Countries that experienced popular uprisings in the 2011 Arab Spring had a range of outcomes. Some countries, like Tunisia and Egypt, had a long tradition of centralised state apparatus and a strong national identity. Their outcomes were, respectively, a fragile democratisation process and a reversion to military authoritarianism. Other countries, such as Yemen, Syria and Libya, are newer states that lack a solid national identity, and society is divided along tribal, religious sectarian, linguistic, and/or regional lines. There the outcome has been a meltdown of the political order, along with civil war and fragmentation.

Why? 

This course suggests a framework of analysis for the divergent outcomes using Yemeni Civil War as an example. It argues that the interaction between different types of state formation and regional context can explain, respectively, the disintegration of countries such as Yemen, Syria and Libya; as well as the preservation of the Bahraini system, despite its ethnic nature. Egypt and Tunisia provide further variants in their well-developed statehood and sense of national identity. Yemen will be used as a case study for examining this complexity among the countries that experienced the Arab spring. Several legacies will be examined, including the Ottoman and colonial legacies. Most importantly, the legacy of religious beliefs will be looked at closely, especially the introduction of Zaydism as a religious denomination in North of Yemen, with its unique religious political principles, which were considered a recipe for political instability, especially in its interaction with Yemeni tribal structures and their geographical locations.