Description
Book SynopsisThe first book-length assessment of events whose ramifications are still unfolding, Roots of the Arab Spring is a coherent and incisive account of the factors that gave rise to the Arab Spring.
Trade Review""Should Western governments have seen the Arab Spring coming? Rand, who is currently serving on the U.S. National Security Council, carried out the research for this revealing book in Bahrain, Morocco, and Tunisia well before the region was rocked by popular revolts in 2011. She believes the West should have sensed that something was coming, since systemic changes had already been roiling Arab societies for some time. . . . She focuses on the economic liberalization campaigns that Arab governments launched in the 1990. But the regimes soon began to reverse those reforms. . . . For many dissidents, that meant the only hope for change was the fall of the regimes." *
Foreign Affairs *
"Clever and coherent,
Roots of the Arab Spring will help define scholarly debate on the Arab Spring." * Gregory Gause, University of Vermont *
"One of the first books to try to understand the factors that contributed to the Arab uprisings in a systematic manner,
Roots of the Arab Spring will serve as a foundation for future works that try to tackle this complex topic." * Lawrence Rubin, Georgia Institute of Technology *
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction. Authority in Flux: Three Drivers of Change in the Middle East and North Africa
Chapter 1. The Demand for Free Expression and the Contested Public Sphere
Chapter 2. Dedemocratizing through the Rule of Law
Chapter 3. New Sons and Stalled Reforms
Chapter 4. The Drivers of Change and the U.S. Response
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
