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and identified the degree of “acceptable violence” that entails minimal costs in terms of international or domestic reaction.

The military’s decision as to whether to open fire or not depends in part on the size and conduct (whether peaceful of violent) of protesters, and on whether the unrest threatens the nation’s integrity. But it hinges primarily on calculations of the armed forces’ institutional interests which are largely determined by the military’s level of professionalism and political neutrality (high in Tunisia and Egypt) or, alternatively, its patrimonial links – by blood or marriage – to the ruling elite (extensive and intimate in Syria).

contingent events are also significant.

“There was something admirable about pro-democracy organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute working under difficult constraints, trying to push Arab regimes to open up, even if slightly,” writes Shadi Hamid, research director at the Brookings Doha Center.

ISIL today in many ways looks and acts like a state. In Mosul, according to reports, ISIL enforced taxes on a variety of commercial activities, including telecommunications companies that had relay towers in ISIL-controlled zones. Those who refused to pay risked abduction or murder. In Syria’s Raqqa province ISIL imposed the jizya (poll tax), the same tax the prophet Muhammad placed on non-Muslim communities in return for protection.

The prospects for the territorial re-division of the Middle East and conclusive territorial rectification of Sykes-Picot appear slim. As has long been the case among the perennially weak states of Africa, none of the relevant regional or extra-regional powers at this point have an interest in changing European-installed boundaries. But political boundaries are just the skeleton of Sykes-Picot and San Remo. At the levels of governance and political authority the colonial system has already been substantially gutted. The outstanding question has been what will emerge instead

quasi-states

the claim that Chernobyl caused a legitimacy crisis for the Soviet Union rests on sweeping causal claims that underestimate authoritarian resilience and oversimplify how complex societies really work

More than two decades after the end of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, it should be clear that authoritarian regimes can endure chronic and acute crises that rival, if not exceed, the severity of Chernobyl. After all, the Soviet Union itself had done so many times, from the famines of 1921 to 1922, 1932 to 1933, and 1946 to 1947.

Many systems endure a long time even as they produce a plenitude of lies.

If Soviet collapse was not inevitable or if we can attribute it to factors other than legitimacy or calamity, then the political importance of Chernobyl recedes. What becomes more important, then, is not the roots of instability in authoritarian countries per se but how political systems of any stripe grow brittle or susceptible to collapse—a lesson one would think Americans have learned from the past several years. Indeed, as nonprofit organization Freedom House notes, at the moment, it is contemporary democracies, not autocracies, that seem to be on the waning side as the world enters the 15th consecutive year of democratic recession.

The National Endowment for Democracy’s blog pivoted effortlessly from calling the January 2020 shootdown of a Ukrainian airliner “Iran’s ‘Chernobyl’ moment” to labeling the COVID-19 infection as “China’s biological ‘Chernobyl.’” The Atlantic Council mused (as did others) whether the coronavirus could be a “Chernobyl moment” for Russian President Vladimir Putin. An independent review panel suggested the coronavirus could be a “Chernobyl moment” for the World Health Organization—the clearest evidence the Chernobyl metaphor has become untethered from any evidence-based moorings.

Where the logic of the fable emphasizes how closed authoritarian systems promote untruths and thus engender disaster, the relatively open societies of the United States, Canada, Europe, Brazil, and now India have proved vulnerable to COVID-19, a failing that crossed ideological complexions of ruling parties and varieties of democracy alike.

the appeal of the fable is it reassures Western audiences that democratic institutions possess some natural immunity to the lies and bureaucratic dysfunction that poisoned the Pripyat marshes with radiation.

It may be true (indeed, it’s probably likely) that open systems prove more self-correcting in the long run than closed ones. Yet societies that pride themselves on being democratic are apt to overrate their own virtues—and their preparedness for disaster.

COVID-19 failures are already creating a fable in China that democracies won’t take the tough measures needed to halt disasters despite the counterexamples of Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand.

Authoritarian systems are not fated to crumble because of one or another catastrophe, and democratic ones will not avert disaster out of their own innate virtues.

constitutions are built on what's agreed upon

“I wanted to tell the Salafists that they must be - they must work under the law because the law will give them all the ability to form political parties, to work in societies, to work in mosques,” he said about the video. “What I wanted to do is to convince them to become part of the legal system, like other countries like us, like leftists or like radical groups in Germany or in Italy and Ireland, which left - which abandoned violence and now work under the law.”

Tunisian society is a Muslim society, but a moderate one. That's why there is no hope for any radical group to control the Tunisian society, because it's a society which went through a revolution against dictatorship and will not allow any group like that, even in the name of a religion

there has been a sharp increase in polarization between the Islamists and secular groups. Many secularists are convinced that Ennahda is working to undermine the country’s tradition of tolerance, especially through the apparently permissive stance it has taken to acts of violence by Tunisian Salafists, who are at once a smaller and more radical group than their Egyptian counterparts

the Leagues to Protect the Revolution. The Leagues are effectively a kind of militia, clearly now peopled by adherents of Ennahda even if not under the movement’s formal control, and they have been involved in a string of violent incidents. The most notorious of these was an attack on a regional branch of Nida Tounes last October in which the local party coordinator was killed. Chokri Belaid was among those who saw Ennahda as having created a climate of tolerance toward these attacks. In a TV interview recorded shortly before his killing, he charged Ennahda with having given a “green light” to political violence, and said that “Ennahda mercenaries and Salafists” had tried to break up a meeting of his supporters last weekend

The importance of restraining political violence between now and the next elections cannot be overstated. What happens next in Tunisia could have repercussions across the Middle East and North Africa. The European Union and other outside groups with a stake in Tunisia’s transition should send a clear and unambiguous message that turning a blind eye to political violence is incompatible with democratic principles

The problem is that the Egyptian political class, and the protestors in Tahrir, was split on the question of elections and could never form a united boycott front to push SCAF to take the elections seriously (or push for a better transition plan). There was never a credible alternative presented to SCAF's transition plan, and Islamists in particular, by endorsing the flawed referendum process, made it impossible to call SCAF's incompetence. Over the summer it was because secular-Islamist arguments squandered the attention and energy of the political class. More recently it was was in part because of the MB (although the argument that liberals wanted to postpone elections because they were afraid of the MB does not hold: the MB will do well now or in three months' time), which saw in the elections a chance to consolidate their newfound political legitimacy as well as a better source of legitimacy then Tahrir with which, should it choose to, it can confront the SCAF (assuming it does well in the elections.)

Remember that in the last 20 years most Egyptian parliaments were seen as invalid, with the state preferring to gloss over the results of lawsuits contesting results (even by the Supreme Constitutional Court) rather than accept the invalidity of successive parliaments (and hence the laws they passed.) The next parliament may be on shaky legal ground, although this will probably (as under Mubarak) be ignored for convenience's sake. Except this parliament will produce the next constitution. 

The year ahead may be full of decisions regarding the elections, and the government and parties will probably want to ignore them, subverting the rule of law for stability's sake. All because they did not spend enough time thinking their decisions through.

the degradation of the state's institution, its ability to implement (or defend) the rule of law, and the very little legitimacy the state enjoys. In global surveys, I remember seeing Egypt ranked alongside Congo in terms of "legitimacy of the state".

Egyptians deserved better than the process they got today, and they should work to get the people who put them in this position out of power as soon as possible.

When the revolutionaries have acted in concert (if not always in collaboration) with other movements, the Islamists in 2011 and former members of the National Democratic Party in 2013, that helped to create the momentum that convinces the army that it is safer for them to unseat the ruler rather than stand aside. Where the revolutionaries failed was to think through the ramifications of deploying that power.

The revolutionaries lost this opportunity, and lost it because they failed to recognize the limits of their power.

In choosing to lend their weight to Morsi's overthrow, as opposed to trying to block specific policies, the revolutionaries chose to replace a weak autocratic personality who had no choice but to operate within a basically democratic framework, and a strong autocratic system that could dispense with it.

A dynamic minority of activists can destabilize, but in doing so they only pave the way for someone else. To be a partner in government they need the kind of leverage that can only come from a nationwide mass movement, strong in the provinces as well as just the big cities.

The Islamists use religion. The Sissists have what is still the most beloved institution in the country, the army. The revolutionaries have few key symbols that resonate with many Egyptians.

o be thwarted by Washington in the quest to emulate America was depressing

an alliance between the military and Islamist forces is brewing and the military high command is doing everything in its power to wreak havoc on the streets and spread fear among a weary and apprehensive population as well as trepidation among foreign observers. The aim is to deter democracy demands indefinitely

Is Washington convinced that old policies of supporting despots are serving its interests? Would it not be better off if it places morality at the forefront of its conditions in dealing with Egypt and forges an honest and long-lasting relationship? Why can it not live with the concept that the best formula is to promote democratic values among the Egyptian people and deal with them as the proud and great people they have proved they are? Is it not playing with fire dealing with a corrupt so-called interim military council no different in its policies from Mubarak’s? It would be so refreshing to see policies in Washington being based on rational analysis and not on parochial and illogical Israeli-influenced strategy. Condoning despotism is anachronistic and invariably turns friends into monsters. Remember 9/11?

Washington must declare that the military council of Egypt is illegitimate and support the revolution unequivocally. For once, put your money where your mouth is.

low-cost organizational structure and no durable organizational mechanisms are put in place

he political evanescence of social media activism raises issues of accountability and democratic control on the new emerging leaders of social movements, because of a certain opacity that accompanies the fluidity and partial anonymity of online interactions

The political evanescence of digital activism in the Egyptian revolution needs to be understood in connection with the libertarian ideology of “leaderlessness” and “horizontality” that has provided a cultural framing for social media use among activists

it is apparent that the Egyptian revolution, as any great upheaval in history, was not completely spontaneous and leaderless. Rather it bore the mark of complex direction exercised in concert by multiple leaders, from grassroots groups on the ground as the April 6 Youth Movement, to organized forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Left opposition parties and NGOs, to end with digital activists responsible for spreading revolutionary information, recruiting online communities of supporters and publicizing protest events

While Ghonim had some basic activist experience, having done some digital campaigning in support of the presidential campaign of Mohammed el-Baradei in 2010, he was little known within activist circles. From the distance and safety of Dubai where he was working for Google, he collaborated with activists on the ground including Mohammed AbdelRahman Mansour who acted as co-admin on the page, and Ahmed Maher of the April 6 Youth Movement, the group that pioneered digital activism in Egypt. It was only after he was released from prison in the midst of the eighteen-day insurrection, that he suddenly became a famous and respected figure. Yet, Ghonim did not manage, neither he tried, to turn the great influence he had exercised during the revolution into any form of structured political leadership during the transitional phase. Ironically the Facebook fanpage he founded has discontinued its communications with a status message celebrating “the power of the people” on 3 July 2013, the day of the anti-Morsi coup. Ghonim has recently left the country for voluntary exile after a streak of attacks on the news media.

The case of Tamarrod demonstrates how the fluidity in the field of social media in the activist field, dominated by flexible groupings coordinated through social network sites can open space for opportunist groups. Both Wael Ghonim and the main leaders of Tamarrod were secondary figures in the activist scene in Cairo, despite the fact that some of them, had been previously involved in pro-democracy campaigns and in the Elbaradei presidential campaigns. Similarly to what happened with previous political groups it was a great extent this outsider aura that managed to gather so much enthusiasm from Egyptian youth. The group managed to build an extensive network across the country, collecting millions of signature (the exact quantity will remain unverified) to withdraw confidence from Morsi. However, it progressively became clear that Tamarrod was far from being simply a disingenuous and spontaneous citizens groups. It has been publicly confirmed that the campaign received substantial funding from a number of Egyptian entrepreneurs, including Naguib Sawiris. It is also reasonably suspected that the group received financial and operational support from the Egyptian army, and the so-called deep state, which saw in Tamarrod a sort of useful idiot to get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood and create a favorable climate for the coup d'etat. Since the campaign of repression orchestrated by al-Sisi and the new post-coup government, the group has been marred by intestine fight between different factions, and seems to have lost much of its “street cred” among Egyptian youth. It was yet another group falling victim of its own precipitous rise.