Tracking the “Arab Spring”: Why the Modest Harvest?

Issue Date October 2013
Volume 24
Issue 4
Page Numbers 29-44
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Popular uprisings have occurred only in some Arab states and in even fewer have authoritarian rulers been overthrown. What factors allow us to predict whether an authoritarian regime will be vulnerable?

About the Authors

Jason Brownlee

Jason Brownlee is professor of government at the University of Texas, Austin, and the author of Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization (2007).

View all work by Jason Brownlee

Tarek Masoud

Tarek Masoud is the Journal of Democracy’s coeditor and the Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Governance at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

View all work by Tarek Masoud

Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds is the author of The Children of Harvey Milk: How LGBTQ Politicians Changed the World (2018).

View all work by Andrew Reynolds

Further Reading

Volume 24, Issue 2

Islamists and Democracy: Cautions from Pakistan

It is easy for Islamists to accept the democratic principle of majority rule when it results in their being elected to power. But the experience of Pakistan warns us that…

Volume 31, Issue 2

Tunisia’s Endless Transition?

A domestic pact may be needed to end a dictatorship, but what happens when that pact itself becomes one of the chief obstacles to deeper democratization?

Volume 23, Issue 2

The Freedom House Survey for 2011: The Year of the Arab Uprisings

Although in 2011 declines in freedom exceeded gains for the sixth straight year, the uprisings in the Arab world represent the most significant challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse…