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You Say You Want a Revolution: the Arab Spring, Norm Diffusion, and the Human Rights Regime

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Abstract

We discuss how the Arab Spring is a reflection of the resiliency of the human rights regime. In order to accomplish this, we explore the extent to which the Arab Spring represents norm diffusion among Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states. Specifically, we examine the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain and consider how economic and demographic changes created space for human rights discourse in these countries. We find that, in the case of MENA states, the Arab Spring represents significant pressure from below. Access to new forms of social media allowed civil society to organize, publicize, and protest relatively efficiently. Social media expanded the potential role of individuals and created newly empowered latent human rights activists who emerged as leaders of the norm diffusion process. The resulting diffusion of human rights norms in the Arab region represents one of the most significant expansions of the human rights regime since the regime’s inception.

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Notes

  1. Quote is from “Egypt protests: An Arab Spring as Old Order Crumbles,” BBC News, February 2, 2011 cited in Salih (2013, p. 203).

  2. For a complete discussion of the causes of the Arab Spring, see Abdelali (2013), Anderson (2011), Goldstone (2011), and Salih (2013). For commentary and reflections on the Arab Spring, see Bishku (2013), Clark (2013), Davenport and Moore (2012), Haseeb (2012), Klug (2012), Owen (2012), Sale (2012), and Sawani (2012).

  3. The latent human rights activist is not to be confused with the norm entrepreneur introduced by Finnemore and Sikkink (1998). They discuss the role of a norm entrepreneur in the first stage of the life cycle of norm influence. Specifically, “norm entrepreneurs attempt to convince a critical mass of states (norm leaders) to embrace new norms” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, p. 895). In the human rights case, norm entrepreneurs would be those in society actively engaged in human rights activism in what the authors refer to as a “two-level norm game” hoping to either use international norms to strengthen domestic norms or attempt to internationalize domestic norms. The latent human rights activist is not the vanguard of human rights in their society, rather, a by-stander who becomes an activist quite by accident.

  4. Cultural relativism has long stood in the path of the realization of universal human rights across the globe. The economic miracle associated with the Asian Tigers was the result of Asian Values, according to state leaders such as Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, Jiang Zemin of China, and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. These leaders challenged the universality of human rights, specifically the emphasis on individual political rights over that of the social and economic welfare of the state. Likewise, Islamic states contest that the universality of human rights is a Western construct and argue that Islamic values take precedence. While the Arab Charter on Human Rights went into force in 2008, the text of the document “has raised repeated doubts on the commitment of the Arab states to the universality of Human Rights” (Vitkauskaite-Meurice 2010, p. 166).

  5. Also see El-Khawas (2012), Saideman (2012), and Border (2010) for a discussion on nepotism in Tunisia.

  6. Harb (2003) notes that military officers held large agricultural interest and significant corporate holdings in diverse economic sectors all in an exchange for the army’s support of Mubarak’s ruling party.

  7. For a complete explication of the role of the GCC, Saudi Arabia, and the USA in responding to the revolution in Bahrain, see Mitchell (2012) and Zunes (2013).

  8. The July 2013 estimate of the total population in Egypt tops 85 million, compared to almost 11 million in Tunisia and 1.2 million in Bahrain (CIA World Factbook).

  9. The urban population in Bahrain constitutes over 88 % of the total population, compared to 66 % in Tunisia and 43 % in Egypt.

  10. See El-Khawas (2012) for additional discussion of Tunisians use of social media during the protests.

  11. The term cyber-civil society is utilized by Khondker (2011) in describing the emergence of online protests in Egypt.

  12. Bahrain: Terror as Protesters Shot by The Guardian became a depository for Twitter and YouTube postings regarding the events in Bahrain in general and the crackdown at the Pearl Roundabout more specifically.

  13. One target of the Bahraini government was Ayat al-Qurmezi, “a 20 year-old girl who had participated in protests at Pearl Roundabout. The page garnered hundreds of defamatory posts calling for her arrest, torture, and death. Ayat was later captured, and, after three months of torture, appeared on state TV to apologize for her actions” (Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark cited in Dewey et al. 2012).

  14. Inglehart and Norris (2003) find that what does matter is culture and a wide gap still exists on several fronts: divorce, abortion, gay rights, and gender equality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Stephen F. Austin State University, Box 13045 SFA Station, LAN Room 108, Nacogdoches, TX, 75962, USA

    Julie Harrelson-Stephens

  2. Department of Political Science, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Sam Houston State University, Box 2149, Huntsville, TX, 77341, USA

    Rhonda L. Callaway

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Correspondence to Julie Harrelson-Stephens.

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Harrelson-Stephens, J., Callaway, R.L. You Say You Want a Revolution: the Arab Spring, Norm Diffusion, and the Human Rights Regime. Hum Rights Rev 15, 413–431 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-014-0315-5

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