A little more than a decade after the Arab Spring swept away many autocratic regimes in the Middle East and plunged others into chaos, a new authoritarian order is settling over the region. Egypt and Tunisia, the first two countries to rid themselves of longtime dictators in 2011, have weathered coups that pulled them back toward authoritarianism. Sudan, which had to wait until 2018 for its revolution to succeed, has also seen its once-promising transition to democracy derailed by a coup. Meanwhile, Iran has expanded its sphere of influence across the Middle East, especially in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, while China, Russia, Turkey, and the Gulf states have increased their sway over many of the region’s weakest states. Thanks in part to these trends, President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria is being quietly eased back into the Arab fold.
This is partly a story of authoritarian backlash. Alarmed by unprecedented scenes of citizens taking to the streets to demand their rights, the autocratic regimes that survived the first wave of the Arab Spring cracked down on those who joined pro-democracy protests and offered handouts to win over those who were considering doing so. Bahrain’s promises of jobs and pay raises in early 2011 and subsequent assault on demonstrators in Manama—aided by troops from Saudi Arabia—was the first example of this approach. It was followed by far more brutal crackdowns that ended in civil conflicts in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and a mix of repression and co-optation in other countries that saw minor protest movements, such as Jordan and Morocco. Later, authoritarian leaders would claw back power in Egypt, Sudan, and Tunisia.
