The Arab Spring: past, present, and future

Abstract

Major parts of this book project were completed in 2021 as part of a long-term project spearheaded by the TRT World Research Centre. This also means that many chapters were completed during the second year of the pandemic, which was an unprecedented experience for many people around the world, which includes our contributing authors. First and foremost, we thank the eleven contributing authors who responded positively to our invitation and submitted their chapters under time pressure in such unpredictable times. We also thank them for responding positively and promptly to all feedback throughout the production process. In addition to being a contributing author, Michael Arnold carefully proofread and commented on all the chapters. We would like to thank also the senior management of the Education and Research Department of TRT (current and former) for allowing us to conduct this project commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring. The Middle East in general, and the specific countries and the processes that are discussed throughout this book, underwent major changes during the writing and production of this book, which undoubtedly posed formidable challenges for our analyses. This is the well-known risk of examining ongoing processes, but a risk that we have taken nonetheless, and one that makes many of our conclusions necessarily provisional. Our only major regret is that, despite having invited more women than men to participate in this collaborative endeavour, our contributing authors include only one woman. Looking at the past, present, and equally importantly, the future of the Arab Spring, this edited volume provides reasons for cautious optimism despite broken promises, betrayals, mass suffering, and international apathy that the chapters of this book record and explain from different angles. The catastrophic destruction of the Second World War gave birth to the most impressive scheme of regional integration in Europe, which finds its institutional embodiment in the European Union. We hope that the current doom and gloom in the aftermath of the first Arab Spring will motivate and enable similar, if not even more robust forms of peaceful cooperation, prosperity, and reconstruction in the region.