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Protests and Mass Movements
We seek to understand the short- and long-term developments in protest methods, social movements, civil society, and competing ideas and narratives in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings of 2011-2015 as well as the recent wave of protests from 2019-2020.
Political Parties in the Arab Region
The Protest and Mass Movements Initiative presents a new series of Viewpoints on political parties in the Arab region, which is as MEP fellow Marina Ottaway notes "the forgotten link" in discussions on the 10th anniversary of the Arab Uprisings. This series aims to map out the political parties scene across the Arab region and to highlight how these political parties have evolved, devolved, or folded since the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia set off a wave protests and revolutions often referred to as the "Arab Spring."
Read the SeriesFeatured Publications
A Tale of Four Worlds: The Arab Region After the Uprisings
First came the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire following World War I; then, in the 1950s and '60s, the Nasser-inspired wave of Arab nationalism and socialism. The Arab world's third great political cataclysm of the past 100 years has also brought permanent changes, but not as its activists had hoped: the 2011 uprisings.
Coups and Revolutions: Mass Mobilization, the Egyptian Military, and the United States from Mubarak to Sisi
In 2011, Egypt witnessed more protests than any other country in the world. Counter to the received narrative, Amy Austin Holmes argues that the ousting of Mubarak in 2011 did not represent the culmination of a revolution or the beginning of a transition period, but rather the beginning of a revolutionary process that would unfold in three waves, followed by two waves of counterrevolution.
Break all the Borders: Separatism and the Reshaping of the Middle East
Since 2011, civil wars and state failure have wracked the Arab world, underlying the misalignment between national identity and political borders. In Break all the Borders, Ariel I. Ahram examines the separatist movements that aimed to remake those borders and create new independent states.
