ǂThe ǂArab winter : democratic consolidation, civil war, and radical Islamists

In 2011, the world watched as dictators across the Arab world were toppled from power. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, ordinary Arab citizens mobilized across the region during the Arab Spring to reinvent the autocratic Arab world into one characterized by democracy, dignity, socioeconomic justice, and inviolable human rights. This unique comparative analysis of countries before, during and after the Arab Spring seeks to explain the divergent outcomes, disappointing and even harrowing results of efforts to overcome democratic consolidation challenges, from the tentative democracy in Tunisia to the emergence of the Islamic State, and civil war and authoritarian retrenchment everywhere else. Tracing the period of the Arab Spring from its background in long-term challenges to autocratic regimes, to the mass uprisings, authoritarian breakdown, and the future projections and requirements for a democratizing conclusion, Stephen J. King establishes a broad but focused history which refines the leading theory of democratization in comparative politics, and realigns the narrative of Arab Spring history by bringing its differing results to the fore.no cover page "This book is written from the point of view of the dashed hopes of ordinary Arab citizens who mobilized across the region during the Arab Spring to reinvent the autocratic Arab world into one characterized by democracy, dignity, socioeconomic justice, and inviolable human rights. However, instead of achieving their goals, the Arab revolts, outside of Tunisia, led to civil wars, authoritarian retrenchment, and the Islamic State--a totalitarian, bloodthirsty, and theatrically barbaric 'caliphate' that revels in killing ordinary Muslims who they deem apostates. I explain these disappointing and even harrowing results based on how well transitional elites handled major democratic consolidation challenges. Those include extricating the military from politics, political parties forging a democratic bargain, reaching national consensus on a new socioeconomic pact to legitimize democracy, establishing transitional justice, national reconciliation, human rights, and the rule of law, and forging national unity and modern state attributes--if necessary. Elites who had to nation-build and state-build at the same time as they implemented political democracy--in Libya, Yemen, and Iraq--failed, understandably, to do so and their countries collapsed into civil wars. Political parties in Tunisia reached a democratic bargain. Transitional elites could not extricate Egypt's military from politics"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter Dedication Contents Abbreviations Introduction Tunisia Egypt Libya Yemen Broken States: Iraq, Syria, and ISIS The Arab Winter: Summary and Conclusions Index