Perturbations in the Arab World During the Arab Spring: A General Analysis

This chapter offers an analysis of the conditions in the MENA countries on the eve of the Arab Spring in the World System perspective, as well as causes (internal and external, general and specific) and certain consequences of the Arab revolutions in certain countries, the MENA region and in the World System. We will discuss Arab revolutions in a wide historical and theoretical context. It is very useful to compare the causes of revolutions in modern and previous epochs, in Arab and others countries; to find similarities and specificity. For example, in Arab revolutions, a very important role was played by new information technologies. The revolutionary sentiments are especially fueled by the diffusion of radical ideas and ideologies in a society, as well as by a rapid urbanization, growing youth share in the demographic composition and rapidly increasing education level of a part of population in combination with poor education of the other part. Thus, the rapid unregulated changes, and increasing structural disproportions may bring a society to a modernization trap which often causes revolutions and other political upheavals. All these phenomena were present in the Arab countries on the eve of the Arab Spring, especially in Egypt and Tunisia.