Asef Bayat

Revolution Without Revolutionaries

Making Sense of the Arab Spring

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Asef Bayat is the Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies and Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford, 2009, 2013) and Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn (Stanford, 2007).

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 312
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. August 2017
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 22mm
• Gewicht: 630g
• ISBN-13: 9780804799027
• ISBN-10: 0804799024
• Artikelnr.: 47547867

Autorenporträt

Asef Bayat is the Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies and Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford, 2009, 2013) and Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn (Stanford, 2007).

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Revolutions of Wrong Times
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 sets the broad historical and conceptual framework for
historically locating the revolutions of the new millennium, including the
Arab Spring and the Occupy movements, by comparing them to the radical
revolutions of the 1970s, notably those in Iran, Yemen, and Nicaragua. It
suggests that the Arab uprisings and the Occupy movements came to fruition
in a different historical time dominated by neoliberal norms that
disparaged the very idea of revolution, collectivist ideals, and
distributionist justice. The result was "refolution," or revolutions with a
nonradical outcome.
2Marx in the Islamic Revolution
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 shows how the revolutions of the 1970s, unlike the Arab Spring,
were informed by an intellectual component with socialist ideas as a major
element. It focuses on the Iranian revolution of 1979 in which
revolutionary ideas were articulated by Marxist and Islamic leftist
guerrilla movements, as well as the "ideologue of the revolution," Ali
Shariati. The revolution saw radical strategies and repertoires to which
revolutionary ideas lent support.
3Revolution in the Everyday
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 elaborates on the revolutions' radical repertoires and strategies
by examining the widespread shura (council) movements for grassroots
democracy and self-rule in the neighborhoods, colleges, farms, and
workplaces, focusing on the occupation of factories. With the fragmentation
of labor and the end of existing socialism, radical ideas began to lose
their clout.
4Not a Theology of Liberation
chapter abstract
Chapter 4 examines the deradicalization of political Islam, showing how the
Islamist opposition evolved from its strong anti-imperialist and social
justice propensity to embrace reformist politics and neoliberal economy. By
the time the Arab uprisings occurred, most Islamists and secular
counterparts had been conditioned by the neoliberal climate. The chapter
shows that ISIS somehow represents Islamism of neoliberal times.
5Cities of Dissent
chapter abstract
Despite the decline in revolutionary projects, popular dissent grew as
neoliberalism transformed the Arab economies and shaped an increasingly
contentious urbanity.
6Square and Counter-Square
chapter abstract
Chapter 6 examines how dissent found expression in the Arab cities' public
spaces, in particular the Arab squares, during the uprisings. It addresses
the question of what the urban locus of the uprisings tells us about their
origin and dynamics and why certain spaces, such as squares, become the
site of popular contention. It focuses on Cairo's Tahrir Square, Tunis's
Bourguiba Boulevard, and Istanbul's Taksim Square as sites of street
politics, exploring the regimes' "counter-square" strategies.
7The Spring of Surprise
chapter abstract
Although it was not unexpected that the uprisings took place in urban
areas, their sudden and fierce eruption surprised both observers and
activists. Chapter 7 explores the way in which Arab subaltern groups were
involved in discreet everyday struggles to enhance their life chances under
the shadow of an authoritarian government and neoliberal economy. They had
created their own opaque and illegible realities, "uncivil societies,"
under the radar of the state and scholars. Their struggles, often in the
form of nonmovements, assumed a collective voice once the protests began
and merged into what came to be known as the Arab uprisings. Surprise also
lay in their ideological makeup and political trajectories.
8Half Revolution, No Revolution
chapter abstract
Chapter 8 examines the particular "refolutionary" character of the Arab
Spring in Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt, discussing their promise as well as
their serious limitations in transforming into full-fledged revolutions.
The chapter argues that what transpired in the Arab world were not
revolutions in the sense of their twentieth-century counterparts but a mix
of revolutionary mobilizations and reformist trajectories. To illustrate
this, the chapter discusses the impact of neoliberal normativity on the
thinking of the political class, both Islamists and non-Islamists.
9Radical Impulses of the Social
chapter abstract
While there was little change in the structure of state power and the old
elites, things were different at the societal level. Chapter 9 shows that
the extraordinary acts of claim making by the poor, women, lower-class
youth, and social minorities in pursuit of equality, inclusion, and
recognition radicalized these otherwise nonradical revolutions.
10The Agony of Transition
chapter abstract
Chapter 10 discusses the contradictions of the postrevolutionary
"transition." It demonstrates that the subaltern struggles discussed
earlier made, in part, the postrevolutionary transition acutely
contentious, reinforcing the painful and paradoxical postrevolutionary
moments. The revolutions remained largely defenseless against the domestic
and regional counterrevolution, which in turn had a devastating impact on
efforts to achieve a just and free social order in Arab societies, feeding
into the rising disenchantment with the experience and idea of revolution.
11Revolution and Hope
chapter abstract
Chapter 11 discusses the question of despair that came to afflict so many
activists in postrevolutionary moments and concludes by exploring grounds
for hope and the renewal of a revolutionary spirit in the postArab
Spring Middle East.