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Came across an article on the resurgence of Arab authoritarianism in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.
Muftah is a left leaning, anti-imperialist publication so they obviously see this as a mistake but I wonder what the WR thinks.
Should the West not only continue to back strongmen like Sisi in Egypt or Hafter in Libya but also encourage them to continue the same sorts of economic reforms that produced the grievances that lead to the Arab Spring? Or is this a mistake? If so, what would be the alternative? Support either the strongmen or neoliberal restructuring but not both? Or support neither? Or maybe revive the ole Arab Socialist social contract of cheap bread and good jobs for political acquiescence(which sort of survives in the GCC countries)?
Here's the aspect that I found particularly interestingJuly 3, 2017 marks the fourth anniversary of the coup that brought down Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammad Morsi, and brought then-General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power. Since the coup, President Sisi has been at the forefront of efforts to return the Middle East to the pre-Arab Spring status quo. But, rather than learning lessons from these revolts, the world is acting like they never took place.
In a similar fashion, economic lessons from the Arab Spring have been forgotten. A major tenet of the 2011 uprisings was a rejection of neoliberal economic restructuring that had cut social services and increased poverty. During the revolutions, protesters voiced their rage at autocrats and their families who had enriched themselves by privatizing state industries.
In 2014, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the driving force behind this economic restructuring, published a paper entitled “All in the Family: State Capture in Tunisia.” The paper acknowledged that neoliberal restructuring in an authoritarian context leads to the sort of crony capitalism and corruption that prompted the 2011 revolutions.
tl;dr The Arab Spring was about rejecting autocrats and the neoliberalism they enacted under the guidance of institutions like the IMF but the West is repeating its policy of backing these autocrats on the condition they enact the same sorts of neoliberal policies.But, the IMF seems not to have heeded its own warnings. In November 2016, it extended a three year, $12 billion loan to Egypt. The money is conditioned on the same neoliberal restructuring that dominated the country under its previous rulers. Just as these old autocratic rulers did, Sisi is using this foreign financial aid to enrich himself and his close associates.
Muftah is a left leaning, anti-imperialist publication so they obviously see this as a mistake but I wonder what the WR thinks.
Should the West not only continue to back strongmen like Sisi in Egypt or Hafter in Libya but also encourage them to continue the same sorts of economic reforms that produced the grievances that lead to the Arab Spring? Or is this a mistake? If so, what would be the alternative? Support either the strongmen or neoliberal restructuring but not both? Or support neither? Or maybe revive the ole Arab Socialist social contract of cheap bread and good jobs for political acquiescence(which sort of survives in the GCC countries)?