Military Responses to the Arab Uprisings and the Future of Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East PDF Download

Author: W. Taylor
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137410051
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book explains Arab military responses to the social uprisings which began in 2011. Through a comparative case study analysis of Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan, and Syrian militaries, it explains why militaries fractured, supported the regime in power, or removed their presidents.

Author: Derek Lutterbeck
Publisher: Ubiquity Press
ISBN: 1911529293
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
Since late 2010, an unprecedented wave of protests has swept across much of the Arab world. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of the armed forces when confronted with anti-regime uprisings that demand greater political freedoms or even regime change. Drawing on the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria, it argues that the degree of institutionalization of the armed forces and their relationship to society at large can account for different responses to pro-reform uprisings.

Author: Holger Albrecht
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 081229324X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Following the popular uprisings that swept across the Arab world beginning in 2010, armed forces remained pivotal actors in politics throughout the region. As demonstrators started to challenge entrenched autocratic rulers in Tunis, Cairo, Sana'a, and Manama, the militaries stormed back into the limelight and largely determined whether any given ruler survived the protests. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, senior officers pulled away from their presidents, while in Algeria, Bahrain, and Syria, they did not. More important, military officers took command in shaping the new order and conflict trajectories throughout that region. Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring explores the central problems surrounding the role of armed forces in the contemporary Arab world. How and why do military apparatuses actively intervene in politics? What explains the fact that in some countries, military officers and rank-and-file take steps to defend an incumbent, while in others they defect and refrain from suppressing popular protest? What are the institutional legacies of the military's engagement during, and in the immediate aftermath of, mass uprisings? Focusing on these questions, editors Holger Albrecht, Aurel Croissant, and Fred H. Lawson have organized Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring into three sections. The first employs case studies to make comparisons within and between regions; the second examines military engagements in the Arab uprisings in Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria; and the third looks at political developments following the cresting of the protest wave in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and the Gulf. The collection promotes better understanding not only of the particular history of military engagement in the Arab Spring but also of significant aspects of the transformation of political-military relations in other regions of the contemporary world. Contributors: Holger Albrecht, Risa A. Brooks, Cherine Chams El-Dine, Virginie Collombier, Aurel Croissant, Philippe Droz-Vincent, Kevin Koehler, Fred H. Lawson, Shana Marshall, Dorothy Ohl, David Pion-Berlin, Tobias Selge, Robert Springborg.

Author: Mohaned Talib Al-Hamdi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In late 2010 and early 2011, some Arab countries witnessed mass protests that led to different outcomes. These protests are considered a turning point in the contemporary history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The protests were a natural outcome of the social, political, and economic conditions that the Arab population had been enduring under the totalitarian regimes who could not understand and deal with the changing circumstances in their countries. The goals of the protests were to improve the living conditions of the population and empower the youth, women, and the marginalized. The term coined to describe these protests was the "Arab Spring" revolutions. Often in history, when protesters have threatened a regime, political leaders have tried to suppress them by using force. Before the Arab Spring, most literature on civil-military relations in the MENA region assumed that the Arab armies represented homogeneous entities whose interests aligned with the interests of the leaders of the states. Some scholars went further to attribute the stability of authoritarian regimes for long periods in the Middle East to the support of these security services. This study is a systematic examination of the civil-military relations in the Arab World during the time of change. It argues that historical evolution of civil-military relations during state-formation periods and the formation of armed forces along ethnic, religious, and tribal lines in the Arab majority countries are significantly related to the outcomes of uprisings. My hypothesis is that Arab militaries' actions during the uprisings and the resulting outcomes, whether civil war, democratization, or authoritarianism were products of decades of different and dissimilar ways that the civil-military relations and the states developed in those countries. Social and ethnic configuration of the armed forces also played an important role in shaping the protest outcomes. The objective of this study is to explain the different responses and reactions of the armed forces to the popular uprisings in those Arab countries. I explain why the behavior of each country's military differed during the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, and Syria using comparative case study method. I use these cases to both develop a theory about different outcomes of the uprisings and test the implications of this theory. For robustness check, I apply my theoretical framework to the new wave of the uprisings unfolding in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, and Iraq. By and large, the evidence supports my explanation about the roles of historical development of civil-military relations and social composition of armed forces in shaping the outcomes of mass protests.

Author: Hicham Bou Nassif
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108896782
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The 2011 Arab Spring is the story of what happens when autocrats prepare their militaries to thwart coups but unexpectedly face massive popular uprisings instead. When demonstrators took to the streets in 2011, some militaries remained loyal to the autocratic regimes, some defected, whilst others splintered. The widespread consequences of this military agency ranged from facilitating transition to democracy, to reconfiguring authoritarianism, or triggering civil war. This study aims to explain the military politics of 2011. Building on interviews with Arab officers, extensive fieldwork and archival research, as well as hundreds of memoirs published by Arab officers, Hicham Bou Nassif shows how divergent combinations of coup-proofing tactics accounted for different patterns of military behaviour in 2011, both in Egypt and Syria, and across Tunisia, and Libya.

Author: W. Taylor
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137410051
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
This book explains Arab military responses to the social uprisings which began in 2011. Through a comparative case study analysis of Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan, and Syrian militaries, it explains why militaries fractured, supported the regime in power, or removed their presidents.

Author: Gülçin Balamir Coşkun
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443877719
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
This book investigates an important phenomenon in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region, namely the role that the military plays in the governments of several states of the region. Can military forces be defined as guardians of a regime in a democratic state? How is it possible to limit the power of armies to solely military prerogatives and competences? How can the intervention of military forces in the political arena in democratising countries be prevented? It is easy to ask these questions, but finding answers is more difficult. Using historical events and theories as examples to follow is an even more complicated task. What happened after the Arab Spring has demonstrated again how civil-military relations constitute an important pillar of the democratisation process. The contributors to this book develop and analyse the reasons why militaries in the Middle East and the Mediterranean wished to obtain a guardianship role and the methods they used to achieve and maintain it. The book also investigates how these militaries reacted to democratisation in their respective countries, and begins with a conceptual framework followed by examples from Spain, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon and Iran. This work provides a multi-faceted understanding of the historical, political, social and economic layers of complicated civil-military relations in one of the world’s most unstable regions.

Author: Ali Sarihan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100086085X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Focused on the 2010-2011 Arab Uprisings, this book examines the role of the military in Tunisia and Libya, arguing that both armies contributed decisively to the outcome and form of the respective uprisings. The book begins by contextualizing the uprisings, with both countries plagued by anti-democratic politics and unequal social and economic structures in the 2000s. Alongside this, the book explores the key actors and factors leading up to, during, and after the uprisings. Employing a comparative case study methodology and drawing from approaches in rational choice theory and institutionalism, the author argues that the tripartite configuration of energy capacity, military structure, and strength of protest led to dichotomous outcomes in the countries. Tunisia, where the military defected, was marked by a lack of energy wealth, apolitical military structure, and high level of protest, enabling a nonviolent transfer of power. In contrast, in Libya, where parts of the military remained loyal to Gaddafi’s regime, protests evolved into violent civil conflict. Making use of expert and elite interviews obtained from fieldwork in Tunisia, as well as data from the research field, the book will appeal to specialists and students interested in international politics, military and security studies, and the MENA region.

Author: Risa Brooks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136059881
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
Arab leaderships have been remarkably stable since the 1970s, particularly given the frequency of military coups in preceding years. Nonetheless, the military remains a key force in most Arab states and political leaders must maintain its loyalty if they are to retain office. Regimes have used a range of methods to ensure the military’s backing: In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak has maintained political control largely through providing the military with private and corporate benefits; selective appointments and institutional checks, are also useful instruments. Tribal relations underpin King Hussein’s political control in Jordan. Transjordanians have not only been the main beneficiaries of political power, but have also occupied the key positions in the armed forces. In Syria, President Hafez al-Assad has built his regime on the Alawi minority, while the vast security apparatus limits the spread of sectarian, class or ideological grievances in the military. President Saddam Hussein has established multiple security agencies in Iraq designed to prevent conspiracies against his regime. Regular rotations and purges ensure that few officers are in place long enough to contemplate, let alone organise, a coup, while the severe punishments meted out to suspected plotters are a further disincentive to rebellion. In this paper, Risa Brooks argues that the need for Arab regimes to maintain political control can undermine the combat potential of their armed forces. Centralising command, creating overlapping commands, politicising selection criteria and authorising involvement in economic activities all potentially compromise military effectiveness. The fact that regimes have successfully managed political–military relations in the past does not mean that they will automatically do so in the future. Changing social or economic conditions could upset the equilibrium in political–military relations. Regime stability cannot therefore be taken for granted Transition to new leadership is a looming issue for the key regimes in Egypt, Syria and Jordan; political–military relations will play a crucial role in how it is resolved. New leaders must gain and maintain social support if they are to consolidate power. The fact that so many Middle Eastern regimes face uncertain transitions raises the sobering prospect of profound instability and change in this strategically vital region. Maintaining political control is a continuous and evolving process. A breakdown in social support for the leadership, failure to detect a conspiracy within the military and economic or political change that threatens military prerogatives could all disrupt political–military relations. Current stability should not give rise to complacency.

Author: Sean Burns (Professor)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781350987821
Category : Arab Spring, 2010-
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"Through detailed exploration of events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen, Sean Burns here breaks down the concept of professionalism within the armed forces into its component parts and demonstrates how variation in military structures determines their behaviour. In so doing, and by emphasising historical context and drawing on a wide range of political science theory, Burns sheds fresh light onto the ways in which military structure affects the potential for democratic transition or the course of civil war. With this book he presented a wide-ranging study of the Middle East which provides key tools to understanding the opportunities for democratisation, both during the Arab Spring and beyond, and which is therefore essential reading for anyone working on the Middle East, popular uprisings and the politics of repression."--Bloomsbury Publishing.