Conclusion: Conceptualizing the International Community’s Approach to the MENA Region

Abstract

As Beck notes in chapter 1, academia (as well as institutions such as the World Bank) had identified many of the underlying causes of the Arab Spring over the past few years, but they had not sufficiently conceptualized them as a potentially imminent revolutionary event and pan-regional phenomena. What is at first empirically puzzling—the disparate effects of the Arab Spring across the region, causing existential change in some states and facilitating limited reforms in others—is to a certain extent explained by rentier theory. Increasing rent distribution, both internally (through increased spending on health and education, for example) and externally (through supporting allies and nonstate actors necessary for consolidating national security and therefore monarchical security), has played a major part in maintaining the status quo in the oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Beyond this, however, one should recognize the difference between relatively nonviolent transitions in Tunisia, versus the degree and duration of more violent struggles and clashes that have taken place in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria. Their impact on strengthening or undermining the transition process should not be underestimated. The international community has thus been left with choices to make regarding states that require specific, nuanced, and timely policy responses in order to encourage their renaissance rather than regression. So far, such responses have often been cautious, uncoordinated, and, at times, reactionary.