Arab Spring

The Arab Spring was a wave of anti-government protests, uprisings and, in several countries, armed conflict that spread across the Arab world beginning in late 2010, driven by grievances that varied by country but shared a common target: long-entrenched authoritarian rule, economic stagnation and corruption.

The wave began in Tunisia, where street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in December 2010 triggered protests that forced President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power within weeks, in January 2011. The example spread rapidly: mass protests in Egypt forced Hosni Mubarak's resignation in February 2011; an uprising in Libya, aided by NATO air power, ended with Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow and death later that year; Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh was eventually forced from office under a negotiated transition; and Bahrain's protests were suppressed with the help of troops from neighbouring Gulf states. In Syria, what began as protests escalated into a prolonged civil war that had no equivalent elsewhere in the region.

The outcomes diverged sharply from the shared starting point. Tunisia alone built a lasting, if fragile, democratic transition; Libya, Syria and Yemen fell into years of civil war and state fragmentation, and Egypt returned to military-backed authoritarian rule under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after a brief and contested democratic interval, a divergence that left the Arab Spring's legacy far more contested than its opening months had suggested it would be.