Was the Revolution Tweeted? Social Media and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia

Tunisia's Internet freedom prior to the “Jasmine Revolution” that overthrew longtime authoritarian leader Zine el‐Abidine Ben Ali has been described as roughly on par with that of China. Despite that, Tunisia's revolution has been described as one of the first “Twitter” or Internet revolutions, in which Internet technologies are said to have played a significant role This article illuminates how Internet technologies were (and weren't) used in challenging the Ben Ali regime. Based on interviews with Tunisian activists in early 2013, the research sheds light on Internet activities bridging street activism and Internet dissent. Whether through Internet or traditional face‐to‐face means, building the capacity to mobilize street protests long before mass mobilization was crucial to Tunisia's successful revolution.     

The Post Arab Spring Reform: The Maghreb at a Cross Roads

The Arab Spring, which was launched in Tunisia, took the Arab Middle East by storm. Its results, to varying degrees, have been felt in every country in the region. In the Maghreb, three scenarios have been unfolding. Tunisia has seen the greatest changes with the country maneuvering its transition to democracy. Algeria — whose aims have not necessarily been a genuine transition to democracy, but to keep the status quo — has continued its process of reforms that started almost three decades ago. In Morocco, the leadership has used the Arab Spring to initiate a series of incremental reforms to further open up the political space, in a more controlled fashion.     

The Arab Spring: A Fourth Wave of Democratization?

Between 1974 and 1990, over 30 countries in southern Europe, Latin America, some parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa made transitions to democracy, nearly doubling the number of democratic governments in the world. Samuel Huntington described this global shift as “Democracy's Third Wave” in an article published in 1991, which was later developed in a book titled The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. In these two works, he discusses the causes, features, and transition processes of the third wave of democracy and examines its prospects for sustainability and possible expansion in a nondemocratic world. He argues that the first and second democratic waves “were followed not merely by some backsliding but major reverse waves during which most regime changes throughout the world were from democracy to authoritarianism” (Huntington, 1991a). He also addresses the causative factors of this reverse wave in some countries, and he claims that the third wave of democratization that swept the world in the 1970s and 1980s might become a dominant feature of Middle Eastern and North African politics in the 1990s. The delay in this prophecy for two decades motivates us to question whether the Arab Spring is part of Huntington's third wave of democratization or a new fourth wave of democratization, or even a false start to democracy, as described by Larry Diamond ( 2011 ). The purpose of this article is to examine the causes, features, and transition processes of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen in correlation with Huntington's theorization on the third wave of democratization which, along with other available literature in the field, will be combined in a theoretical framework that will enable us to discuss the abovementioned elements of the Arab Spring through the lens of the third wave of democratization. Special attention is paid to the question of whether the Arab Spring falls into the framework of Huntington's theory, or whether it can be classified as a new fourth wave of democratization in countries that have unfavorable environments for democracy. The first part of this article highlights the causative factors that eased the emergence of the third wave of democratization in different parts of the world. The second part provides a historical overview of the major events of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, while the third and fourth parts analyze the causes, features, and transition processes of the Arab Spring from Huntington's third wave perspective.     

Reconsidering Elitist Duality: Persistent Tension in the Turkish–Egyptian Relations

Since the Muslim Brotherhood's ouster in July 3, 2013, tension has escalated between Turkey and Egypt and gained media attention as an unprecedented incident in bilateral relations. However, disagreement has characterized bilateral relations since the declaration of the Egyptian Republic and the launch of diplomatic relations with Turkey in the 1950s. By tracking the history of both countries’ bilateral relations, this study contends that, according to the elitist duality thesis, Turkish – Egyptian relations were an exception to the Turkish – Arab relations, as they were not influenced by the ruling elite. It argues that regardless of the ruling elite identity, tension has disrupted the normal course of relations. By relying on extensive interviews conducted with members of the Justice and Development Party, and academicians and staff members in the Turkish ministries of economy and foreign affairs, the study analyzes the unaddressed tension in the Turkish – Egyptian relations since the 1950s until 2013 and provides policy recommendations to improve bilateral relations.     

Women’s education,time use and marriage in Iran

In many parts of the world, higher education has increased female chances of paid work and reduced the economic benefits of marriage. In Iran, however, female labour force participation has remained in low rates despite considerable improvements in female education. In the absence of direct economic benefits of education for women, this paper uses data from the 2009 Time Use Survey, representing urban areas of Iran, to explore another pathway of the impact of education on transition to marriage. It is postulated that female education can lead to later marriage by changing women’s role priorities, at least in two ways. While enrolment in education is time-consuming and incompatible with requirements of marital life, higher education can increase the chances and desire for engagement in alternatives to the roles related to marriage. The findings provide partial support for both explanations. These findings not only deepen our understanding about differentials in the time use and the potential pathway of the impact of female education on marriage, but also provide important information for policy makers who are concerned with marital and fertility behaviours of the large cohort of young educated women in Iran.     

Reviews

Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century , Richard C. Foltz, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. 186 pp., ISBN 0–312–21408–1.

Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco‐Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ^cAbbasid Society (2nd‐4th/8th‐10th centuries) , by Dimitri Gutas, London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

A Short History of the Isma^cilis. Traditions of a Muslim community , Farhad Daftary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998, viii + 248 pp. (Islamic Surveys).

Napoleon and Persia: Franco‐Persian Relations under the First Empire , Iradj Amini, Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 1999, 228 pp.

Napoléon et la Perse: Les relations franco‐persanes sous le Premier Empire , Iradj Amini, Paris: Fondation Napoléon, 1995, 254 pp.

A Literary History of Persia , Edward G. Browne, 4 volumes, reprinted Iran‐books / Ibex Publishers, Bethesda 1997.

The Divan‐i Hafiz , H. Wilberforce‐Clarke, reprinted Iranbooks/Ibex Publishers, Bethesda, 1998.

Modern Persian Prose Literature , Hassan Kamshad, reprinted Iranbooks/Ibex Publishers, Bethesda, 1996.

Borrowed Ware: Medieval Persian Epigrams ,Dick Davis, trans., Washington, D.C.: Mage, 1997, 203 pp.

Asemun Rismun , Iraj Pezeshkzad, Bethesda, Maryland: Iranbooks,1997, x +300 pp., includes biographical reference and index, ISBN 0–936347–79–1.

La belle rivale de Farah et les jeux du destin , Anna‐Lisa Vafa, Paris: Les Editions la Bruyère, 1998, 103 pp.

The Arrest of Hoveyda: Stories of the Iranian Revolution , Saïdeh Pakravan, Costa Mesa, California: Blind Owl Press (an imprint of Mazda Publishers), 1998, 134 pp.

A World Between: Poems, Short Stories, and Essays by Iranian Americans , edited by Persis M. Karim and Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami, New York: George Braziller, 1999, xxvii + 254 pp.

The Sands of Oxus: Boyhood Reminiscences of Sadriddin Aini , trans., with an introduction, by John R. Perry and Rachel Lehr, Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1998, 275 pp., illus., maps, ISBN 1–56859–078–4.

Tajikistan:The Trials of Independence , eds. Mohammad‐Reza Djalili, Frédéric Grare, and Shirin Akiner, Richmond (UK): Curzon Press, 1998.

Central Asia meets the Middle East , David Menashri, ed., London & Portland, OR.: Frank Cass & Co Ltd., 1998, ISBN 0–7146–4600–8 (cloth), 9–7146–4129–4 (paper), xiii + 240 pp., map, index.

Arab‐Iranian Relations , Khair El‐Din Haseeb (ed.), Beirut/London: Centre for Arab Unity Studies/Brítish Academic Press, 1998, 564 pp., $59.50 (hardcover).

The Armenians of Iran: The Paradoxical Role of a Minority in a Dominant Culture , ed. Cosroe Chaqueri, Cambridge: Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1998, 408 pp., photographs.

Women and the Political Process in Twentieth‐Century Iran , Parvin Paidar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, xvi+401 pp.

Secularization of Iran: A Doomed Failure? The New Middle Class and the Making of Modern Iran , Azadeh Kian‐Thiébault, Paris, France: Diffusion Peet‐ers, Travaux et mémoires de l'Institut d'études iraniennes, numéro 3, 1998, 296 pps.

An Islamic Utopian: a political biography of Ali Shari^cati , Ali Rahnema. London and New York: I.B. Tauris (St. Martin's Press), 1998. xiii, 418 pp., bibliography, index, ISBN 1–86064–118–0.

Persian Painting ,Sheila R. Canby, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993, 128 pp., 43 color and 44 black‐and‐white illustrations, map, bibliography, index, ISBN 0–500–27730–3.

Early Persian tilework: the medieval flowering of kashi , Douglas Pickett, Madison, Teaneck, and London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Associated University Presses, 1997, 211 pp.

The Persian Garden: Echoes of Paradise , Mehdi Khansari, M. Reza Moghtader, and Minouch Yavari, Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 1998, 169 pp.     

A Linguistic Survey of Khorasan: Implications for Language Isolation,Language Change,and Contact Linguistics

This paper describes and analyzes data from a number of Modern Iranian dialects spoken in Khorasan in the east of Iran which are unusual among the other Western Iranian languages in that they have grammaticalized a split tense-sensitive alignment in indexation, compared to other Iranian languages whose indexation splitness is sensitive to both tense and transitivity. These dialects are the former dialect of Birjand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the present-day dialect of Ferdows, Khanik, and Se-Ghal’e. The findings are put in the context of the available data from the Classical Persian texts to show that the tense-sensitive splitness mentioned above is traceable in those texts. A number of external factors are discussed which seem to have been influential in the restructuring of the split-alignment of the former dialect of Birjand into a uniformly nominative-accusative alignment in terms of indexation as observed in the present-day dialect of Birjand. It is proposed that this restructuring is an instance of simplification. The three other dialects cited above are endangered in the sense that they can undergo the same kind of restructuring as happened to the dialect of Birjand.