No Political Agents, No Diffusion: Evidence from North Africa

Abstract

Following the Tunisian revolution of 2011, Arab countries witnessed different degrees of revolutionary diffusion. While some countries experienced a process of advanced diffusion, others experienced more limited forms of emulation. This paper examines the process of regional diffusion that occurred in North Africa during the first half of 2011 to show that shifts by local political agents explain these differences. Using the rich literature of informational cascades, this paper investigates the cases of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, and Morocco to demonstrate that in all four countries, local political agents actively nourished or hindered the process of revolutionary diffusion that followed the Tunisian revolution. In Egypt, the strong involvement of upper‐middle‐class youth traditionally close to the regime signaled to the general population the presence of a historical opportunity for contestation and helped precipitate the 2011 revolution. The same logic occurred in Libya where defections of important senior members of Gadhafi's regime signaled to the Libyan population that major local actors were also dissatisfied with the leadership of the country. In contrast, major actors in Algeria and Morocco refused to mobilize against their respective governments, thus depriving nascent local demonstrations of both the visibility and the resources necessary for the inception of an informational cascade. Without a shift from local political agents, the process of regional diffusion came to an abrupt end in these two countries.

EU Democracy Promotion and the Arab Spring

“…In the end, only few countries experienced a transition, but the overthrow of even a few longtime rulers demonstrated that regime survival was more fragile than assumed, even in seemingly stable countries such as Tunisia. Protests were obviously 'contagious' (Heydemann and Leenders 2011;Mekouar 2014) and the Arab Spring represented an exceptional moment of popular contestation, challenging the authority and survival of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the overthrow of Presidents Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak did not trigger a domino effect and the majority of rulers remained in power, using a mix of repression, economic, and political concessions to contain protests in their countries.…”

La dimension internationale de la transition démocratique en Tunisie. Défis méthodologiques d’une recherche qualitative

“…Parce qu'ils sont souvent très sollicités par les médias et les chercheurs, mais aussi méfiants à l'égard de certains analystes qui proposent des raccourcis pour expliquer des situations et des enjeux complexes, je ne recevais aucune réponse malgré mes demandes répétées d'entrevue par courriel ou message téléphonique. Bien que la liberté d'expression individuelle soit en croissance et que s'opère une meilleure confiance interpersonnelle à la suite de la révolution, contrairement à ce qui est observé dans la région (Jamal, 2007;Mekouar, 2014), le niveau de confiance envers les étrangers et l'intérêt à interagir avec ces derniers sur des sujets sensibles demeure faible. Un chercheur qui arrive de l'étranger et mène une recherche liée aux relations internationales du pays peut être perçu comme un journaliste ou un « espion » voulant faire un reportage sur le pays et en dresser un tableau négatif.…”

Learning and the diffusion of regime contention in the Arab Spring

“…The interaction between protesters and political authorities, the “dissent–repression nexus”, is of great importance to the processes we have examined here, as well (Davenport and Moore, 2012). Moreover, our analysis could not account for the role of political elites in the diffusion of contention itself (Hale, 2013; Mekouar, 2014). Clearly, these aspects are crucial for understanding why many reform attempts failed.…”