Foreign Affairs - 11.2019 - 12.2019

The Middle East’s Lost Decades

November/December 2019 49

take to the streets to demand a better

future, even in the face o¡ repression.

The Arab Spring may not have ushered

in the immediate reforms that many

had hoped for, but in the long run, it may

have accomplished something more

important: awakening the political

energies o¡ the Arab world and setting

in motion the long process o¡ Arab

revitalization.

BEFORE THE SPRING

During the second hal¡ o¡ the twentieth

century, Washington’s attitude toward

Arab development was essentially prag-

matic and cynical. Although it favored the

Middle East’s economic growth, the

United States believed that the region

was best governed by friendly autocrats,

such as Egypt’s Anwar al-Sadat and

Political repression is more onerous.

Economic growth is sluggish and unequal.

Corruption remains rampant. Gender

equality is more aspiration than reality.

Yet something fundamental has

changed. Arab governments have tradi-

tionally rested on what political scientists

call an “authoritarian bargain,” in which

the state provides jobs, security, and

services in exchange for political loyalty.

This bargain is based on the assumption

that ordinary people will remain passive.

But today, that assumption no longer

holds. Citizens no longer fear their

governments. Now more than ever before,

ordinary people across the Middle East

are politically engaged and willing to

voice dissent. And as the massive protest

movements in Algeria and Sudan earlier

this year showed, they remain willing to

Spring is in the air? A protest in Algiers, May 2019

RAMZI

BOUDINA

/ REUTERS