EBP 2: The Arab Spring: Why the Surprising Similarities with the Revolutionary Wave of 1848?

This 2012 article by Kurt Weyland discusses the parallels between the Arab Spring, which took place from late 2010 to late 2012, and the revolutionary wave of 1848, arguing that they both had very similar length, scope and, consequences. Weyland aims to prove that the Arab Spring's similarities to the events of 1848 cannot be fully explained by existing frameworks for understanding clusters of political events, such as common cause theories, foreign influences, and promotion arguments. Instead, he claims that the two events' shared characteristics occur because in both instances, after witnessing a successful defeat of autocratic rule elsewhere, participants took ‘cognitive shortcuts’ and inferred that they would be able to overthrow their own autocrats.

Weyland argues that common cause theories, foreign influences, and promotion arguments are all insufficient at explaining the characteristics of the Arab Spring and the events of 1848 (also known as the “Springtime of the Peoples”). He states that common cause theories focus on the idea that inherent structural problems occurring at the same time across a range of locations, such as poverty caused by industrialisation in Europe in 1848 and youth unemployment in the 21^st century Arab World, were the cause of the contemporary revolutionary periods. However, these do not explain the suddenness with which these events occurred and how fast they spread throughout the respective geopolitical regions, as most significant structural problems had been happening for a long time, and differed across borders in regards to magnitude and acuteness.

According to the author, foreign influences had only a limited role in inciting either the Arab Spring or the Springtime of the Peoples. Weyland states that the various great powers that sought to bring about regime change abroad had little if any role in instigating the aforementioned revolutionary periods. In 1848 France, which had brought about mass political change in Europe during the early 19^th century, did nothing to aid radical movements abroad. Likewise in 2011 the United States did not involve itself with the early stages of the Arab Spring, with the only exception being the aid it provided to Libyans to help dethrone their dictator Gaddafi, who had long been an agitating figure to the West. Weyland also states that promotion arguments focussing on the role of transnational political activists do not explain the suddenness of the revolutionary periods. He states that in 1848 many incumbent political leaders blamed French radicals and Polish exiles for fomenting unrest in their countries, but there is very little evidence of this. In the Arab Spring some domestic activists were in contact with foreign activists, however not to any meaningful extent.

Weyland theorises that the suddenness with which both the Arab Spring and the Springtime of the Peoples occurred can be explained by people taking “cognitive shortcuts”. He states that these shortcuts occur due to people’s inherently limited capacity to deal with over-abundant and/or uncertain information. Since most people cannot process information in a comprehensive, systematic, and otherwise totally rational manner, they make inferential shortcuts in order to arrive at decisions and comprehend their environment. However, these shortcuts focus on some aspects while filtering out others, and they often draw conclusions that are overly simplistic and not really logical, which often ends up creating distortions and biases in their perspectives. Weyland argues that people are more reliant on cognitive shortcuts in uncertain circumstances, such as national political turmoil, when established social and institutional norms can no longer guide them through life.

Weyland states that two established cognitive shortcuts, the heuristics of availability and representativeness, played an important role in facilitating the speedy spread of discontent throughout much of Europe during the Springtime of the Peoples. The heuristic of availability affects people’s attention and memory in that it skews people’s intake of information and probability estimates. Extreme and unusual events leave a large impression on people, whereas less striking though highly relevant information is discounted. Essentially people pay more attention to striking events than unremarkable ones, and therefore overestimate the likelihood of the former occurring. The representativeness heuristic sees people derive overly firm conclusions from unreliable or limited information, as they believe the information represents a wider dataset than it actually does. Weyland argues that these two heuristics account for the swift spread of both the Arab Spring and the Springtime of the Peoples. He states that the overthrow of an established leader leaves a disproportionately strong impact on people, and impressions of similarity with their own national circumstances prompt much stronger emulation efforts than would be rational. Due to these shortcuts, an extreme event such as an overthrowing of a dictator makes people in a wide range of countries believe that a similar event in their own country is more feasible, encouraging them to try and go ahead with it.

Weyland demonstrates the aforementioned heuristics at work during the Arab Spring by referring to various social media posts made while it was happening. The selected posts by-and-large were made by Egyptians, and tend to focus on the success of the Tunisian people in overthrowing their government, with fact being used to try and encourage the Egyptian people to do the same. These posts received wide viewership but were not necessarily rooted in fact, despite often being presented as such. However, Weyland does not believe that the advent of social media was the cause of the fast diffusion of political uprising across the Arab World, arguing that a similar diffusion occurred 160 years earlier during the Springtime of the Peoples, long before social media existed.

A final point Weyland makes in relation to the similarities between the Arab Spring and the Springtime of the Peoples is that both events were largely the result of individual action rather than group movements. This is because in both the Arab World of the 2010s and early industrial Europe the majority of people were not a part of large-scale organisations, with few if any leaders to guide them. This led to uncertainty surrounding the actual political climate of the country. When unrest finally erupted, it was caused by individuals choosing to protest rather than being told to.

This article was published in December 2012, at a time when the last remaining movements of the Arab Spring were being finally suppressed by the status quo powers-that-be. This negative environment may explain the somewhat cynical overall view Weyland takes that these rebellions were basically the result of people behaving in a manner that saw them unable to control their emotions, rather than being rational. However, a more recent article may be even more cynical, as the effects of the Arab Spring in the form of the Syrian Civil War and conflicts in Libya and Yemen have only worsened since 2012.