GEOG 1700 Lecture 17: GEOG 1700 - Lecture 17 - Part 7. Southwest Asia and North Africa
Document Summary
Geog 1700 - lecture 17 - part 7. Southwest asia and north africa: political regions. Arab spring or arab awakening in 2011. Reaction to authoritarian rule in several arab countries, corruption, and stagnant or declining economies. The region has been marked by autocratic governments, including military dictators and absolute monarchies. Autocracies were based on the need for security with respect to israel (est. West (baath party) , and more recently violent islamist acti(cid:448)ities all a(cid:396)gued to (cid:271)e rationales for restriction of democracy, freedom of speech, press, assembly, etc. Oil-rich countries seem to have less unrest, and better ability to squash civil distu(cid:396)(cid:271)a(cid:374)(cid:272)es as the(cid:455) a(cid:396)ise (cid:271)ut the(cid:396)e a(cid:396)e e(cid:454)(cid:272)eptio(cid:374)s. The future of individual countries and the arab countries as a whole is unclear. The results of the arab spring have been disappointing to those who wanted change in the region. Syria is a failed state in the midst of civil war. Libya is in the same situation as syria.
