Abstract
After the Arab Spring, Islamist movements and parties gained increased support across the region, which, in some cases, translated into increased political power. The Arab Spring was not initially an Islamist movement, yet the Islamists were arguably the greatest beneficiaries of those revolutionary waves of demonstrations and protests that took place between 2010 and 2011. But did the Arab uprisings also pave the way for liberal democracy? Or, in other words, did Arab societies enter into a Tocquevillian democratic age? This is the question that Raphael Israeli asks in From Arab Spring to Islamic Winter. He answers this question in the negative: for Israeli, the Arab Spring was a symptom of power struggles within the Arab world that merely served to replace old authoritarian rulers with new ones.
Initially, the Arab Spring was a movement filled with optimism, and many felt that the Middle East was shifting towards democracy, even suggesting Francis Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ thesis. However, the hopes soon gave way to a winter of lost aspirations, which Israeli names the ‘Islamic Winter’. The author uses his vast knowledge of Arab societies, Ottoman history and the pre-modern absolutist system of governance to garner necessary evidence to support his argument. He divides Islamic societies into five socio-political models due to their ‘family resemblances’: the republican model (Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia); the monarchical model (Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others); the tribal model (Syria, Libya, Afghanistan); the Shi’ite model (Iran, Iraq, Lebanon); and the revolutionary model (Algeria, Sudan, Somalia).
Israeli’s division according to socio-political models accomplishes two goals. First, it explains why many of the Arab countries failed to democratise after the Arab Spring and, second, it provides a thorough historical background to help readers understand the reasons for the failure of the constitutional state. Consequently, the author argues that the political history of Islam hampers the prospects for genuine liberal democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Israeli has been criticised in the past as someone who has a strong sense of Jewish identity and who takes a staunch critical approach to Arab and Muslim societies, yet his empirical data and wealth of historical evidence cannot be disregarded. From Arab Spring to Islamic Winter is intellectually engaging and thought-provoking. However, due to its complexity, the book is recommended for advanced level Middle East politics seminar classes, in which it is practically guaranteed to start a lively debate.