Arab
Spring. This authoritative and well-researched book is both
theoretically rigorous and empirically rich. The authors have put
together a magnificent account of the Arab Uprisings. Anyone
interested in acquiring a sophisticated understanding of these
events must read this book.
*Amaney Jamal, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics, Princeton
University*
This is quite simply the best analysis of the Arab Spring that I
have read. It draws on a wealth of social science and comparative
history to evaluate the various reasons for the many failures and
few successes in the regionâs recent political development. The
conclusions are thoughtful, highly intelligent, and mostly
depressing. But as a work of scholarship and in its relevance to
real world issues, this is extremely impressive.
*Fareed Zakaria, GPS on CNN*
Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds have written the first definitive
account of The Arab Spring, setting a high standard by which all
future works will be compared. Drawing on their theoretical talents
and extensive regional knowledge, Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds
offer a sophisticated argument for far reaching legacies of
authoritarian rule, as well as a compelling explanation for
different trajectories from authoritarian breakdown in the Arab
world after 2011. Arab Spring will become must reading for all
courses on the Middle East and comparative politics more generally
for years to come.
*Michael McFaul, Professor of Political Science, Stanford
University*
By far the most ambitious and convincing analysis of the recent
Arab uprisings in comparison to failed and successful democratic
transitions in the rest of the world.
*Alfred Stepan, Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, Columbia
University*
This is the most systematic and analytically rigorous book on the
Arab uprisings to date. Even the process of defining the questions
that can and cannot be answered is based on a careful analytical
exercise. The core arguments, which aim to explain why leaders were
or were not ousted and why institutional change did or did not
occur in the region, are convincing and well supported
theoretically and empirically. Through meticulous inductive
analyses, Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds move beyond the less
historically grounded and more âproximateâ accounts that have
proliferated since the uprisings, highlighting the structural
factors that permitted or constrained the behavior of elites and
citizens during and after the uprisings.
*Melani Cammett, Professor, Government Department, Harvard
University*
This is the book with which everyone interested in the Arab
upheavals of 2011 must now grapple. It puts forward parsimonious
and counter-intuitive explanations for the different results we see
across the Arab world from those momentous events, and grounds
those explanations in sophisticated and informed empirical
analysis. It engages with larger theoretical debates but never
loses its focus on the Arab Spring itself. It is a perfect teaching
book, because it makes big arguments in a clear way. It will define
the social science debate on the Arab Spring.
*F. Gregory Gause, III, John H. Lindsey '44 Chair, Professor of
International Affairs, Bush School of Government, Texas A&M
University*
The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform explains why the
optimism that developed in 2010 and 2011 proved to be unjustified.
In its analysis of the delayed democratic transition in most of the
Middle East, it is incisive, parsimonious, compelling,
and---perhaps above allâsobering.
*Donald L. Horowitz, James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political
Science Emeritus Duke University, Author of Ethnic Groups in
Conflict*
The Arab Spring represents an important step forward in the
systematic, theoretical analysis of the political turbulence which
rocked the region beginning in late 2010. Placing the region firmly
in comparative perspective and rigorously assessing the limited
outcomes of the protest wave, The Arab Spring offers a parsimonious
explanation of these events which establishes a new standard for
political scientists.
*Marc Lynch, Director, Institute for Middle East Studies and
Professor of Political Science, The George Washington
University*
this is a must read reference
*Mohammad Dawood Sofi, North African Studies*
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