Abstract—There was great hope that the Arab Spring in 2011 would usher in an era of democratic change throughout the Arab world. However, this outcome is unlikely, and the most likely scenario is that the Arab world will continue to be governed by authoritarian governments. This paper attempts to illustrate that democracy in the Middle East is dependent on a strong civil society as a precondition to democratization. This is made evident through a comparative analysis of Libya and Tunisia; The former state transition being a failure because of a lack of any civil society, and the latter being a success as a result of a robust civil society, which existed before the revolution in 2011. The paper builds upon the literature in this area in an attempt to contribute a study based on sound methods and an organized theoretical framework of analysis.
Index Terms—Authoritarian regime; civil society; democratization; state transitions.
J. W. Boose is a graduate student at the University of Windsor (e-mail:boosej@hotmail.com).
Cite: Jason William Boose, "Democratization and Civil Society: Libya, Tunisia and the Arab Spring," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 310-315, 2012.
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