Five years on from Arab Spring, instability continues

FRENCH President Francois Hollande said recently that "the attacks on Islamic State will be intensified" in December following his meetings with US President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. What could now be a pivotal period for the military campaign in Syria comes on the fifth anniversary of the beginnings of the so-called Arab Spring.

Starting in Tunisia in late 2010, a wave of political activity spread out across the Arab world. This includes revolutionary changes of power in Egypt and Libya; transfer of power in Yemen; plus demonstrations and uprisings in countries as disparate as Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco and Oman.

The use of the word "Spring", with the allusions to the 1848 Revolutions and the so-called Prague Spring of 1968, was widely used initially as a positive reference indicating potentially major movement towards self-determination and opportunity in the Arab world. However, that initial hope has failed to translate into durable democratic change in state after state.

Indeed, some now use the term Arab or Military Winter instead which refers to the instability and violence in much of the region. This includes the rise of the so-called Islamic State terrorist group, and the ongoing civil war in Syria, which continues to result in massive population displacement in the region. Even Tunisia, which has twice held parliamentary elections since 2010 and remains a relative success story, is facing serious security and economic challenges.

Remarkable as the scale of the upheaval has been in North Africa and the Middle East in the last five years, it has been just one part of a broader range of exceptional economic and political fragility and uncertainty across the world.

This has been driven, in part, by the impact of the post-2008 international financial crisis.

Most eye-catching has been the political revolutions, popular uprisings and protests in emerging markets. Outside the Arab world, these developments range from the Ukrainian revolution of 2014, which resulted in the ousting of pro-Moscow president Victor Yanukovych; the Brazilian demonstrations of 2013, the largest in the country for some two decades; and the 2011 Azerbaijani protests against the government.

However, political and economic instability has not been restricted to emerging markets. Many governments in the developed world have been voted out of office, in part because of economic downturn and/or austerity measures.

DEVELOPED WORLD DISRUPTIONS

In Europe alone, millions have taken to the streets and administrations in more than half of the 27 EU states fell or were voted out of office from Spring 2010 to 2012 alone. Within the core eurozone, 11 of 14 governments collapsed or lost elections during that same two years.

Another notable feature of protest in the developed world has been the so-called "Occupy movement" which came to international prominence in Wall Street in 2011 in its campaign against social and economic inequality. The occupy demonstrations spread to around 1000 cities and over 80 countries in all continents of the world from Canada to Norway to New Zealand.

This overall, disparate range of political disruption across the industrialised and developing world has reportedly been described as "a revolutionary wave, like 1848" by Nigel Inkster, former director of operations for the UK Secret Intelligence Service. Others have compared the situation to 1914, 1968 and 1989.

Whatever the validity of these historical analogies, it is clear that there are some genuinely new factors to the post-2008 period, including the role of social media and other technologies. Moreover, this so-called "wave" of political instability has diverse origins with economic issues not the only driver.

Thus, unrest in the Arab world has often stemmed from deep-seated political and socio-economic discontent that pre-dates the financial crisis. Post-2008, however, factors including liquidity crunches, increased food prices, and unemployment spikes, have exacerbated these longer-standing grievances.

In the EU, the role of economic downturn and austerity has been central to unrest in numerous countries, especially those most impacted by the eurozone crisis such as Greece and Spain. Even here though, unrest has tapped into pre-existing disquiet with established political parties and systems, hence the meteoric rise of new parties such as the now-governing Syriza in Athens.

Going forward, a key question is whether political instability will now tail off, especially if economic growth sustains itself in much of the world in coming years.

While this is possible, there are at least two sets of factors that will continue to fuel protest and uprising in some countries.

There remains debate about how instrumental social media has been in fomenting political instability. However, whether one sees it as an essential component that translated discontent into concrete action, or accentuated what was already inevitable, indisputably it has played an enabling, mobilising role that may only grow as technology advances and proliferates.

People aged 15-24 constitute less than 20 per cent of the global population, but approximately double the percentage of the unemployed.

This puts many at risk of long-term damage to their earnings potential and job prospects, fuelling discontent.

YOUTH JOBLESSNESS

Youth unemployment in numerous countries in the Arab world is above 50 per cent. In the Middle East, the problem is acute because it has the world's biggest youth bulge comprised of increasing educated people.

Moreover, around five and a half million people in the EU aged 15-24 are unable to find work (over 20 per cent) as career opportunity structures have been swept away for too many. This has given rise to concern, including from Mrs Merkel, about a "lost generation", especially in Greece and Spain where youth unemployment has been over 50 per cent.

Taken overall, there remains significant prospect of political unrest across the world some five years on from the Arab Spring. While circumstances will vary from country to country, instability will potentially be fuelled not just by legacy of the financial crisis such as higher youth unemployment, but also longer-standing political and socio-economic discontent, to which social media is giving fresh impetus.