What Was the Arab Spring? The Promises and Perils of Globalization

The 2011 Arab Spring protests took place amidst the Great Recession, with limited or declining foreign direct investments in the region, rising food prices, high rates of unemployment (especially among youth), and low public and private investments. In 2014, oil prices fell. At the same time, the fallout from the 2003–4 U.S./UK invasion and occupation of Iraq, the NATO invasion of Libya, and the attempts to destabilize the Syrian regime helped spawn the so-called Islamic State, which wreaked havoc on communities in Iraq and Syria and had spillover effects in Tunisia. Hailed as the one democratic outcome of the Arab Spring protests, Tunisia began to unravel economically and politically, as it amassed a large debt burden, was unable to reduce high youth unemployment, and then faced the 2020–21 COVID-19 pandemic.

As the latest stage of capitalism, neoliberal globalization turned out to be not the great equalizer that its early proponents claimed, but rather something closer to a wrecking ball. This chapter contributes to the literature on globalization’s dimensions and evolution through application to the Arab region and the Tunisian case study. Concepts from Marxist and world-systems theories will elucidate the promises and perils of neoliberal capitalist globalization as experienced in a democratizing polity.