ABSTRACT
When Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali boarded a plane for exile in January 2011, he became the first Arab leader unwillingly removed from power by popular mobilization. Tunisia’s mobilization kicked off a wider regional process that touched other Arab countries. People in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Syria rose against regimes that had repressively governed for decades. As the literature on democratic transitions argued, diffusion was a contagious juggernaut for autocrats.1 The pressure on existing autocracies suggested the older order was coming to an end. Scholars, pundits, and the media named the revolutionary wave the “Arab Spring”, which implied better days lay ahead.2 While everyone included a disclaimer that full democratization would be a long process, the analysis of events was imbued with tenets of modernization theory and references to the “Third Wave of Democratization”.3 Educated, middle-class opposition to outdated governing autocracies was expected to drive democratization.4 Yet, no transition away from autocracy occurred, with the possible exception of Tunisia.5
