Alexandria became known initially for the revolution’s poster-child, and then for its ‘No’ Vote in the constitutional referendum. Now finally Sabbahi’s success has given rise to the expression ‘Revolutionary Alexandria’ in popular discourse.
In Alexandria, our author encounters three violent incidents in as many days. Witnessing such crimes prior to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution was so rare, it is no wonder that security was on voters’ minds.
The livelihoods of the Egyptian people are a political priority. In the 1990s, at the behest of the IMF and the US, neoliberalism exacerbated the gap between the haves and the have-nots by ensuring that the primary benefactors of growth have been wealthy Egyptians.
Tunisia is both the pioneer of the Arab spring and its greatest success so far. But even here the political and economic tests are acute, says Vicken Cheterian.
A topsy-turvy year full of dramatic reversals left sub-Saharan Africa still in search of of the balance that would harness good governance to economic progress, says Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie.
One-year on, the Arab revolutions continue to circle around the issue of whether Islam is compatible with democracy. This article asks the long-feared question: Is the Arab Spring, articulated in the democratic idiom of freedom, liberty and justice, doomed to a takeover by the Islamists?
The military may wish to maintain its economic and political stranglehold, the Brotherhood may feel its time has come, and progressive groups may want to push for real change. But for the time being the Egyptian people remain an enigma.
Despite protests and intense political pressure on Prime Minister Maliki’s coalition government, reforms in Iraq are likely to be slow, sporadic and contradictory. Meaningful reform is undermined by a political system that fosters immobility, an incompetent and politicised bureaucracy, corruption
Democracies are about more than elections and majorities: they require genuine separation of powers, autonomous institutions and associations, all regulated by the rule of law. The current Turkish situation is the product of social and institutional patterns, now in question, in which multiple cen
Successive Israeli cabinets have worked to enforce on the ground in Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories a situation that they could present as irreversible. Have they now reached the point where the biblical book of Daniel’s prophecy is once again relevant?
Behind the attack on Togo’s footballers in Angola’s enclave of Cabinda is a complex mix of history, geography, oil and politics, says Alex Vines.
