Den arabiske våren: Demokratiserings fjerde bølge?

Ahmed Abu Shouk
Professor of History
College of Arts and Sciences
Qatar University

Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This democratic shift was termed “Democracy’s Third Wave” by Samuel Huntington in his book The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Here, Huntington discussed the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, and explores the possibility of further democratization.

The first and second democratic waves were not without backsliding and Huntington addresses the factors of this reverse wave. He claimed that the third wave of democratization that swept the world in the 1970s and 1980s could become a dominant feature of Middle Eastern and North African politics in 1990s.

Does the delay of the outbreak of Arab revolutions for two decades allow us to brand these revolutions as a fourth wave of democratization in the 21^st century? This lecture will examine the causes of Arab revolutions in the context of a fourth wave of democratization, highlighting the nature of their democratic transitions and the examples of their reversal.

Ahmed Abu Shouk is a historian who completed his PhD at the University of Bergen in 1998, with a study of traditional political leadership in colonial Sudan. He has since worked in the International Islamic University of Malaysia and is now professor of history at Qatar University. His research has focused on Sudan, but also on broader political processes in the Middle East and the Islamic World.

The lecture will be held in English.

All are welcome!