Arab Spring

Negotiating in the Shadow of the Intifadat

Edited by I. William Zartman

Title Details

Pages: 496

Trim size: 6.000in x 9.000in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 08/15/2015

ISBN: 9-780-8203-4825-4

List Price: $36.95

Hardcover

Pub Date: 08/15/2015

ISBN: 9-780-8203-4824-7

List Price: $120.95

eBook

Pub Date: 08/15/2015

ISBN: 9-780-8203-4826-1

List Price: $36.95

Arab Spring

Negotiating in the Shadow of the Intifadat

Edited by I. William Zartman

Analyzing the Arab Spring uprisings in terms of their numerous and ongoing negotiated processes

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  • Description
  • Reviews
  • Contributors

Beginning in January 2011, the Arab world exploded in a vibrant demand for dignity, liberty, and achievable purpose in life, rising up against an image and tradition of arrogant, corrupt, unresponsive authoritarian rule. These previously unpublished, country-specific case studies of the uprisings and their still unfolding political aftermaths identify patterns and courses of negotiation and explain why and how they occur.

The contributors argue that in uprisings like the Arab Spring negotiation is “not just a ‘nice’ practice or a diplomatic exercise.” Rather, it is a “dynamically multilevel” process involving individuals, groups, and states with continually shifting priorities—and with the prospect of violence always near. From that perspective, the essayists analyze a range of issues and events—including civil disobedience and strikes, mass demonstrations and nonviolent protest, and peaceful negotiation and armed rebellion—and contextualize their findings within previous struggles, both within and outside the Middle East. The Arab countries discussed include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. The Arab Spring uprisings are discussed in the context of rebellions in countries like South Africa and Serbia, while the Libyan uprising is also viewed in terms of the negotiations it provoked within NATO.

Collectively, the essays analyze the challenges of uprisers and emerging governments in building a new state on the ruins of a liberated state; the negotiations that lead either to sustainable democracy or sectarian violence; and coalition building between former political and military adversaries.

Contributors: Samir Aita (Monde Diplomatique), Alice Alunni (Durham University), Marc Anstey* (Nelson Mandela University), Abdelwahab ben Hafaiedh (MERC), Maarten Danckaert (European-Bahraini Organization for Human Rights), Heba Ezzat (Cairo University), Amy Hamblin (SAIS), Abdullah Hamidaddin (King’s College), Fen Hampson* (Carleton University), Roel Meijer (Clingendael), Karim Mezran (Atlantic Council), Bessma Momani (Waterloo University), Samiraital Pres (Cercle des Economistes Arabes), Aly el Raggal (Cairo University), Hugh Roberts (ICG/Tufts University), Johannes Theiss (Collège d’Europe), Siniša Vukovic (Leiden University), I. William Zartman* (SAIS-JHU). [* Indicates group members of the Processes of International, Negotiation (PIN) Program at Clingendael, Netherland]

Zartman’s collection is the work of a grand master at his best. I doubt that anyone else has the intellectual preparation and scope to undertake such a book as this one.

—Allen Keiswetter, Middle East Institute Scholar and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State

A great source for a historical reading of the Arab Spring

—Jamil Mouawad, HNet

Arab Spring deals capably with these years of democratic transition, serving, above all, to demonstrate the value of negotiation theory in understanding political transition.

—Matthew Welch, Quebec Journal of International Law

Abdelwahab ben Hafaiedh

Heba Ezzat

Aly el Raggal

Abdullah Hamidaddin

Hugh Roberts

Amy Hamblin

Roel Meijer

Maarten Danckaert

Alice Alunni

Karim Mezran

Samir Aita

Johannes Theiss

Sinisa Vukovic

Mark Anstey

Fen Hampson

Bessma Momani

I. William Zartman

About the Author/Editor

I. WILLIAM ZARTMAN is Jacob Blaustein Professor Emeritus of International Organizations and Conflict Resolution at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and former president of the Middle East Studies Associations and of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. Zartman has written, edited, or coedited some twenty books, including Understanding Life in the Borderlands: Boundaries in Depth and in Motion (Georgia).