Following the popular uprisings that swept across the Arab world beginning in 2010, armed forces remained pivotal actors in politics throughout the region. As demonstrators started to challenge entrenched autocratic rulers in Tunis, Cairo, Sana'a, and Manama, the militaries stormed back into the limelight and largely determined whether any given ruler survived the protests. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, senior officers pulled away from their presidents, while in Algeria, Bahrain, and Syria, they did not. More important, military officers took command in shaping the new order and conflict trajectories throughout that region. Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring explores the central problems surrounding the role of armed forces in the contemporary Arab world. How and why do military apparatuses actively intervene in politics? What explains the fact that in some countries, military officers and rank-and-file take steps to defend an incumbent, while in others they defect and refrain from suppressing popular protest? What are the institutional legacies of the military's engagement during, and in the immediate aftermath of, mass uprisings? Focusing on these questions, editors Holger Albrecht, Aurel Croissant, and Fred H. Lawson have organized Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring into three sections. The first employs case studies to make comparisons within and between regions; the second examines military engagements in the Arab uprisings in Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria; and the third looks at political developments following the cresting of the protest wave in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and the Gulf. The collection promotes better understanding not only of the particular history of military engagement in the Arab Spring but also of significant aspects of the transformation of political-military relations in other regions of the contemporary world. Contributors: Holger Albrecht, Risa A. Brooks, Cherine Chams El-Dine, Virginie Collombier, Aurel Croissant, Philippe Droz-Vincent, Kevin Koehler, Fred H. Lawson, Shana Marshall, Dorothy Ohl, David Pion-Berlin, Tobias Selge, Robert Springborg.

Since late 2010, an unprecedented wave of protests has swept across much of the Arab world. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of the armed forces when confronted with anti-regime uprisings that demand greater political freedoms or even regime change. Drawing on the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria, it argues that the degree of institutionalization of the armed forces and their relationship to society at large can account for different responses to pro-reform uprisings.

Through detailed exploration of events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen, Sean Burns here breaks down the concept of professionalism within the armed forces into its component parts and demonstrates how variation in military structures determines their behaviour. In so doing, and by emphasising historical context and drawing on a wide range of political science theory, Burns sheds fresh light onto the ways in which military structure affects the potential for democratic transition or the course of civil war. With this book he presented a wide-ranging study of the Middle East which provides key tools to understanding the opportunities for democratisation, both during the Arab Spring and beyond, and which is therefore essential reading for anyone working on the Middle East, popular uprisings and the politics of repression.

"As the Arab Spring has renewed Western interest in the political, as well as military, role of Arab armed forces, reform -- rather than mere assistance -- is crucial. In this monograph, the author focuses on the structural aspects of reform from which the Arab Spring forces would benefit. Seven features are identified which need to be addressed when attempting Arab military reform in the countries affected by large-scale unrest in 2011: an unclear mandate, over-politicization, a challenging ongoing security situation, limited resources, lack of civilian oversight, pockets of paramilitary activity, and, in parts, as well as the lack of an institutional perception of reform need. Their origins are elaborated as much as recommendations for what outside assistance can achieve"--Publisher's web site.

Several years after the Arab Spring began, democracy remains elusive in the Middle East. The Arab Spring that resides in the popular imagination is one in which a wave of mass mobilization swept the broader Middle East, toppled dictators, and cleared the way for democracy. The reality is that few Arab countries have experienced anything of the sort. While Tunisia made progress towards some type of constitutionally entrenched participatory rule, the other countries that overthrew their rulers-Egypt, Yemen, and Libya-remain mired in authoritarianism and instability. Elsewhere in the Arab world uprisings were suppressed, subsided or never materialized. The Arab Spring's modest harvest cries out for explanation. Why did regime change take place in only four Arab countries and why has democratic change proved so elusive in the countries that made attempts? This book attempts to answer those questions. First, by accounting for the full range of variance: from the absence or failure of uprisings in such places as Algeria and Saudi Arabia at one end to Tunisia's rocky but hopeful transition at the other. Second, by examining the deep historical and structure variables that determined the balance of power between incumbents and opposition. Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds find that the success of domestic uprisings depended on the absence of a hereditary executive and a dearth of oil rents. Structural factors also cast a shadow over the transition process. Even when opposition forces toppled dictators, prior levels of socioeconomic development and state strength shaped whether nascent democracy, resurgent authoritarianism, or unbridled civil war would follow.

It is important to involve the security sector agents themselves in the process to overcome institutional opposition; appealing to professional ethics and identity is equally bound to be more successful than patronizing civilian attitudes. Ultimately, security sector reform against the wishes of the sector in question will always result in mitigated success, if not to say failure. For better or for worse, Arab security sectors remain one of the pillars of Arab states. Without security, no economic development is possible in either Libya or Egypt-and economic conditions led to the 2011 events in the first place. Western governments so far have refrained from extensive security sector reform in the Arab world, preferring security sector assistance or occasional training. What 2011 has shown, however, is that reforms are not only beneficial, but at this stage mandatory. Since civilian actors are themselves challenged by ongoing transitions, the main agents in this reform will have to be the institutions themselves. Understanding their concerns and needs will certainly foster their cooperation-and in any case such understanding is crucial to delivering the efficient and legally bound security sector that citizens and institutions alike are striving for.

Why do some militaries support and others thwart transitions to democracy? After the Arab Spring revolutions, why did Egypt's military stage a coup to end the transition? Conversely, why did Tunisia's military initially support the transition, only to later facilitate the elected president's dismantling of democracy? In Soldiers of Democracy? Military Legacies and the Arab Spring, Sharan Grewal argues that a military's behavior under democracy is shaped by how it had been treated under autocracy. Autocrats who had empowered their militaries produce soldiers who will repress protests and stage coups to preserve their privileges. Meanwhile, autocrats who had marginalized their militaries produce soldiers who support democratization, but who are also more susceptible to incumbent takeovers and civil wars. The dictator's choice to either empower or marginalize the military thus creates legacies that shape both the likelihood of democratization and the forms by which it breaks down. Drawing on over 140 interviews with civilian and military leaders, and three surveys of military personnel, this scholarly volume illustrates this theory through detailed case studies of Egypt and Tunisia. Grewal also probes the generalizability of the theory through a cross-national analysis of all countries between 1946-2010. Overall, he brings the military front and center to the study of democratic transition and consolidation.