English
By Dr. Spyros Plakoudas, Analyst KEDISA
Arab Spring: The Third Wave of Democratization
In December 2010, the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia triggered the Arab Spring – this series of (peaceful) popular uprisings from Egypt in the Fertile Crescent to Tunisia in the Maghreb. This process was symbolically termed the “Arab Spring” in analogy to the “Springtime of the Peoples” in 1848 – the chain political revolutions which shook the foundations of the monarchies in Europe and paved the way for the democratization of the Old Continent.[1]
[1] Marc Lynch: The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East, (New York: Public Affairs, 2012).