This article written by Kurt Weyland explores in depth the similarities between the Arab Spring and the Revolutionary Wave of 1848. It highlights how despite each movement took place in a different time period, the reasoning for the movement steams from similar roots; political, social and economic discontent within the public space. This article can be seen to have five key themes laid out; cause of discontent, communication and its importance, transnational influences, revolutionary dynamics and the outcomes of each movement.
Weyland explores communication and how it was used at the time to grow the movements, how leaders were chosen, and the mechanisms used to spread the messages at the time. The importance of clear and precise communication is pushed to the people and Weyland points out that despite there being limited means of communication available during these times the message was still passed around. Weyland additionally mentions that it would be interesting to see how messaging would be shared today through the advent of technology and how we are able to share messaging internationally within minutes if not seconds. Additionally, Weyland points out that youth have been at the forefront of each movement, whether that be organizing, leading, negotiating or ensuring that there is sufficient outreach.
Weyland breaks down the common issues that have led there to be a movement within each event. There is a key overlap with the community wanting to have democratic processes in place opposed to the authoritative methods that their respective political leaders had. The communities felt as if they were being repressed, their opinions were not being taken into consideration, lack of civil rights and that there was clear socio-economic differences amongst them. In each movement the communities were at their wits end, and they turned to revolutions in hope to change the situations that they were in.
Finally, within this article Weyland points out that it is important to be able to understand the similarities between these two events for anyone that is wanting to create or take part in future movements. These events can be seen as trial runs, or a period where mistakes could be made for the present and future activists to be able to explore what works best to organize a movement.
Kurt Weyland is a political scientist and teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. Weyland's research focuses on authoritarian and democratic rule and the influence that it has on social policy, policy diffusion and populism on specific regions.
Overtime Weyland has explored numerous theoretical and methodological approaches within his case studies in the political science field. Additionally, Weyland has explored the presence of cognitive psychology within his work seven different regions.
This article links in to in class learning as a whole. For example, this article touches on people power which has been taught by the lecturer through multiple avenues in class. Evidence of this being the power individuals have within a democratic society that differ to those that reside under authoritative leadership. Some of these powers consist of civil rights, separations of powers and the checks and balances on each branch, voting rights and more.
A strength of this article is that it provides a clear framework when assessing the two events to ensure that the reader is able to distinguish the differing facts and what makes the events similar. A weakness in this article is that Weyland hyper focuses on specifically youth as a age bracket within this article which hindered the article from exploring other age groups and the roles that they played within each movement.
In conclusion, Kurt Weyland has concluded on numerous points that highlight the similarities between the Arab Spring and the Revolutionary Wave of 1848.
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