The Arab Spring: A Case Study on Political Economy and Uprising

This case study provides a comprehensive analysis of the Arab Spring, focusing on the political and economic factors that led to the uprisings in the Middle East and North African countries. It explores the pre-Arab Spring period, highlighting the impact of neoliberal reforms, government control, and corruption on the middle class. The study delves into the economic causes, such as global and food crises and unemployment, and social causes, including increased awareness, political freedom demands, and the role of social media. The case study examines the effects of the Arab Spring, including the abolition of autocracy, the achievement of political independence, and the positive impact on other Arab countries, while also considering international reactions and economic consequences. The study concludes with a critical analysis of the necessity of the uprising and the changes it brought about in the concerned countries, providing insights into the complex dynamics of the Arab Spring.

Running head: ARAB SPRING: A NECESSARY UPRISING
Arab Spring: A Necessary Uprising
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2ARAB SPRING: A NECESSARY UPRISISNG
Abstract
This case study pertains to the Arab Spring that occurred in the Middle Eastern countries. It
discussed the reasons that led to the uprising of the civilians against the ruling authority and
its outcomes under the scenario of political economy. It tried to find that how necessary was
the uprising and made a critical analysis.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Pre- Arab Spring Period.............................................................................................................5
Causes of Arab Spring...............................................................................................................6
Economic Causes...................................................................................................................6
Social Causes.........................................................................................................................7
Effects of Arab Spring...............................................................................................................8
Abolition of Autocracy..........................................................................................................8
Political Independence...........................................................................................................9
Positive Impact on Other Arab Countries..............................................................................9
International Reaction..........................................................................................................10
Economic effect...................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
The uprising occurred in the Middle East and North African countries in protest of
social and economic disruptions that caused due to government regimes is commonly known
as the Arab Spring. In this case, the discussion emphasises on the Arab Spring that happened
in the gulf or Middle Eastern countries such as Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and
other significant countries. Discussion on the political economic reasons that gave rise to
such an uprising is critically explained along with the changes that Arab Spring brought in
the countries where the uprising took place. The Arab Spring first started in Tunisia in
December 2010 and ended in January 2011 with overthrowing the government of president
Zane El Abidine Ben Ali (Willis, 2012). Other countries in which government were
overthrown was Egypt and Libya. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak was ousted and
Muammar Gaddafi the leader of Libya was killed. However, in Libya civil war continued
even after the assassination of Gaddafi (Chivvis & Martini, 2014). The outburst of the
common people of these countries was due to the lowered standard of living, joblessness and
unending immigration of refugees causing job market competition worse, educated people
remaining unemployed. The long oppressing Arab regimes disturbed the economic structure
of the countries fuelled the uprisings. Arab Spring has deeply affected the concerned
countries, and changed the political and economic status that stayed for long. On contrary,
there are countries that have not faced any major changes after the end of Arab Spring.
Therefore, the case study also focuses on the countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and
Morocco in regard of minor changes that brought up by the Arab Spring in these countries.
The following paragraphs discuss why it was a necessary uprising and critical analysis of the
changes that Arab Spring has brought is done.

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Pre- Arab Spring Period
Several changes in political economy in the Arab countries, during the two decades
before the Arab Spring are considered the causes that led to the uprisings that happened in the
Middle Eastern countries. The major change in the political economy was the introduction of
the neoliberal reforms. In 1990’s, Washington Consensus was implemented in the concerned
regions and it did change the political economy of the countries under its influence by
changing the fiscal corrections, government spending priorities, liberalization in financial
system, privatization, floating exchange rate, foreign direct investments, liberalization of
trade and property rights (Gause III, 2011). The major changes among this that affected the
political economy more adversely are the reduction in government spending in order to
reduce deficit in budget, privatization of the government owned enterprises to boost the free
market operations and providing enough space for private companies to operate, reduction in
investments by the government, lifting import tariffs and reduction in tariff protection
(Ansani & Daniele, 2012). Other important changes under the reform during liberalization
were reduced subsidy on transport.
The above reforms might had affected many other countries positively but with the
structure of the political economy of the Arab countries could have been the reason that
created adversities the middle class faced in the countries (Yom, 2014). In Arab countries, the
control of politics is significantly high in cases of both social and economic. There are strong
relationships between government and business class and due to this business become
socially and economically dominant (Almezaini, 2013). The government or the rulers
maintain close relation with security, military and the whole bureaucratic system and thus it
creates a dictatorial rule in the disguise of rule of law (Goldstone, 2011). Taking the
advantage of the relationship with the government or the ruler, the business class make

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policies to gain limitless gains at the cost of the society. Rule of law was weakened by these
measures. In the case of Egypt, the privatization was done to improve the free market
operation and remove the control of the government from the market, but in turn; it created a
situation of monopolization in the market (Dawley & Haider, 2008). This furthered the
corruption in the economy along with the cronyism among the powerful and dominating
corporation and the regime. Hence, these reforms brought sufferings to the middle class. The
privatization of the government enterprises led to unemployment of many people fell into
poverty, sufferings worsened when subsidies on education, transport were removed (Shaban,
Assaad & Al-Qudsi, 1995). The privatization of the government enterprises in many
countries was done with target of reducing high tax imposed on these enterprises. However,
the reformation and liberalization was implemented so fast that it acted adversely and put the
enterprises in the verge of bankruptcy. Hence, the high unemployment over 20 percent, low
income, low standard of living has brought the adversities in the social and economic aspects
of the countries and created unrest among the citizens and a prolong period of such
conditions had caused the Arab Spring (El-Khawas, 2012). The causes of Arab Spring can
further be subdivided under economic and social aspects.
Causes of Arab Spring
Economic Causes
The economic causes the crisis that fuelled the cause of Arab Spring are global crisis,
food crisis and unemployment (Mirkin, 2013). The Middle Eastern countries depend on the
source of income that they ear from exporting gas and oil to other countries. Major portion of
these countries Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from oil. As these countries does not
intensifies investments in manufacturing and agricultural production earning comes from
service sector oil export. In some countries, earning from oil exceeds over 60 percent (Hivdt,

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2011). Thus, during the time of global financial crisis export of oil decreased hugely and
price of oil fell and thus GDP fell drastically causing severe economic disruption. This
happened especially in the case of Libya and Algeria. On the other hand, crisis of food also
affected the economies. During this time, the price of food increased heavily and inflation for
some countries reached 25 per cent (Burdekin et al., 2014). This increased unrest among the
citizen and fragments of occurred in countries like Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco.
Lastly, manufacturing decreased in the countries of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia caused
unemployment to increase. Contribution to unemployment rate was mainly from the
unemployment of youth people mainly females. In the Arab countries, the female labour
force is the lowest among the countries in the world. Female participation in labour force in
Arab countries was around 25 percent before Arab Spring. Thus, the reasons contributed in
the Arab Springs.
Social Causes
The Arab countries by implementing policies to improve education increased the
number of educated citizens in the society and large portion of that contains youth people.
Increased education in the society increased the awareness among the people and demand for
fair democracy and desired civil rights. Thus, the overall population of the democracy now
understand the essence of true democracy and are open to take any step-in want of that.
Hence, people are willing enough to get their rights by any means if the government does not
provide so by normal procedures. In addition, want of political freedom and existence of
economic inequalities caused the riots in Arab. The rioters wanted the government to improve
the economic and social status by increasing the resources for education and improving the
social scenario, but the government did not fulfil the demand and thus raised one of the
causes for Arab Spring. The actions of government like structural reforms that compromised
the democratic rights to expression, liberty, vote and declaration of frequent emergencies in

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Tunisia and other countries created a boosting effect for Arab Springs. Along with this, few
influential people that command complete authority over religious leaders and armies. The
social media also played crucial role in this by dissemination of information about the
undemocratic nature of the government of the Arab countries. Apart from Facebook, Al-
Arabia and Al-Jazeera spread the information so widely that Arab Spring became a social
network revolution (Colombo, 2012). The increased use of internet and mobile phones
connected the people of the Arab countries efficiently but the in Libya facing the influence of
the social media Gaddafi the leader of the country disconnected the telecommunication
system to avoid any external influence and this aggravated the intensity of the protest. On the
other hand, religious biasness against the religious minorities and the ethnic played a crucial
part in Arab Springs. The Arab countries are primarily comprised of Sunni and Shia Muslims
and inhabited by some other religious sects in small numbers hence any leaders belong to
such minor sects created a feeling of dislike among the people and women discrimination
also contributed to the cause significantly.
Apart from the above stated causes, the main cause that instigated the Arab Spring
was the death of Mohamed Bouazizi a street hawker in Tunisia (Uzzel, 2012). Bouazizi
committed suicide in protest of seizure of his goods and his humiliation by a woman
municipal officer. This worked as a means for the spread of revolution or Arab Spring in
Tunisia that resulted with ousted of the then President Zane El Abidine Ben Ali in January
2011. The incidence of Bouazizi’s suicide also boosted the Arab Spring in other countries as
well.

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Effects of Arab Spring
Abolition of Autocracy
The middle eastern countries were ruled by autocratic leaders for decades. In many
such countries the rulers use the process of election to undermine their rule beneath the shield
of fake democracy and kept on ruling for several years. Such an example is Tunisia, the
President of the country Zane El Abidine Ben Ali executed elections to hide the rule of
autocracy behind the shield of democracy. Due to Arab Spring, Tunisia got rid of this
autocratic rule in January 2011 and the President was dethroned after a rule of 23 years and
the then Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi took the charge and performed the role of
acting President. Following the ousted of Tunisian President outrage of Arab Spring spread in
Libya and the autocratic ruler Muammar (Shared Schareder & Redissi, 2011) Gaddafi was
killed during the uprising. Gaddafi tried to suppress the uprising by distributing his wealth
among the citizens of the country and also showed dissent against the Arab Spring but could
not resist and got killed. The spread of the Arab Spring did not stop at Libya, it furthered to
Egypt and the then President of the country Hosni Mubarak did not resist knowing the end of
Gaddafi and stepped down from the power on 25th January 2011. Hence, the most important
and noteworthy consequence of Arab Spring is that it helped few Middle Eastern countries to
gain freedom from the rule of autocracy.
Political Independence
During the Arab Springs the countries suffered a lot politically, socially and
economically but after the end of the uprising it did end the barriers that restricted the citizens
from taking part in political discussions and affairs actively. Thus, it is one of the major wins
that the Arab citizens gain from the Arab Spring.

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Positive Impact on Other Arab Countries
The uprising that is Arab Spring or Jasmine Revolution as known in Tunisia, faced
several initial resistances in Libya and Tunisia that resulted in civil war and lead to sever
political and economic unrest in the countries of occurrence (Shraeder, 2012). This kind of
resistance by the rulers or the leaders of the said countries was termed as the reactive
approach that resulted in undesirable conditions. However, in the countries of Saudi Arabia,
Jordan and Morocco the government or leaders took the proactive approach (Yom & Gause
III, 2012). Under this approach the authorities of the country extended helping hand towards
the citizen and kept them away from participating in the Arab Spring. King Abdullah of
Saudi extended financial help of US$36 billion as the relief to the families of the Saudi.
Mohamed VI king of Morocco adopted the similar approach and made several structural and
political reforms that led the country to the democratic system.
International Reaction
The Arab countries are oil rich countries and most of the other countries import oil
from these countries including China, Russia and United States. As oil is an important
resource all these powerful economies took their sides of interest such as China took the side
of Gaddafi and United State helped the Arab Spring and killed Gaddafi and on the other hand
Russia had extended support to leader of Syria Bhasar al-Asad to keep their influences in the
countries such that even during the time of civil wars they can take the advantage of
importing oil form these countries.
Economic effect
Arab Spring was a big uprising that caused political unrest in most of the concerned
countries and civil war broke out in Libya and Syria (Evron, 2013). This had caused huge
amount of emigration and immigration in these countries. Emigration mainly occurred in the
countries where the conditions were worse among the all and immigration occurred in

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countries where political and social condition was comparatively less threatening. For the
existing immigrants in Syria the conditions became very much worse as they had to leave
their job and escape from the country in fear of life threat. Excess emigration from these
countries left the system worker less and thus the economic conditions of the countries
suffered severe changes (Song et al., 2013). Apart from the this the industry that mostly hurt
due to this Arab Spring is the tourism industry (Ali, Arifin & Hasi, 2012). Perceiving the
adverse condition of the country tourists stopped visiting and hence revenue from tourism
industry fell drastically. With advent of such adversities unemployment rate rose manifolds.
For the countries where immigration took place at a very high rate that the lands were flooded
with population of the other countries and the host countries struggled hard to provide shelter
to such large number of immigrants. The concern was not only limited to shelter but raised
the severe issue in food sector also. Large number of immigrants push the property rentals
and price of the food causing overall inflation to go up. For example, the inflation rate in
Egypt after the ousted of the President during the Arab Spring hit the mark as high as 18.9
percent (the Guardian, 2011). The price of bread increased by 37 percent in Egypt during this
time. For emigrants who were faced to forced to leave their country to save their lives had to
pay huge price for moving from one place to other. Emigration hurt the home country where
as immigration hurt the host country. In one way or the other, all the Arab countries suffered
economic, social and political unrest. In host countries conflict occurred between the natives
and the immigrants and in many cases causes religious distress where differences in religious
aspects were severe. Jordan had the largest refugee among all the countries and that affected
the country with difficulties. GDP rate for the countries were record low. It is estimated that
after the Arab Spring suffered loss of GDP by 5.5 percent, 5.1 percent and 6.4 percent during
the years 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively (Matta, Appleton & Bleaney, 2016). Hence, Arab
Spring brought economic adversities with it for the countries it had happened.

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The impact of Arab Spring was quite significant for Tunisia, but for Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Morocco and few other countries it did not became as successful as it was in Egypt,
Libya and Tunisia. The rulers of Jordan and Saudi Arabia handled the Arab Spring tactfully
and did not let it to take any serious shape of uprising. The protests were peaceful in these
countries, financial help was extended to the families of the natives and petition regarding
democratic monarchy signed in these countries (Helfont & Helfont, 2012). Hence, Arab
Spring could not affect these countries significantly except few changes in political and
economic structure and finally the uprising was suppressed in these countries.
The Arab Spring was supported by the United Nations and its security council. It
fought for the establishment of democracy in the Arab countries according to Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (Negri, 2016). It showed interest in providing electoral
assistance to the interested countries such that transparent democracy could be established.
Under United Nations Development Programme the UN extended monetary assistance to
conduct first election after end of the long authoritarian government. International Criminal
court also intervened and asked the Libyan authorities of the country to impose embargo on
cross country movements and flights and to ensure protection of the civilians under
international law of humanitarian, human rights and refugee. The military also took the side
of the Arab Spring participants and helped to dethrone the authoritarian leaders. Libyan
National Transitional Council took active participation in and with the Arab Spring to free the
country of authoritarian rule and establish democracy.
Conclusion
The inference that can be drawn from the above discussion that the Arab Spring had
not just occurred suddenly. The old authoritarian rule in the Middle Eastern countries and
liberalization reforms were the main cause that gradually led the Arabian countries to the
civil uprising that is termed as the Arab Spring in the political world. The authoritarian

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leaders or the government of the Middle East countries built strong relationship with the
business elites and as time passed by the activities of the rulers or the government favoured
the business elites in many ways. The economic reforms made during the period of
liberalization tat in the early nineties were done with the target of achieving free market
operation in the country but contradicting the objective the reforms entails adverse effects to
the economy giving rise to unemployment, fall in income, low standard of living and thus
poor socio-economic status. A prolong period of this adverse occurrence and other
contemporary reasons caused the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring has successfully removed the
authoritarian rule from Libya, Tunisia and Egypt but Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia was
unhampered. Hence, politically it is successful to some extent but failed to have positive
impact on the economy and the effect is discussed above. However, such a change in political
scenario was necessary but the economic cost was massive. Therefore, the it can be
concluded that the Arab Spring was necessary for the Middle Eastern countries but it was evil
as well.

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