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" Liberalization, Contention, and Threat: Institutional Determinates of Societal Preferences and the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Morocco "
Matthew Thomas Lacouture
Benstead, Lindsay
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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803323
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| Doc. No
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TL48107
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| Call number
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1654414423; 1582890
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| Main Entry
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Islam, Md Moinul
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| Title & Author
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Liberalization, Contention, and Threat: Institutional Determinates of Societal Preferences and the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Morocco\ Matthew Thomas LacoutureBenstead, Lindsay
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| College
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Portland State University
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| Date
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2014
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| Degree
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M.S.
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| field of study
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Political Science
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2014
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| Page No
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172
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| Note
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Committee members: Clucas, Richard; Gilley, Bruce
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| Note
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Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-52694-3
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| Abstract
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Why do revolutions happen? What role do structures, institutions, and actors play in precipitating (or preventing) them? Finally, <i>What might compel social mobilization against a regime in the face of potentially insurmountable odds?</i> These questions are all fundamentally about state-society (strategic) interactions, and elite and societal preference formation over time. The self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010, served as a focal point upon which over twenty years of corrupt, coercive authoritarian rule were focused into a single, unified challenge to the Ben Ali regime. The regime's brutality was publicized via social media activism and satellite television, precipitating mass mobilization across Tunisia and, eventually, throughout the region and beyond. In light of the rapid and unforeseen nature of these events, scholars writing about the causes of the Arab Spring have focused their critiques on scholarship that they felt overemphasized the role of institutions and elite-level actors over 'under the radar' changes within society. This paper essentially agrees with this point of view, but is not content to simply 'throw out' institutionalism. As Timur Kuran (1991) argued in the wake of the unforeseen collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, one cannot understand revolution without understanding the 'true' preferences of social actors. In this way, the inevitability of revolutionary surprises seems a given so long as analysts continue to look from the top-down. Yet, this paper contends that institutions do still matter. They matter because different institutional arrangements incentivize and constrain regime strategies, which, in turn, inform the strategic calculations and preference orderings within society. These two societal variables are determined—in part—by the degree of regime <i>flexibility,</i> and they affect whether, how, and where social actors choose to vent their dissent.
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| Subject
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Middle Eastern Studies; Political science; Ethnic studies
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| Descriptor
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Social sciences;Arab spring;Comparative politics;Contentious politics;Game theory;Social movements;Tunisia
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| Added Entry
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Benstead, Lindsay
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Political SciencePortland State University
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