Abstract
M.A. (Politics)
The study undertakes to establish whether the Arab uprisings of 2011 can be
understood as the product of a process of contagion or diffusion, and to
analyse how protests spread between Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. A framework
of diffusion is developed from the literature in light of which the protests in
these countries are analysed. Furthermore, the aim is to determine whether
the outcomes of the uprisings have resulted in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya being
any more democratic than they were before. For this purpose, political
conditions in these countries are analysed against a framework of democratic
transition.
The study finds that the protests in late 2010 and 2011 did in fact originate in
Tunisia and spread to Egypt and then Libya through a process of diffusion, by
which adopters in Egypt and Libya emulated the behaviour of protesters in
Tunisia who had demonstrated a successful innovation. Evidence for this is
found in the analysis of the elements and mechanisms of the diffusion
process, specifically in the master frames of protesters, particular features of
protests common to all three countries, and similarities and channels of
communication between transmitters and adopters.
Only in Tunisia is the outcome of the uprising found to have produced
democratic results. The country has met most of the procedural requirements
of democracy in addition to developing many key democratic values in the
transition process. In Egypt, the state has reverted back to the control of the
old regime’s security apparatus, and Egyptians enjoy even less protection of
human and civil rights than before. The failure of Libya’s transitional
authorities to harness the rogue militias that emerged after the civil war has
resulted in the virtual absence of the rule of law and the almost complete
delegitimisation of the country’s young democratic institutions. With the
emergence of two rival parliaments Libya risks further descent into chaos.