Arab Spring, Its Aftermath, and James Davies’ Inverted J-Curve

Abstract

We would like to start our review of After the Arab Uprisings by sympathizing with its authors. In some respect, the book experienced a sort of bad luck almost immediately after it appeared. Indeed, Amazon site asserts that the monograph by Mako and Moghadam was published on the 22 July 2021, whereas just in 3 days, on the 25 July, Tunisia experienced a 'phase transition' in its authoritarian backslide, Kais Saied's coup (if not coupvolution 1 ), after which the Tunisian post-Arab Spring democratization could hardly be regarded as a success story anymore. But Mako and Moghadam had bet on it so much. It is constantly mentioned throughout the book just as a success story, and the book's conclusions rely too much on this qualification.The whole enterprise of the authors must have looked extremely risky from the very beginning. The problem was that they decided to use a very small sample that was especially problematic in view of their intent to apply to it some sort of qualitative comparative analysis using J.S. Mill's 'method of difference' (p. 22). The point is that this method requires a substantial variation of outcomes, whereas out of seven cases analyzed by Mako and Moghadam only one was characterized by an unequivocally positive outcome (Tunisia: 'Democratic transition'), one more outcome was somehow positive rather than unequivocally negative (Morocco: 'Constitutional reforms; stalled democratization'), whereas the rest five outcomes were negative (Syria and Yemen: 'Internationalized civil war'; Libya: 'Failed state'; Bahrain: 'Authoritarian survival'; and Egypt: 'Authoritarian reversal'; p. 219). With such a ratio of positive to negative cases the application of Mill's method of difference was rather problematic from the very beginning, but 25 July 2021 coupvolution in Tunisia put the conclusions produced by the authors by their qualitative comparative analysis of their sample cases (presented at pp. 219-220) into an especially serious doubt. Indeed, now the Tunisian outcome should be rather classified (together with the Egyptian one) as 'Authoritarian reversal'; and with one rather infirm positive outcome versus six negative outcomes any meaningful application of Mill's method of difference becomes rather problematic.