The colossal demonstrations that hit Algeria from the end of February 2019 echoed the protests that broke out in Sudan two months earlier. In both cases, protesters demanded their respective leaders to step down. In Algeria, thousands flooded the streets rejecting a fifth term for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, while in Sudan, the demand for urgent economic reforms swiftly turned against long-ruling President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The spontaneous character of these simultaneous events inevitably brings the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ to mind. Eight years after 26 year-old fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire triggering a series of popular uprisings that toppled leaders across the Arab world, the region has moved mainly towards anarchy and civil war on the one hand, and towards the resurgence of authoritarianism on the other. These developments monopolized the attention of scholars, shadowing the transitions that took place in countries whose leaders have been ousted. Although it is too soon to assume any regime change, either in Algeria or in Sudan, at the time of writing, the latest protests underscore the importance of rehabilitating the transitions that followed the 2011 uprisings and grasping the dynamics that led to their outcomes. This is where the contribution of Stephane Lacroix and Jean-Pierre Filiu's edited volume Revisiting the Arab Uprisings comes in. Gathering an impressive cast of leading scholars, the editors propose a rich and sophisticated picture of the Arab Spring's aftermath, covering often contested and complex aspects of history in a careful and nuanced way.
Refuting the recurrent deterministic narratives portraying the outcomes of the uprising as their natural consequence, Lacroix and Filiu suggest that these transitions depended on the decisions and actions of a large range of actors (2). This premise opens up rather different perspectives, depicting the broad transformations that occurred in the countries whose leaders have been toppled and where transitions actually occurred – Tunisia and Egypt for the most part, but also Libya and Yemen. Syria, where the regime of Bashar al-Assad retained power over parts of the country during the Civil War, is considered as well (4).
The book is divided into four sections, each focusing on a different key aspect shaping political transitions, and providing us with a compelling insight into the reality of the post-2011 uprisings. Dealing with dynamics of accommodation and polarization that accompanied the institutional process in a first part, the focus then turns to the implications of the militaries during transitions. The third section covers the impact of some of the most influential non-state actors – the media, civil society, and the international community – before exploring the issue of transitional justice in the fourth part of the volume. It seems however that the economical facets of the transitions have not been considered in much detail, omitting an important theme of study in the opinion of this reviewer. Indeed, the discontent fuelled by Egypt's economic meltdown following President Hosni Mubarak's fall or the late riots in the Western Tunisian city of Kasserine, all highlight the importance of confronting the economic heritage of authoritarianism to ensure a sustainable political transition. Looking at the economic dimension of those transitions might have further enhanced this impressive contribution.
The eleven main chapters cover the four major themes in a balanced way, often through comparative perspectives. Alfred Stepan opens the book with an excellent piece in which he explores the accomplishments of Tunisia's on-going democratic transition, contrasting them with the failure of the Egyptian one. Introducing religion – an element that democratisation theory often disregarded – he suggests that the rapprochement between anti-regime moderate secularists and moderate Islamists laid the ground for a sustainable cross-ideological transition in Tunisia (11–12). The inexistence of such a dialogue is precisely what undermined Egypt's transition in his view (16–17). Moreover, Stepan argues that democratisation was also made possible in Tunisia when, in 2013, the respective leaders of the secular and Islamist blocs saved the institutional process from collapse by recommitting to the transition process (20–23). Nathan J. Brown then furthers our understanding of the institutional process in times of transition by looking at the constitutions that have been written in the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Through the prism of ‘new constitutionalism’, which asserts the need for broader participatory process in constitution making, Brown shows how decisions were made that significantly influenced their outcomes (39–43).
The next three chapters cover the second part of the volume, starting with Omar Ashour's admirable chapter. Exploring the role of the military in Egypt, he sheds light on the Generals’ decision-making process when dealing with domestic opposition by introducing organisational and psychological factors. He thus suggests that these decisions depend largely on the nature of the militaries in question (46). Steven A. Cook then puts the Egyptian case in perspective with Turkey and Libya, showing how the legacies of military dominations played an important role in impeding democratic transitions (62). Embracing a broader historical approach, Jean-Pierre Filiu finally draws a comparison between Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Yemen's military regime and the Mamluk Sultanate that governed Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1516. Establishing the former as ‘modern Mamluk’ regimes, he argues that the ‘counter-revolutionary’ patterns inherited from the original Mamluks explain why transitions failed in these countries and succeeded in ‘non-Mamluk’ Tunisia (91).
The third section starts with one of the volume's most interesting chapters. Dissecting the role of the media during transition, Marc Lynch argues that, although they were crucial to the uprisings, they greatly contributed to the failures of the transitions. Indeed, examining major features that characterise Arab media, he describes a ‘media ecosystem’ subject to political capture by states and political movements, which magnified fear and encouraged polarisation (94). As many hoped that the uprisings would favour the emergence of a new Arab public sphere, Lynch provides here an important contribution which redeems the role of the post-uprisings media during transitions. In the next chapter, Tarek Masoud adopts a comparative approach by looking at Tunisia and Egypt's transitions through the prism of modernisation theory. In his view, Tunisia's development allowed the establishment of a broad civil society which ensured a successful transition while Egypt's low development generated a narrow one (115). Finally, Zaid al-Ali analyses the role of international actors – particularly those with ties to the United Nations – during transitions in Libya and in Yemen. In this chapter, he points to a series of organisational blunders which disabled the international community and caused the transitional process to collapse in those countries (162).
Kora Andrieu introduces the fourth and final part of the book. Looking at transitional justice in Tunisia, she shows that the transitional justice process is inherently political and cannot be limited to its judicial character (197). Frédéric Vairel then discusses the transitional justice processes in Morocco and Tunisia. Dissecting these processes, he argues that while the autocratic character of the Moroccan regime allowed the Equity and Reconciliation Commission to work, although obtaining only limited results, the context of democratisation and politicisation surrounding Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission impeded its outcome (216–218). Finally, Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron offers a contrasting picture looking at the Egyptian case, where the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Mubarak led to a sham of transitional justice (233).
Overall, another a weakness of the book is that it covers such a broad subject in a single volume, with many chapters leaving questions open. This book does however present a compelling and rich picture of the dynamics of the post-2011 uprisings, considerably advancing our understanding of the Arab spring's aftermath. At a moment when the protest movement is flaring up in Sudan and the Algerians are marching the streets, despite Bouteflika's resignation, this opus deserves, more than ever, the full attention of scholars and practitioners together.
