Global Echo of the Arab Spring

P. 813–849.

Korotayev A., Shishkina A., Khokhlova A.

The Arab Spring acted as a trigger for a global wave of socio-political destabilization that significantly exceeded the scale of the Arab Spring itself and affected absolutely all the World System zones. From 2011 to 2015 explosive global growth has been observed for the vast majority of indicators of socio-political destabilization: anti-government demonstrations, riots, general strikes, terrorist/guerrilla attacks and political repressions/purges. However, this global destabilization wave manifested itself in different World System zones in different ways and not quite synchronously. In 2011, a particularly strong increase in the number of demonstrations, riots and strikes was observed in the Arab World and Western countries (although one could observe a substantial increase in the number of anti-government demonstrations and riots in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, it was not as powerful as in the Arab World and Western countries). After 2011, the number of demonstrations, riots and strikes in the Arab countries decreased significantly, but against this background in the Arab World (and adjacent regions of Tropical Africa and Middle Asia, that is, in the Afrasian macrozone of instability) in 2012–2014 there was an explosive growth in the number of major terrorist attacks/guerilla warfare (the metastases of which began to gradually penetrate into some other World System zones). Moreover, in 2012–2015, against the background of a very noticeable decrease in the number of demonstrations, riots and strikes in the Arab World, there was a significant increase in their number in Western countries, Latin America (practically unaffected by the global destabilization wave in 2011), Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. This increase has more than offset the decline in the number of demonstrations, riots and strikes in the Arab World; and in 2014–2015 the global number of demonstrations, riots and strikes significantly exceeded the previously record levels of 2011.

Keywords: Арабская весна, волны революций, revolutions, Revolutionary Wave, революции, Arab Spring

Publication based on the results of: New revolution wave at the Afrasian instability zone (2022)

In book

Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change

Grinin L. E., Korotayev A., Karasev D., Rozov N., Grinin A., Selbin E., Mitchell L., Goldstone J. Springer, 2022.