Wilson Center Releases Arab Spring Paper

Photo Credit: Woodrow Wilson Center

To mark the 2nd anniversary of the Arab Spring, the Woodrow Wilson Center released a report, titled “Has the Arab Spring Lived up to Expectations?” The report features opinions from 39 experts from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the United States. In the opening piece, Jane Harman, Director, President, and CEO of the Wilson Center, reminds the reader “transitions are messy,” while Robin Wright, USIP-Wilson Center Distinguished Scholar and journalist agreed that,”revolutions are never fairy tales.”

However, Ammar Abudulhamid, Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Founder and Director of the Tharwa Foundation, advocated that, “the fear barrier is now broken; the anciens regimes are gone; and pent-up political forces, with their good, their bad, and their downright ugly, have been released.” Executive Director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, Stephen McInerney, said, “although the road ahead to full-fledged democracies in the Arab world will be a long and arduous one, the journey down that path fundamentally began in 2011.”

“What should be chastening for Western policymakers,” argued Roger Hardy, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, King’s College, London, “is that they are largely powerless to determine the outcome in any of these places.” Vali Nasr, Dean at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, cautioned that America and Europe’s “minimalist approach (to the Arab Spring) is a break with the past, a surprising cold shoulder to democracy, and one big reason why the Arab Spring, even where it succeeded, will likely fail.” However, Dalia Ziada, Executive Director at the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, ends the report with an optimistic view of the future. “We are determined to lead the Arab Spring-our dream of liberal democracy-to the top of the mountain.”