Author Description

"The 2011 uprisings in the Arab world shared similar characteristics and produced radically divergent outcomes. The tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria clamored nonviolently for regime change. Urban poor, Westernized elite, Islamists, union activists, liberals, and leftists mobilized along cross-class, cross-regional, and non-partisan lines. The commonalities in terms of motivations, grievances, protest size, as well as the peaceful nature of the popular mobilization, were unmistakable. And yet the popular movements triggered markedly different military responses. In Syria and Bahrain, the armed forces sanctioned bloodbaths to defend their masters. In contrast, the militaries refrained from using violence in Egypt and Tunisia. And troops splintered in Libya and Yemen where some units defected wholesale whereas others stayed loyal and willing to uphold autocracy. In every case, the armed forces sat at the crux of the unfolding cataclysmic events and structured the fortunes and misfortunes of democracy in the Arab region. But why was the military reaction to these upheavals strikingly dissimilar? This is the central question of this book"--