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Arab Spring and its echo in sub-Saharan Africa: a quantitative analysis
 
PIIS032150750003339-4-1
DOI10.31857/S032150750003339-4
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Andrey Korotayev 
Affiliation:
Head, Laboratory for Monitoring the Risks of Socio-Political Destabilization, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Chief Research Fellow, Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Kira V. Meshcherina
Affiliation:
Junior Research Fellow, Laboratory for Monitoring the Risks of Socio-Political Destabilization, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Junior Research Fellow, Centre for Global and Strategic Studies, Institute for African Studies, Russia
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Viktoriya E. Katkova
Occupation: Research Assistant
Affiliation: Laboratory for Monitoring the Risks of Socio-Political Destabilization, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Journal nameAsia and Africa Today
EditionIssue 1
Pages17-24
Abstract

The article analyses the growth of socio-political destabilization in the Arab World and Sub-Saharan Africa after the Arab Spring. The authors study the scale of its global echo in 2011-2015 on the basis of four important indicators from the international database Cross-National Time Series (CNTS) – anti-government demonstrations, riots, general strikes, and guerrilla warfare. For comparison, the destabilization dynamics is traced over a longer period (from 2001 to 2015).

It is shown that the Arab Spring acted as a trigger for a global wave of socio-political destabilization, which significantly exceeded the scale of the Arab Spring itself and affected absolutely all the World System zones. However, this global destabilization wave manifested itself in different World System zones in different ways and not entirely simultaneously.

The growth of the total number of anti-government demonstrations and riots in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2011-2015 was not particularly strong in comparison with most other macrozones, but, by the measures of this macrozone itself, this growth was very noticeable (by several times) and Africa made its own historical records in 2014. If the West, Asia and Latin America made the main contribution in 2014-2015 to historically record levels of the global number of demonstrations, riots and general strikes and the share of Sub-Saharan Africa here was relatively low, then to the reaching of historically record levels in 2014 by the global number of guerrilla warfare actions Sub-Saharan Africa made a very significant contribution.

KeywordsArab Spring, Sub-Saharan Africa, destabilization processes, macroregions, quantitative research
Publication date21.03.2019
Number of characters15798
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