The DOI matches its Crossref record; 99 of the 99 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Arab Spring: Why the Surprising Similarities with the Revolutionary Wave of 1848?
Abstract
Prominent scholars have highlighted important similarities between the Arab Spring of 2011 and the “revolutions” of 1848: Both waves of contention swept with dramatic speed across whole regions, but ended up yielding rather limited advances toward political liberalism and democracy. I seek to uncover the causal mechanisms that help account for these striking parallels. Drawing on my recent analysis of 1848, I argue that contention spread so quickly because many people in a wide range of countries drew rash inferences from the downfall of Tunisia's dictator. Applying cognitive heuristics that psychologists have documented, they overrated the significance of the Tunisian success, overestimated the similarities with the political situation in their own country, and jumped to the conclusion that they could successfully challenge their own autocrats. This precipitation prompted protests in many settings that actually were much less propitious; therefore problems abounded. Cognitive shortcuts held such sway because Arab societies were weakly organized and repressed and thus lacked leaders from whom common people could take authoritative cues. The decision whether to engage in emulative contention fell to ordinary citizens, who—due to limited information access and scarce experience—were especially susceptible to the simple inferences suggested by cognitive heuristics.
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“revolutionaries in states outside the original onset of the crisis often overstate the possibilities of revolutionary success, placing too much weight on dramatic news from elsewhere and drawing firm conclusions from relatively sparse information (Weyland 2012: 920-4)”
From Within and Beyond the “Fourth Generation” of Revolutionary Theory (2016) · cites this paper as Weyland 2012
Citations
Cites
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(2002) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511808098 · Cited by 2,293
Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics
Tarrow, S. G. (2011) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511973529 · Cited by 1,932
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Morvan, C., & Jenkins, W. J. (2017) · Macat Library eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781912282562 · Cited by 1,891
Goodwin, J., Jasper, J. M., & Polletta, F. (2001) · University of Chicago Press eBooks · doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226304007.001.0001 · Cited by 1,458
Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation
Sewell Jr., W. H. (2005) · doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226749198.001.0001 · Cited by 1,410
Research works printed but not linked: 13
- Nunns, 2011, Tweets from Tahrir
- Nordhausen, 2011, Die arabische Revolution
- 10.1525/california/9780520266322.001.0001 · DOI
- Tsebelis, 1990, Nested Games
- Huntington, 1991, The Third Wave
- Heibach, 2011, Die arabische Revolution
- Ghonim, 2012, Revolution 2.0: A Memoir
- Feiler, 2011, Generation Freedom
- Brownlee, After the Awakening: Revolt, Reform, and Renewal in the Arab World
- Asseburg, 2012, Protest, Revolt, and Regime Change in the Arab World
- Albrecht, 2007, Debating Arab Authoritarianism
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions: A New Data Set
Geddes, B., Wright, J., & Frantz, E. (2014) · Perspectives on Politics · doi:10.1017/s1537592714000851 · Cited by 1,567
Spontaneous Collective Action: Peripheral Mobilization During the Arab Spring
STEINERT-THRELKELD, Z. (2017) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055416000769 · Cited by 345
“…social media—facilitates mobilization by making it easier for peripheral members to learn of other protests or coordinate without core social network actors (Hale 2013; Warren 2014; Weyland 2012); if that is the case, core social network members may have driven mobilization in earlier centuries.”
BackgroundThe politics of policy diffusion
Gilardi, F., & Wasserfallen, F. (2019) · European Journal of Political Research · doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12326 · Cited by 259
“Prominent examples are the diffusion of free market policies (Simmons & Elkins 2004; Meseguer 2009), same-sex marriage (Kollman 2007; Fernandez & Lutter, 2013; Mitchell & Petray 2016), protests in the Arab Spring (Weyland 2012) and national conservative forces (Rooduijn 2014; Van Hauwaert 2018), to name just a few.”
BackgroundInfluentialEmotions and the Microfoundations of the Arab Uprisings
Pearlman, W. (2013) · Perspectives on Politics · doi:10.1017/s1537592713001072 · Cited by 382
Learning and the diffusion of regime contention in the Arab Spring
Bamert, J., Gilardi, F., & Wasserfallen, F. (2015) · Research & Politics · doi:10.1177/2053168015593306 · Cited by 215
“Several qualitative studies provide empirical evidence for the relevance of bounded learning in the Arab Spring (Cooley and Nexon, 2011; Dalacoura, 2012; Herb, 2014; Heydemann and Leenders, 2011; Lutterbeck, 2012; Lynch, 2013; Weyland, 2012).”
BackgroundResultInfluential
Metadata
- Authors
- Weyland, K.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Corresponding author
- Weyland, Kurt
- ORCID
- Weyland, Kurt
- Venue
- Perspectives on Politics
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2012-12
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 917-934
- ISSN
- 1537-5927 (ISSN-L)
- 1541-0986
- OpenAlex
- W2091445573
- Semantic Scholar
- 024a79f927e3d57f32c3d96f3eae4f5a2eccddb1
- Cited by
- 333
- References
- 97
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 52 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 11
- FWCI
- 43.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Perspectives on Politics (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Arab Spring and North African Politics
- Keywords
- Arab Spring, Revolutions of 1848, cognitive heuristics, political contagion, authoritarian regimes, Tunisia, political liberalization, democratic transition, information scarcity, authoritarian repression
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