 Hello, welcome everyone. Good evening. This is the second of March and welcome to the event on the Arab winter. And the democracy and discontent by Dr Stephen King, hosted by the SOAS Institute and co-chair by myself. The chair of the Center for Palestine Studies and Marcus Persat, who is the chair of the Center for Iranian Studies. My name is Dina Matar. I am in the Center for Global Media and Communication at SOAS, the chair of the CPS. Dr Stephen King is going to talk about a very interesting topic, particularly now that we are in the 10th anniversary of the Arab crisis. And so, without further ado, I'm just going to give you a brief bio. He is associate professor of government at Georgetown University in the US. He is the author of several books. The first is liberalization of the game democracy, and then the new authoritarianism in the MENA, the Middle East and North Africa region. And he is the co-editor of the view of authoritarianism. And he is also the author of the book that he is going to talk about, which is the Arab winter, which was published in 2020. I just don't know how we have time to to write all these books, but we're looking forward to hear from you. Dr King is going to speak, and I will connect questions in the question and answer button that you see at the bottom of the museum zoom page. And for those people who are joining us by Facebook, welcome. And you will also post your questions in the chat box on the side. So, Dr King, the floor is yours, as we say, or the platform or Thank you. So, like many scholars of the Arab world, I was working on authoritarian resilience just prior to the Arab spring. If you look at that scholarship. Certainly, nearly everyone saw the authoritarian Arab republics that were the main participants in the Arab spring as dystopian. We acknowledged many issues that Arabs felt that needed improvement and we did not whatever angle, one hand about explaining this authoritarian resilience. What the literature did do is, is demonstrate the difficulties and challenges and frustrations in their world just prior to their spring. That said, I was surprised as anyone, when as Ferris Mubarak, the director, when asked Ferris Mubarak, the director of Arab Policy Institute said, aptly the Arab world has decided to reinvent itself. This decision did not come from the top. It was claimed by each and every one of us from the most famous to the anonymous and we, we, everyone here probably recalls the excitement of the early Arab spring, how you had the mass uprisings, you, the shocking removal from power of Ben Ali and Tunisia Mubarak in, in Egypt and eventually Salah in Yemen and Qadhafi being killed in Libya. And we hadn't seen anything like that it was out of the blue to an extent. And you had after the after authoritarian breakdown in those countries, you had serious elections that led to transitions in power. Who would have thought that Nahidah and the Muslim Brotherhood would win competitive elections and actually take power. Getting rid of Salah with the help of the Gulf Corporation Council and the election of he ran unimposed, unopposed, I guess, had he in the election of had he in power. They had an exciting national dialogue conference in Yemen that that sought to do what I tried to do here in this book. They had committees trying to deal with nation building and state building they had committees dealing with efforts to strike a democratic political bargain trans all of the issues that I'll talk about in this study they organized a national meeting in Yemen to deal with them. That was exciting as well. Libya. We have to recall that just after Qadhafi was killed there was serious election in which it was a July I think of that year, in which a coalition of largely secularist one in those elections. That's another transfer in power. Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Mubarak have talked about that and of course Tunisia getting rid of Ben Ali. Okay, so the the breakdown happened. And there were democratic transitions in those places I define democratic transitions in terms of competitive elections and when in which the opposition actually wins and takes power. So these were serious elections and and obviously there are uprisings in Syria that that ended up in in the nightmare that we have Bahrain nearly fell. The rulers there. Without the help of Saudi Arabia and they might not have succeeded. Egypt looked promising at the beginning, and they certainly had competitive elections. Surprisingly the military allowed more see the take power. Obviously, at the end, the, the democratic consolidation was not achieved and obviously more see has reimposed the military authoritarian regimes but often think that if Libya, I mean I'm sorry if Egypt. Had consolidated this democracy. Then the, the, there would have been a different tenor to the whole Arab spring because of the number of Egyptians in terms of the population in the region. So I took caught up in the excitement and hope for the region. There was a rebel rebellion from below that saw democracy respect for human rights, socioeconomic justice in the end to corruption, all would have improved the lines of people in the region so much. So it's exciting to see the possibilities but also as an analyst I had to think about what would, what will be the outcome or what was the outcome. When I was developing the framework for this. I, I ended up focusing on democratic consolidation. And I use the comparative research. I use the comparative research to define democratic consolidation and to try to figure out how it would operate in progress. In a couple of, in the literature there were a couple of broad approaches to democratic consolidation. One talked about emphasize the elections and changing values and attitudes. A second approach. I was it wasn't an aggregate approach, which looked at disaggregating the areas that pose the biggest challenge to democratic consolidation. And so I landed on the democratic transitions literature, which is a disaggregate approach. And this transition literature was one of the leading anyway approaches to democratic transitions and I'm talking here. About smitter and no Donald. And one part of, let me talk about the part of that framework that didn't fit at all. If we recall in the literature at the time, literature on democratic transitions, including the approach by O'Donnelly and smitter really emphasize conflicts within authoritarian regimes. That would lead to an opening in which the people would rise up. But the start came from within the regime. That didn't fit their spring at all. It was an uprising from below a mass uprising. Ben Ali's regime wasn't splitting or seemingly in danger prior to their spring. So that said something about the general literature and what authoritarian breakdown looked like in their world. We saw in their world mass uprisings were important. We saw that social media turned out to be important. We saw that the role of a martyr. Turn out to be important with Mohammed Woods easy and the copycat martyrs during their spring around the region that a martyr seem to create solidarity with with the masses and help to overcome collective action issues and how people were out in the street on mass and certainly the martyrdom was easy contributed to that and and how people felt solidarity to his experience as we recall. He was the young poor man Mohammed boys easy and Tunisia who relatively poor who ran the vegetable and fruit stand and had to pay bribes and was treated with disrespect and was slapped and apparently spit on. He had enough. He went to the gas station after he had gone to the municipalities in the local municipal government officials and they backed up the abuser. He had enough and he lit himself on fire. That wasn't there. Social media's role wasn't included in the literature in a serious way. And also the regional angle in their world doesn't figure very much and they compare doesn't figure in the as far as I know in the comparative politics literature that this regional role that was important in the Middle East. Now, I agreed more with the transitions literature's approach to democratic consolidation in terms of packs. And O'Donnell and Smitter defined packs as negotiated compromises or efforts at national consensus to address conflicts that could derail a democratic transition. They talked about military pack extricating the military from politics how there needs to be national discussions and cooperation and consensus building to extricate the military from politics they talked about a political bargain. Political parties. That cover all of the major conflicts in the society. Coming to a political bargain. The socioeconomic pack was an issue that they raised. And it was largely to make socioeconomic changes because the rebellions were partly about the economy to make socioeconomic changes in an inclusive way to begin to answer the demands of the people who rose up. While at the same time, not just distributing state resources that in the end damaged the economy. But some kind of consultation of the main social forces during this transition period. And O'Donnell and Smitter their Latin America's they write all about Southern Europe so they probably had in mind the Spanish transition in which there was a socioeconomic pack to help the democratic transition including announcing that as a country, this that labor business capital the government are together to help consolidate this democratic transition. So they talked about those three packs. But that wasn't sufficient to capture democratic consolidation challenges in the Arab world during the Arab Spring. These packs are important that that O'Donnell and Smitter did not cover a nation state pack. Our countries had national unity issues. The authoritarian regimes broke down those national unity issues became very serious in a threat to a democratic transition. The state level. In contrast, I'd imagine to the Latin American states that O'Donnell and Smitter researched. There are still state issues in the Arab world and I suspect that Latin America, what became independent in the 1820s. So the countries that emerged from that have had quite a while at nation building and state building our countries haven't had that experience. I end up arguing one of the strongest propositions from what from this work is that it's very difficult to to consolidate a democracy. If you do not have a modern state and a modern state on barbarian lines is defined as a military security force capable of monopolizing balance within the territory. The rational legal bureaucracy and tax resources to pay for the military and the bureaucracy. Attempting to have competitive elections without monopolizing balance has led to balance and unfortunately civil war in a few of our, our cases. A second pack that was not a part of O'Donnell and Smitter framework that I think is important for the Arab world would be a rule of law pack that entails human rights, respect for human rights, which would mean reform of security sectors and the judiciary from the way they function on their autocratic rule. Transitional justice national reconciliation and transitions that are very bloody that occurred after a long period of brutal authoritarian rule transitional justice will obviously be an important issue. So as we've seen Syria in Iraq and I should add Iraq obviously came from US intervention not a part of the Iraq's transition, not a part of the spring. But transitional justice and national reconciliation national reconciliation traditions are very important when post civil war, how can you just move into consolidating competitive politics without dealing with that issue. So, associate associate economic pack. I'm not sure if I talked about that one. The emphasis from old Donald and Smitter was about inclusive policy making in order to to help legitimate emerging democratic transition. They expanded on on their focus in a few ways one for our reaching economic socially and economically was very important to get rid of rent seeking elites and economy dominated by rent sinking elites. Getting the calculus of the region to turn away from from rent extraction and towards production and in competition. You know they are spring revealed that there was a poor relationship with the World Bank and IMF with with these Arab countries that would go on to have democratic transitions. The World Bank and IMF ended up supporting cronyism and rent sinking in their efforts to support transitions to a market economy. So in fact the the regime leaders would in their negotiations with the World Bank and IMF they did not share accurate statistics. And you ended up basically with the World Bank and IMF supporting what had been crony capitalist authoritarian regimes that were reviled by the population. And there are come contribution to it. I am up in the World Bank look like it was the contribution of of go ahead and privatize the economic resources of the state so state on enterprises and land and turn out to be upward land reform during the switch from Arab socialism to this crony capitalist type of authoritarian rule that the World Bank and IMF help to to succeed. Another thing about the socioeconomic pack I had to think through what kind of economic development strategy might help consolidate a democratic transition. And the at the end of the day I ended up accepting what all five countries or six countries supported as their goal during these transitions. It was about maintaining a market oriented economy. Because it's important for these countries to develop economically that they take advantage of the opportunities within the global capitalist system. And also take advantage of a vigorous private sector that's not committed committed to rent sinking or corruption. That's the goal across the cases in that in in practice, none of our cases ended up, even after the democratic transitions ended up with an economic reform strategy that that took advantage of the private sector in global capitalism. And transitional justice human rights I talked about those issues. So if you look at those kinds of issues, and you're trying to figure out a way to explain the differences and outcomes of the Arab Spring transitions. I ended up just to preview it, arguing that Tunisia's unique success based on comparative strength and national unity is based on comparative strength and national unity state capacities, it had an advantage in terms of an apolitical military. It had advantages in terms of limited Islamist secularist secularist polarization which helped consolidate a political bargain. And, but it's been it's was weak in terms of delivering on socioeconomic improvement. But even with those things getting the military out of politics the political bargaining but bargain between Islamist and secularist and a political military. Those things meant that Tunisia has to the considerable extent consolidated is democracy. The military let me just say one other thing about the expectation of the military from politics. If they are involved in politics in Tunisia, they weren't in Egypt, for example, they were in the task for Egyptians, one of the major tasks was trying to extricate that powerful military and powerful in the political sense military sense in the political sense to extricate them from politics and convince them to accept democratic consolidation, which of course did not end up occurring into Egypt wasted really their relative strength and national unity and state capacities the military was not extricated from politics. There was greater Islamist secularist polarization in Egypt, and that played into an opening for the military to move back into power. In the Yemeni Yemeni case as opposed as well both suggests that a modern state is essential for democratic consolidation, and moreover, attempting to implement competitive elections without a modern state without without even the monopoly of balance within the country with various types of militias that that emerged during the battle against Gaddafi, trying to move ahead with competitive elections failed miserably in and there's been a lot of bloodshed obviously similar with Yemen. I also talk about broken states Iraq which we broke along with the British is there are major ally and George W. Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq. And so those with Iraq and Syria and ISIS. I talk about what kind of nation states they were, and how attempts at democratic transitions with these characteristics of the state ended up with ended up fostering balance and immense human suffering, obviously. So, in these cases, after my main cases obviously are Tunisia, Egypt, Libya. And what time did I started at 1230 I have 40 minutes is that the goal. Yes, that would be good. Yeah, you'll find. Um, so my main cases are the cases that were the most involved in the Arab Spring and the transitions away from authoritarian rule Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, in addition to the broken states. I just mentioned, and the way I handle the case studies was to begin with challenges to the regimes prior to the spring. And in all of our cases, these are authoritarian republics that I've had characterized both in earlier work as crony calculus versions of authoritarian role. Which I define in as, as having four characteristics policies that combined with narrow elite ruling coalition led to really the corrupt distribution of state on assets and land to a crony small elite, including members of the, of the regimes of Mubarak's family, been Elise family and so forth. This transition gradual transition away from Arab socialism that these countries undertook also had a change in political institutions of facade and multi party politics develop legitimacy became more tied to capitalism and multi party politics, but the legitimacy was weak. Obviously, because of the best evidence from the amount of repression necessary to maintain those regimes. So, in all of those cases I talked about the challenges to the regime so in Tunisia's case, there were Islamists, there were, there were various stripes, there were labor unions that challenged the regime. So, eventually, the, the, obviously, there was an uprising in Tunisia sparked by been by Bozizi in late 2010. The transition occurred. And it was left to Tunisian leaders to attempt to consolidate this transition to lead the consolidation of this transition to democracy. With my framework, you have to deal with extracrating the military from politics, luckily, Tunisia's military has been apolitical the whole time. A political pack. And in this case, the big conflict was between Islamists and secularists. And again, the Tunisia, Tunisia was blessed in the sense that Islamists and secularists have been working together to plan a post biennale future for a decade or so before the Arab Spring started. So, you realize, or the, the, remember this name, the step and I guess was it. I think it was step on after step on who use, who developed the concept of the twin tolerations and the twin tolerations means that secularist conflict means that Islamists will accept temporary rule if secularists win power, as long as they play according to democratic rules and the same for secularists that they would tolerate Islamists taking power if they abide by rules of democracy. So that conflict settled very well for for Tunisians there they they ended up with a very interesting conclusion working together with the secularists and Islamists in Tunisia they ended up making a strong case that in the Arab world, you really need to understand the secularist coalition governments in those early elections that determine the constitution and so forth. It can't just be by part ruled by partisan victories and temporary elections. So, a political pact. In the twin tolerations developed in Tunisia, they gave them great advantages now, I ended up arguing that Tunisia's democratic consolidation is in trouble. And that's because the economy hasn't changed under Ben Ali steel corrupt is still crony capitalist, there's a push that after an initial movement away from the private sector cronies in in Tunisia. A few years in an argument was made by the government and power that we need to stop doing that we need to stop pursuing transitional justice with these capitalists, we should use their capital we need it now so stop this attack on them. What essentially what it ends up ended up being was no change in the economy, really. And that's, I feel is very dangerous for the Tunisian transition. Also, the, the rule of law on human rights practice improved slowly. The trend. Judicial sector reforms and security sector reforms have been slow. Egypt. As many of you know the, the mubarak longstanding mubarak regime had not been legitimate in a while it faced the challenges that face challenges prior to their spring from from labor unions from when it's the kafia the enough movement. Islamists, obviously. But again, we're all most were shocked by the uprising in the toppling of mubarak but once it happened. Egypt had a serious challenge with extricating the military from politics. And, you know, that in this framework I'm using. The way this has to occur is you need to get civilian elected authorities to gain control of several areas to extricate the military from leadership selection and and and policymaking. I mean, those are the most important and a few other points as well. Now, the military in Egypt did back away from their position in the political economy that has a huge role in the economy with military enterprises that are a big chunk chunk of the economy. The military didn't shoot when mubarak pushed for it, and they played the role of supporters of the, of the revolution. Now we know in comparison to to Tunisia, the, the military. First it wasn't a political and second it was very reluctant to give up its prerogatives. So, during the transition the military and each of the skies they their leadership made itself of he the the institution to God this democratic transition in Tunisia the military got up the way quickly, completely. And that was a bad sign. The sign was that the military back off and out of the political system for a time. But they were really measured in trying to figure out how to protect their interest in perhaps reimpose military rule. And at the end of the day they did that. One of the ways I talk about Egypt is to talk about how the military was ambivalent about democracy despite posing as supporters of the transition and revolution. The Islamists were ambivalent about it and we see that in how the Muslim Brotherhood was reluctant to share power with secularists. The Islamists did so well in those transitional elections. But they, unlike the Anahadan Tunisia, they did not sincerely reach out for secular allies and there are a number of ways that becomes clear a big one was that as they started winning these elections they had promised that they would not attempt to control parliament and the executive branch and the constituent assembly and they would not even have a candidate for the presidency and they reneged on that. They reneged on, there are these odd choices for governors. When Morsi was in power including making a known terrorist with blood on his hands the governor of the region where his organization executed. The secularists as well seem more ambivalent about democracy than they did in Tunisia. And probably that was probably because the Islamists weren't as open to an alliance to deal with polarization. There are a few extraordinary incidents like for example the parliament, the first, the lower house, the first elected parliament. The secularists in Egypt ended up siding with the Supreme Court and the military in terms of dissolving that elected body. There was an ambivalence on both sides. The socioeconomic issue similar to Tunisia there was some progress in dealing with the corruption on the Mubarak and then obviously as things turned away from the revolutionary forces that ended as well. And then I highlighted, well first of all, challenges to Salah's chronic capitalist authoritarian regime included the Houthis, obviously the Zaidi Shia. A revivalist movement that turned into opposition to the regime and the regime's alliance with the Saudis and even socioeconomic issues start to play in it. And we know that there were some say that the Arab Spring conflict was just one more of the Houthi wars. The southern movement, obviously Yemen was, was two countries prior to what it was in 1990s, the South Yemen and North Yemen. So that challenge was important, the Jihadi Salafis, that challenge was important. And Salah's rule at the end of his time was contested by other elites gradually in his rule. He had changed from a sharing of power and economic resources with other elites to doing it less so. Yemen itself, obviously the transition broke down. And we are having a war. The Civil War, I talked about that, the nation state packed issues, obviously they are in a war. So we know, or some, in some phase of an attempt to emerge from the chaos and war. But, you know, a nation state pack will be different from for Yemen in that attributes of the modern state are very weak in Yemen. In its long history, the state in Yemen has not monopolized the use of violence, the state is relying on tribal militias, the tribal militias are armed. And so the attempt to democratize without monopoly of violence in Yemen was very difficult and contributed to the Civil War that we have now. And also should be mentioned that that in both Libya and Yemen, the political parties have associated militias. There's still the tribal militias there's still the militias that wrote that that emerged during the conflict. The violence and the lack of modern state attributes are a tremendous challenge to any full transition and consolidation of democracy in Yemen and also in Libya. And I talk about near the end because it became apparent to me that issues of state and nation were pivotal in understanding the results of the Arab Spring. So, in the states that have broken apart Iraq, Syria and ISIS, I talk about their background as nation states. Obviously Iraq was created by the British for to make up for his for their betrayal with the Sykes-Pickel agreement. Syria had national unity and modern state issues going into their spring. Obviously, and I talk about ISIS, in the sense of how they built up their version of a state and what has cost it in its end. Obviously the biggest cause has been armed groups in the region and outside the region have worked to to get rid of ISIS as a territorial entity. So how do I conclude this study. As a summary, I conclude that the Arab Spring demonstrated that the vast majority of Arabs yearn for democracy, respect for human rights, and socioeconomic justice across the region, millions were killed injured or displaced while striving for these goals. This gave me a firm belief that the, that the exceptionalism argument, the argument that there are worlds if it is exceptional in its resistance to democracy and respect for human rights. The Arab Spring demonstrated that that is not the case. Conclusions. And I, I returned in the end to my own framework and what it might have in the analysis I did, and what it might mean for studies of comparative studies of democratic transitions and consolidation. Conclusion with nation state and Barbarian state rights state packs. It's clear that the need for modern state especially the monopoly for the use of violence within the territory is is pivotal. The other part of it is, it's, I don't see a lot of evidence that is even possible to consolidate a democracy without a state that monopolizes violence that has a rational legal bureaucracy, and then that can pay for state fields. The unity is also pivotal, attempting to democratize without it. The national unit, the national disunity in Libya in Yemen, and in Iraq contributed to those transitions turning into civil wars. The nation state packs I conclude that obvious this is radical Islamist gain power in failed states and attempting to transition to democracy without a modern state ends up fostering failed states in these cases. The military pack literature talks about extricating the military from politics but it doesn't talk about a military that dominates the economy, as it does in Egypt. And on the salad and in Libya, that these militaries are going to fight harder to to maintain their power in the Egyptian military cordons off up to 40% of the economy from state policy. The second point is the need for sustained mobilization to continue the momentum to extricate the military from politics that that momentum stopped in Egypt when Islamist and secularists ended up in conflict, and the military in Egypt took ready advantage of it. So, sustained mobilization as elected leaders attempt to extricate the military from politics seems to be important. There's a political packs. One conclusion is that yes, coalitions and between Islamist and secularists and the twin tolerations can help consolidate a democracy, but in the Tunisian case. They've moved to the next step in that secularists and Islamists posts Arab Spring have had coalition governments, but that has limited policy choices for the people, both the Nakhda and the various secularist coalitions in in Tunisia. The have ended up pushing for the same policies, greater security. And following the World Bank and IMF on their market reform model. And as I said the economy isn't changing hasn't changed in these 20 years and both the Islamist and secularists are provide or presenting that platform to the two Tunisians. And at this point, it would help their consolidation if these political parties went back to their corners and develop their own policies, including a possible alternative to the modified market reform strategy that is recreating chronic capitalism. In terms of socioeconomic, socioeconomic packs. It's, it's unfortunate that their spring did not provide did not end up with did not end up changing the economies in any crucial way. There was an opportunity during our third hearing breakdown to change the trajectory, and it did not happen in the World Bank and IMF are very explicit about that even in the Tunisian case. How that that that was a missed opportunity. And now we're returning to crony capitalism not social net social economic justice. Now the rule of law transitional justice and national reconciliation those issues. Obviously, judicial and security sector reforms would be necessary because those judiciary in the security sector had function as ways to protect narrow. networks of the of the elite of the small elite. So reforming the judiciary and security sector to protect all citizens is seriously important and it's been difficult in Tunisia and obviously Egypt backtrack. Secondly, in this, in terms of those issues. Transitional justice and national reconciliation are very important. In Libya and transitional justice was combated by a political isolation law, which ended up being a way to discredit elected officials that were secularists and the Islamist parties in their associated malicious use that political isolation law to get rid of electoral competitors and to take over an assembly that that should have been largely led by secularist or acts debathification also set up a terrible dilemma in terms of transitional justice and national reconciliation debathification was too broad. It got rid of the people, the military, the military, the military members that were largely Sunni. And it didn't replace it with the national military. So instead you ended up with the state attempting to consolidate a democracy, but without the monopoly of violence in the country. Okay, that's my opening. And I'm happy to answer any questions and to learn from you all as well. Thank you very much Stephen that was very interesting and focus. I have a couple of questions which I'll ask at the end because I want to get the floor to, to our, you know, kind of attendees. There are a couple of questions that in terms of regarding Syria. One of them is whether you think that the regional and international the lack of the regional and international intervention had precipitated an Arab winter in Syria, or the other whether, whether the fact that they did not intervene, caused the end of spring so have you included the international kind of involvement. I have, it's not the major focus at some point I mean it became as the transitions slowed and continued over time outside actors really got involved in trying to influence these transitions you know, obviously it's just gotten involved in Libya, Qatar, it's gotten involved everywhere, the Iranians and and and and Yemen the Saudis in Yemen you ate all of that obviously it's important. I didn't make it a central focus frankly because I figured that division of labor, someone else would step in, and I think they have with these international influences and foreign policy, and I've always preferred the domestic angle to the foreign foreign policy but in the Syrian case. You know, the, the, when the free Syrian army that the free Syrian, I think that was the organization's name. They rose up in and and the the ethno sectarian conflict was not there at the beginning, they rose up for the entire population, and they needed support internationally. I think I think Obama probably regrets not establishing a no fly zone in some part of Syria that would have allowed the free Syrian army, a chance to maintain a coalition and combat the Assad regime. I think it was a failure in that sense. Thank you. And there's another question regarding what sorts of new mechanisms the regimes employed to sustain authoritarian stabilities in the post uprising era. Did you, you know, kind of other new mechanisms that they are deploying to try and sustain authoritarianism. Well, they, they all emphasize, look at a, if you want to try to get democracy in up in hell, as in Libya, in, in Yemen, in Syria. So authoritarian stability has been one of the arguments in those cases, and I was even interested, interesting in the, in the Libyan case that was another comment I meant to mention, or Libya. So, so fear of chaos and violence, I think it's been the biggest argument that's intuitive, and they've used it successfully. As I said, I, in the opening of this book, I write it for the next Arab Spring. And so once it's consumed, what happened, I think there were, and obviously movements are starting again Algeria and Sudan are starting to rise up. I don't think that is forever. I think there was a cost to these authoritarian regimes for for the Arab Spring. And they aren't as stable as they might have been, even if they reproduced the pre Arab Spring authoritarian regimes. What else have they used? Well, those are the main points, I guess. Okay, thank you. There's a question, which is, yeah, it's a kind of perhaps a comment. Can we speak about Arab Spring or a Christian winter, which wasn't sure of what it meant, but I don't know it's a matter of naming. Is that, is that about the US and Trump? I don't know, I presume. So that's funny. I certainly feel like the US is in an Arab winter. It's appalling. And it's so racially based. You know, this is, this is about even just this week, these last few weeks, where they've been trying to repress political participate the Republican and Trump repressed the political participation of African Americans, which really hits a nerve. And this is exactly been our experience, even post slavery, that, you know, reconstruction and then the KKK emerges in. So it's, it's horrific and it's horrific that nationalists, national supremacy has taken hold and that's what the half our political participants are, in my view, supremacists, because you white supremacists, because you can't support the Republican Party and ignore the, the racism. And so and in fact, whatever your justification for voting for someone like that, you, your outcome is going to be repression of black people and racism, you know, continuing a horrific legacy. So for me, sure. I mean, this is a national, a national winter or whatever. There have been moments and I know where this is a sideline subject. There have been times when I think that I'll just move to Ghana, I mean go somewhere it's been a very frustrating experience that it almost feels like white Americans will never forego white supremacy. In general, obviously they are like, we know the percentage that 43% of white Americans disagree with Trump, 57%, according to the election agree with it, which is a disturbing and disappointing outcome. It is, it is. There's a question from by and but I think we have answered your question about international support. And there's another question in post conflict settings international communities always ignore transitional justice, ignoring justice at the cost of securitization, and we always fail both transition and security. So, when you talked about the monopoly of violence by the state. What, when I said what does monopoly of violence by state. Yeah, is that possible. If you have the monopoly of violence by the state without transitional justice, is it possible to have it. Kind of secure situation towards democracy. I end up on the fence a little bit on transitional justice rule of law and national reconciliation. I do think our region demonstrates that that those issues can derail democracy, especially because of the balance in the history of repression, an autocrat brutal autocratic rule. And then I mean, what good with the elections be in Libya and Syria. Yemen, after all of this, if you don't deal with, with, you know, with transitional justice and human rights and what happened in the past and what you're going to do about it. It's, you know, almost feels like it's trivial to to talk about competitive elections if you don't address that at all. Exactly. We have, we have a question here which is about how important was the Algerian president of 91 92 and paving the way for the establishment of a secular Islamist paradigm, leading to the restoration of authoritarian rule during the Arab winter and the failure of democratic consolidation and to wait, I'm sorry, can you repeat that one only caught half of it. Okay, so how important was the Algerian president of 91 92 in paving the way for the establishment of a secular Islamist paradigm, which has led to the restoration of authoritarian rule during the Arab winter and the failure of democratic consolidation. What does he he or she mean by a secular Islamist paradigm in Algeria. Can you ask the question again, please. But the second part of the question is democratic consolidation in Tunisia seems to have been successful, but the economic transition is to lagging behind. I think external shocks like the cobit 19 pandemic and the increasing polarization between secular and Islamist or post Islamist forces. Is that a risk of return to the authoritarian rule, I think you did. Yeah, I mean, I think the economy is a great risk for the Tunisian transition. The same economy is the Ben Ali economy dominated by corrupt crony calculus and the same, the returning to the same economic policies that were crony calculus without making a change. It really must feel to most Tunisians that is the same Ben Ali economy. And that's just not acceptable. They are sustainable, or at least it's it's a challenge to their consolidation. So in Tunisia, what I end up saying is that they could they've made considerable consolidation of their democracy, they've made very important steps with dealing with the secularist polarization. The political bargain. They've had three change of hours in power from Islamist to secularism back. That's a very strong sign of democratic consolidation. There's a question about the main reason for the entrenchment of authoritarianism in Egypt. You know, I think of the failure of educating the military from politics and as I said that the way to do that you have to maintain mobilization against regime. When the opposition was unified Islamist cyclist everybody wants to get away from a barric in their out in the streets and in millions, the military wasn't willing to shoot people. It was willing to allow this transition though they tried to control it from the top. They are more see one and took power they didn't stop him before he took power. So the military was pulling back. But you need sustained mass mobilization to continue that. And, and, and once that stopped as well as the split between Islamist and secularists with secularists starting to sign with the military and the Supreme Court. The military was in, in a position to move in, betrayed the secularists that they said they would, you know, that they were intervening to end Morsy's tyranny. And they really just CC reestablished the military authoritarian regimes in some ways even stronger, more a bigger grip on the economy. Anyway, there are free areas where for CC has has become even more authoritarian than Mubarak was. And there's a question from Rami with the recertions of appraisings last year from Iraq to Lebanon to Algeria and so on. How can the Arab world break free from the endless up and down side. Well, I think it's good news that they're coming again. And in a way that I really thought I'm Algeria which didn't rise up during the Arab Spring. It's had a serious popular uprising that the Algerian military that's still trying to to to control and they don't have control over that. So, yes, that's exciting. Also in Algeria when I think about Algeria and they popular masses have risen up fight for democracy. They're going to have the challenge that the Egyptians had a military that dominates politics in the economy. So they're going to fight harder to stay in control. That's one of the sad lessons of the Arab Spring is the consolidation challenges are so difficult that even if you get the uprising even if you get authoritarian breakdown. Consolidating that democracy is tough and it varies, as I said, Tunisia didn't have to get rid of a powerful military, but Algerians will. And I end up what I end up trying to do in the book is to talk about ways to deal with that. And as I said, popular mobilization that that last supporting elites that get elected that are trying to extricate the military from politics maybe they want to change a constitution that limits the military's role. The public has to get behind these leaders to during the transition to try to push the military out of politics. There's a question here which is can to speak. So, can't see how speaker can say Bahrain. While I agree with much said can see how speaker can say Bahrain. There was never any attempt to call for regime to be replaced only John Chia and silly call for reforms in Bahrain, whether regime might have granted marginal reforms was surely never relevant to Saudi Arabia. Would not Egypt have had a better chance had elections not been rushed. Egypt are in in back in which country are you talking about in Egypt. Well, I think the question is is a question about Bahrain. There was never an attempt to go for them to be replaced only on Chia and so Nicole for reforms. And whether regime might have granted marginal reforms was surely never relevant as Saudi Arabia would never have counter countenance reforms in a state next door. And then the next question in this question by this by this attendee is would not Egypt have been had a better chance had elections not been rushed but been delayed to allow none brotherhood parties time to organize. Yeah, I agree with that second point strongly. It was after they got rid of Mubarak, and the transition was starting the first step the military that I said took over the transition process instead of what happened in Tunisia that they stayed out of the way. One of the first steps was that the military decided was to amend the Mubarak constitution and have elections quickly, which the Muslim brotherhood agree with as well. And secularists had good reason to want to slow it down. They needed time to develop organizationally to to to compete when the Muslim brotherhood could just take off from when it's been doing prior to their spring, and they had a tremendous advantage. So, you know, I agree with the secularists of of Egypt, who push to delay these elections and give themselves a chance to to grow as an opposition. And finally, they got organized is the national salvation front. I mean, a year or two after a year or so after when there's only in power for a year but sometime in Mubarak's time. They started to organize so yes I agree with that. I suppose the Muslim brotherhood took advantage of the situation and, and I guess I would think of it in terms of the twin tolerations to prevent the split between Islamist and secularists. The Muslim brotherhood probably should have tried to accommodate secularists on the issue of time during the transition. So thank you. To what extent did religion have an influence on the Arab Spring example in Syria do you. And how has authoritarianism impacted the Syrian situation of crisis. So, two related questions in terms of religion in Syria and also authoritarianism role in in the continuing crisis in Syria. I mean, no, I mean the uprising wasn't led by Islamists. And that's across the region by the way, that's another interesting thing about their spring that all of these rebellions the they were basically young secularists who rose up. And Islamists once after a bit of time stepped in and joined them. So certainly, in general, the, the, having the, the Islamist join these modern these secularists was promising. And then I look at it in terms of religion in terms of the twin tolerations that, you know, are secularists willing to accept Islamists running and getting power based on elections as long as they accept democratic rules in the Constitution. And do secularists accept Islamists getting to run, or do Islamists get second, get tolerated and accept secularists getting to run as long as they play about democratic roles. The other piece of on religion is that within this polarization of Islamists and secularists. The Islamists played a role in trying to moderate more radical is the moderate Islamists played a role in trying to especially in the Tunisian case if you look through it. They played a role in trying to moderate more radical Salafis to accept this democratic transition. So that ends up being an important role and it's the same and on the secular side, I suppose. Another thing about religion in general in the Arab Spring, as we recall, you know, the, at the early in the Arab Spring, the radical Islamists were on their heels. And in the Arab Spring, the secularists in Tunisia and Egypt, in this new era of democracy, this emerging democracy, they could get power by running in elections, both social and political power and economic power by running in elections. So radical Islamists were on their heels and, but unfortunately, the difficulty in consolidating democracy. The health states that emerged because the states with limited state capacities didn't survive the transition and electoral politics. So, I suppose that's, that's, that's unfortunate they were, you know, radical Islamists like ISIS and al-Qaeda were on their heels, and then the transition experience allowed them to reassert themselves, including obviously ISIS. Okay, so I have, I have a question which is in relation to, in relation to your kind of framework that or the opening thing around democracy and explaining democratic elections as being a one factor in trying, in trying to say, this is a democracy. So whether you have, you know, so the idea to focus on elections as, but that, that reinforces as far as I'm concerned the exceptionalist argument about the Middle East because it's, and, and again, it kind of frames the discussion in a western frame of what democracy is. So, and a related question is, in terms of your approach, and you said that we need to have modern states, how do we define modern states? What are the characteristics of a modern state? And how do we move towards that? I, I, I'm sorry, I missed the first question, but I got the second, let me answer that. I define modern states on barbarian lines. One is the military monopolizes the use of violence within the territory. So the state controls the territory. There aren't militias out there with guns or anything like that. Those militias were in Libya and Yemen and the military did not monopolize the use of violence. So I think that's the most important piece of a modern state that the military monopolizes the use of violence. Modern states are also defined by a rational legal bureaucracy, according to Weber. So I use that instead of a patrimonial bureaucracy and so forth, the administration is able to function and the government is able to operate in a way that people who vote can feel like their policy choices can be implemented. Let me read on that point. That was something I meant to read at the beginning by Ali Zaydan, who was the first elected Prime Minister in Libya's transition. Ali Zaydan. This is what he said after he fled Libya. Libya has lived through 42 years of systematic destruction. The government has no army or security forces to control the Libyan street. The Islamic groups are spreading radical new ideas and the country's administration is weak and small. Those are all conditions that aren't modern states. That's the opposite of it and trying to have competitive elections and consolidate those. It's extremely difficult under those conditions. And those are the Libyan conditions. They weren't the Tunisian conditions. One was much more close to a modern state, going into it. So if we go back and think about the kind of plan, and if you think about the barbarian argument in terms of legal authority and charisma and so on, how would you bring in the idea of leadership and charismatic leadership as being central to a modern state as well? Actually, I haven't thought about that issue. I mean, Weber, charismatic leadership, but he talks about, as I recall, there's an evolution of that in Weber that's separate from the way he characterizes a modern state. And by the way, that definition of the modern state I gave, it's the most common definition of a modern state in the comparative literature. Okay. So there's a related question to this from our food saying that in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, states has absolute monopoly over the violence can be modern states. Say that again. They have absolute monopoly over violence. But does that mean it's a modern state? I mean, that's one attribute of it. Gaddafi had monopoly of the violence in this state before it was the revolution. So just having the monopoly of violence does not make a modern state. In this transition, though, what one has to be careful about in transitions is that once the autocratic regime has broken down and Gaddafi's monopoly of violence is over, it has to be reestablished. It has to be reestablished in the West. I am arguing or thinking that once Gaddafi was killed, the Libyans had invited the West, the UN to help protect their transition. Once Gaddafi was gone, I think the these international forces needed to stay there long enough to take the guns out of everybody's hands. We probably should be under UN auspices, but that because Libyans were open to it, they reached out. That was the moment when the international actors, I think, should have been, could have stopped a whole lot of misery in Libya, taking the guns out of the hands of these various militias. Thank you. And I think the last question, is there a chance of democracy in Sudan? Sudan was the other example. Sorry, at the end of the book, I talked about looking ahead and that Sudan and Algeria are both having massive bronzings for democracy. In the Algerian case, they will have to deal with that powerful military. There will be challenges in the Sudanese case on national unity, I suspect, and some other issues. So the same kinds of challenges that my framework discusses in the beginning will be challenges for those uprisings for democracy as well. I have a question for me, which is, we've got like two minutes. You talked around social media, do these models and paradigms and concepts, do they take account of social media? Do they take account, you know, I break down democratic transitions into authority during breakdown, if we break down these autocratic regimes. Transitions to democracy, meaning elections that are free and fair and opposition wins and takes power. And then all of these challenges of democratic consolidation that I spoke about today. I can actually say, for some reason, say that question again. Sorry, I lost my thought. Is that, you know, do you take into account in these kind of very much? Right, right, right. Sorry, social media. And social media was crucial in the Tunisian in the Egyptian case. It was in the Tunisian case was interesting in that, you know, by Ben Ali didn't realize how dangerous social media was and he encouraged it during his time in power. But social media allow Tunisians to get around Ben Ali's police state. Ben Ali had the strategy under Ben Ali was that if there are conflicts, you shut down information. And the conflicts generally occurred in the southern part of Tunisia in the interior where the poor people were and resources are in the capital. So conflicts would arise, it shut down the media in these conflicts in the south and he went on. Now, social media and Tunisia got around that once conflicts in the south started to occur social media. So spread information to help organize people help people get into the streets. And that was great. Now, certainly regimes have become more savvy these days about social media. So I think they were caught off guard during their spring the potency and immobilizational ability of social spring of social media, they were caught off guards and and and now they're more aware of it. So it's not going to be as positive for democracy and human rights as before as these regimes get better and autocratic regimes get better at using social media to maintain their control. Okay, thank you very much. We're coming to the end. Not guess do you want to come in. Okay, thank you. Really, no, I just I was trying to think, you know, fitting, sort of going further east, fitting Iran or whatever in the argument, but I suppose they're, you know, different category but no, only to say thank you very much and many of the people who have also expressed their thanks for a wonderful thought, very, you know, thought provoking and rethinking the idea of modern. Thank you guys for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to rethink about these arguments. Thank you so much and we're looking forward to reading your book and have a have a good day. Okay. Have a good evening. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much.