Whose awakening is it? Youth and the geopolitics of civic engagement in the ‘Arab Awakening’

Abstract

The ‘Arab Awakening’ in 2011 witnessed a series of uprisings that had many different influences and motivations, but that collectively unsettled governing and rule in the region. Amongst the influences on the uprisings are geopolitical interests and strategies on the part of international organisations and programmes that promote civic engagement and citizenship on the part of young people in the region. These programmes had multiple goals, including improving the image of the West amongst people in the Middle East who might otherwise be suspicious of the West and training young people to enact democratic change through civil society. Such programmes are often accused of importing values and practices associated with the West and of depoliticising activism. The events of 2011, however, suggest the indeterminacy of the programmes and the unpredictable ways in which youth use the skills they learned. Given this, the short-, medium- and long-term outcomes of the programmes – and indeed of the protests in 2011 – remain uncertain.