Arab Spring

Although there have been other uses, the term Arab Spring is now taken to refer to the sequence of protest movements that started with the successful uprising in Tunisia that began in December 2010. The subsequent protest movements in other Arab countries were mainly motivated by a wish to put an end to what was perceived as government oppression, corruption and incompetence. Many sought to go so by introducing a measure of democratic accountability, but the various national movements had little else in common, apart from confidence inspired by the Tunisian success.

Background: the Arab condition

The countries involved in the Arab Spring include: two mixed oil economies (Algeria and Libya); three oil economies (Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia); six diversified economies (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia); and one primary export economy (Yemen). The oil-producing countries of Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Libya are among the world's more prosperous countries. The others are below, or well below the world average in terms of GDP per head, with Syria ranking 153rd out of a total of 228. According to an estimate based upon data from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia and Yemen, at least 19% of the Arab population lived below the poverty line at the end of the 1990s. Their political structure has, with the exception of Lebanon, been categorised as "authoritarian" by the Economist Intelligence Unit, with Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia ranking among the 15 least democratic countries. Five of them (Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Libya and Yemen) appear among the upper half in the ranking of Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index

The development of the national movements

The violent mass protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt succeeded in ousting existing regimes, but the nature of their replacements has yet to be established. The governments of Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Oman responded to more limited protests with promises of political and constitutional reform. Saudi Arabia's administration sought to avoid confrontation by announcing a major programme of infrastructure investment. Elsewhere, in Bahrain and Yemen - and particularly in Syria - the protest movements met with military opposition, and there is little doubt that opposition to Gadaffi's Libyan government would have been violently crushed had NATO not intervened.