Editor Almedina
Author(s) Patrícia Jerónimo
Year 2013
Availability for sale | for preview
Synopsis The Arab Spring and the Use of Force in International Relations” is the result of the communications presented at the international conference with the same title, organized by this research center in December 2011.
“The popular upheavals in the Arab world began almost three years ago, but the outcome of the democratic transition processes that have been unleashed remains very uncertain. Some say that the Arab Spring has failed, but there are also those who remain optimistic, noting that fear has been overturned and that Arab populations are now aware of the street’s strength and of the presence of real alternatives to authoritarian regimes. What seems to be uncontroversial is that something extraordinary happened in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. It is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the viability of ongoing democratic transition processes in the Arab world. History teaches that these processes are always troubled, violent and long. The texts collected in this book are intended to reflect on the events of the recent three years and on the response given by the international community to the transformations occurred in the Arabic world, with calls for attention to the absence of democratic models or scripts that could be imposed from outside the Arab populations, to the fact that it is not possible to exclude Islamist groups from democratic dialogue and the need to exercise the greatest caution when we invoke the responsibility of protecting to justify international military interventions, risking the legitimization of interference in the internal affairs of States, directed not to the protection of civilian populations but to the promotion of regime changes.
Editor Almedina
Author(s) Patrícia Jerónimo
Year 2013
Availability for sale | for preview
Synopsis The Arab Spring and the Use of Force in International Relations” is the result of the communications presented at the international conference with the same title, organized by this research center in December 2011.
“The popular upheavals in the Arab world began almost three years ago, but the outcome of the democratic transition processes that have been unleashed remains very uncertain. Some say that the Arab Spring has failed, but there are also those who remain optimistic, noting that fear has been overturned and that Arab populations are now aware of the street’s strength and of the presence of real alternatives to authoritarian regimes. What seems to be uncontroversial is that something extraordinary happened in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. It is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the viability of ongoing democratic transition processes in the Arab world. History teaches that these processes are always troubled, violent and long. The texts collected in this book are intended to reflect on the events of the recent three years and on the response given by the international community to the transformations occurred in the Arabic world, with calls for attention to the absence of democratic models or scripts that could be imposed from outside the Arab populations, to the fact that it is not possible to exclude Islamist groups from democratic dialogue and the need to exercise the greatest caution when we invoke the responsibility of protecting to justify international military interventions, risking the legitimization of interference in the internal affairs of States, directed not to the protection of civilian populations but to the promotion of regime changes.