The People Want

'The people want ...’: the first part of the slogan chanted by millions of Arab protestors since 2011 revealed a longrepressed craving for democracy. But huge social and economic problems were also laid bare by the protesters’ demands. Although Islamist parties did not initiate the protest movement, they have benefitted the most from the power vacuum that followed the ousting of the rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Gilbert Achcar sheds light on the social, economic, historical and political background to the on-going Arab Uprising and assesses its future prospects. With incisive and invaluable insight, Achcar investigates why the liberals and the Left failed to capitalise on the initial momentum and assesses whether the Islamist parties will be able to steer their countries out of their present crisis.

Auteur
Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. His other works include Perilous Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy, co-authored with Noam Chomsky, and the critically-acclaimed The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives.

Résumé
'The people want' - thus began the slogans chanted by millions of protesters in 2011 in what was dubbed the 'Arab Spring'. ?While the protests revealed a long-suppressed craving for democracy, they also laid bare a deep structural crisis. In this landmark work, Middle East analyst Gilbert Achcar examines the socio-economic roots and political dynamics of the regional upheaval. He assesses the peculiarities of the region's states and regimes, and sheds light on the movements that use Islam as a political banner. Achcar argues that the Arab Spring was but the beginning of a long-term revolutionary process - a perspective confirmed by a second wave of uprisings in 2019 - and outlines the requirements for a solution to the crisis. This new edition features a preface drawing a balance sheet of the upheaval's first decade.

Contenu

List of Figures 7 List of Tables 8 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction: Uprisings and Revolutions 13 1. Fettered development 19 The Facts 23 Poverty, Inequality, Precarity 29 Informal Sector and Unemployment: The Bouazizi Syndrome 36 Youth Underemployment 40 Female Underemployment 43 Graduate Unemployment 47 Fetters on Development 51 2. The peculiar modalities of capitalism in the arab region 53 The Problem of Investment 55 Public and Private Investment 57 A Specific Variant of the Capitalist Mode of Production 67 1. Rentier and Patrimonial States 72 2. A Politically Determined Capitalism: Nepotism and Risk 80 The Genesis of the Specific Regional Variant of Capitalism: An Overview 88 3. Regional political factors 97 The Oil Curse 98 From "Arab Despotic Exception" to "Democracy Promotion" 108 The Muslim Brothers, Washington and the Saudis 118 The Muslim Brothers, Washington and Qatar 126 Al Jazeera and the Upheaval in the Arab Mediascape 135 4. Actors and parameters of the revolution 142 Overdetermination and Subjective Conditions 142 The Workers' Movement and Social Struggles 152 New Actors and New Information and Communication Technologies 159 States and Revolutions 168 5. A provisional balance sheet of the arab uprising 177 Coups d'Etat and Revolutions 177 Provisional Balance Sheet No. 1: Tunisia 178 Provisional Balance Sheet No. 2: Egypt 181 Provisional Balance Sheet No. 3: Yemen 189 Provisional Balance Sheet No. 4: Bahrain 195 Provisional Balance Sheet No. 5: Libya 199 Provisional Balance Sheet No. 6: Syria 209 6. Co-opting the uprising 228 Washington and the Muslim Brothers, Take Two 228 Nato, Libya, and Syria 237 The "Islamic Tsunami" and the Difference between Khomeini and Morsi 250 Conclusion: The future of the Arab uprising 263 The Difference between Erdogan and Ghannouchi ... 263 - And the Difference between Erdogan and Morsi 271 Conditions for a Genuine Solution 284 Endnotes 295 References and Sources 325 Index 347