The Arab revolutions of 2011 have disproved one argument about the Arabs only to raise another, says Hazem Saghieh.
For France, acting in a ‘humanitarian’ manner means intervening in Libya’s civil war but does not extend to freely accepting refugees from Libya or Tunisia within its borders.
What is the “Arab spring” becoming? After three months of upheaval, repression and conflict, the democracy wave in the region, including Iran, is at a crucial stage. openDemocracy authors offer concise perspectives on a complex and fluid political moment.(The first contributions in this series wer
The position of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) on the crisis in Libya has derailed the continent’s chance to support the revolutionary paradigm it should be spreading worldwide.
Democracy is once again the challenge. Overcoming divisions through the development of new welfare systems will be vital to the success of this project.
The Arab uprisings have proved very different in type to those in Iran, in terms of the scale, scope, both their conscious constituents and their beneficiaries, dynamics and social roots.
Tunis and Egypt, despite still being the minority, have become the new rule, with the rest of the regimes being the exception.
The military balance of Libya’s domestic conflict is raising debate about external intervention. But the strategy of the Gaddafi regime is also crucial to what happens next.
The fate of the popular insurgencies in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere in the early-mid 2000s could offer guidance or warning to the middle-east uprising of 2011 - and to western states, says Vicken Cheterian.
An Arab world in transformation has found France’s elite shamed by its links with the old order. A control-freak president with base political instincts offers little hope for a better policy, says Patrice de Beer.
The waves of change in the Arab world have women at the centre. But how will they fare as revolt turns towards a new political and social settlement? Rada Ivekovic considers the emerging balance.
The crisis in Libya is confronting the United States with a new awareness of its military and political constraints, says Godfrey Hodgson.
