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Crete, September 2013 GOSEM SS Prof . Panebianco Stefania University of Catania

Crete, September 2013 GOSEM SS Prof . Panebianco Stefania University of Catania. The Arab Spring and Democratic Change in the Mediterranean. The Arab Spring: between tradition and technology.

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Crete, September 2013 GOSEM SS Prof . Panebianco Stefania University of Catania

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  1. Crete, September 2013 GOSEM SS Prof. Panebianco Stefania University of Catania The Arab Spring and DemocraticChange in the Mediterranean

  2. The Arab Spring: between tradition and technology SidiBouzid (Tunisia) , 17 December 2010  upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Siria, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Mauritania. What is new compared to previous popular mobilization in Arab Countries? • There is no ideological nor religious inspiration; • Large use of media (esp. cable TV) and technology (mobile phones, web, blogs); • Active involvement of middle classes and educated people. Protest tools: twitter, facebook, Al Jazeera, Al Arabja …..

  3. Democracy and the Mediterranean: still an ‘Arab exceptionalism’? The debate of the last decades raised the following questions: Are MENA countries ‘unfit’ to experience democratic change? Is there anything inherently undemocratic about Islam? The literature: • <<the ME had remained untouched by the third wave of democratization>> (Huntington, 1991); • There is an Arab democratic gap (Lewitsky and Way, 2002; Diamond, 2010); • Despite the liberalization processes which had occurred in the early 1990s, an authoritarian turn had established liberalized autocracies (O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986; Brumberg, 2002); … where does the Arab Spring fit in the debate?

  4. The Arab Spring and democracyCompatibility or compliance to a Western model? - Democracy as (Western) values - Democracy as procedures Can we talk about a “Muslim Democracy”? Olivier Roy: Secularism, Islam and the West

  5. Theorigins of a ‘MuslimDemocracy’

  6. A waveof ‘MuslimDemocracy’?Popularrequestsduring the Arab Spring

  7. Public opinion surveys in Arab Mediterranean countries They DO want They do NOT want

  8. DefiningDemocracy Common sense Word’s definition Keyconcept Historicalorigins

  9. Rule of law

  10. Towards a widespreaddemocratizationprocess in the Mediterranean? Coetzee: criticism to the democraticpeacetheory: the structurematters

  11. The minimum requirements for democracy(Dahl 1980) • universal suffrage; • free, competitive, recurrent and correct elections; • more than one political party; • alternative information sources.

  12. Democracy as a process: Liberalization with or without democratization Liberalization: process of partial opening of authoritarian institutions; generally it starts with the granting of individual freedoms and rights (e.g. reduction of censorship, increased autonomy of socio-economic groups, opposition is tolerated). Democratization:process of creation and stabilization of democratic institutions which leads to the end of the authoritarian regime. It includes liberalization and moves further to rant political competition and government’s accountability as a result of free and competitive elections.

  13. TRADITIONAL REGIMES LIBERAL DEMOCRACY AUTHORITARIANISM HYBRID REGIMES Hybrid regimes: between authoritarianism and democracy

  14. Democratic change Authoritarian turn Possible Outcomes of the Arab Spring Persistent instability No political change

  15. Freedom in the World 2012

  16. POLITICAL CHANGE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SINCE SPRING 2011 Source: FreedomHouse, Country Reports 2013-2011 * Partly free from 2004 to 2009

  17. The ‘drivers’ to democracy Local actors (political élites, civil society, Islamist parties) International actorsas ‘facilitators’ or ‘anchors’ (EU, US, IOs, NGOs)

  18. Actors of political change • New/old political élites • Military • Civil society (e.g. political parties  including Islamist parties) • International community: US, EU, regional powers, international organizations, NGOs) Teti: A CDA of PfDSP

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