The Unfinished Arab Spring: Micro-Dynamics of Revolts between Change and Continuity

The aim of this volume is to adopt an original analytical approach in explaining various dynamics at work behind the Arab Spring, through giving voice to local dynamics and legacies rather than concentrating on debates about paradigms. It highlights micro-perspectives of change and resistance—as well of contentious politics—that are often marginalized and left unexplored in favor of macro-analyses. First, the story of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Algeria is told through diverse and novel perspectives, looking at factors that have not yet been sufficiently underlined, but carry explanatory power for what has occurred. Second, rather than focusing on macro-comparative regional trends, the contributors to this book focus on the particularities of each country, highlighting distinctive micro-dynamics of change and continuity. The essays collected here are contributions from renowned writers and researchers from the Middle East and North Africa, along with Western experts, brought together to form a sophisticated dialogic exchange.

 

 Fatima El-Issawi is a Reader in Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Essex and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Africa at The London School of Economics (LSE). She is the principal investigator for the research project “Media and Transitions to Democracy: Journalistic Practices in Communicating Conflicts — the Arab Spring,” funded by the British Academy Sustainable Development Programme, looking at media’s role in communicating political conflicts in post uprisings in North Africa. She has over fifteen years of experience as international correspondent in conflict zones in the MENA region and is the author of Arab National Media and Political Change. 

Francesco Cavatorta is professor of political science and director of the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur l’Afrique et le Moyen Orient (CIRAM) at Laval University in Quebec, Canada. He has published extensively on Islamist parties and movements, and on processes of democratization in the Middle East and North Africa. His work has appeared in Democratization, Mediterranean Politics, Government and Opposition, Middle East Policy, and the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, among others. He is also the author and editor of numerous books.