Abstract
This chapter aims at exploring the global dimension of the Arab Spring by focusing on the analysis of Russia’s response to these events. Overall, it argues that Russia has played the role of a counter-revolutionary power in the Middle East and North Africa region. This comes as the result of the complex articulation of several strategic and ideational factors. The region is of considerable importance to Russian elites due to its strategic, economic, and political value. However, this more material explanation is insufficient to fully understand Russian foreign policies toward the Arab Spring. It is only when we bring more ideational components relating to perceptions of governance change as a threat that one is able to get a broader picture of Moscow’s positioning and action in the framework of the Arab Spring.
Keywords
- Middle East And North Africa (MENA)
- MENA Region
- Russian Foreign Policy
- Democracy promotionDemocracy Promotion
- International World Community
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Maria Raquel Freire acknowledges that research for this chapter was conducted within the project ‘A Geopolítica do Gás e o Futuro da Relação Euro-Russa’ [Geopolitics of gas and the future of Euro-Russian relations] (GEO4GER) with funding from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-PTDC/IVC-CPO/1295/2014).
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Dias, V.A., Freire, M.R. (2019). Russia and the Arab Spring: A Counter-revolutionary Power in the MENA Region. In: Çakmak, C., Özçelik, A.O. (eds) The World Community and the Arab Spring. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60985-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60985-0_8
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