Mar 07 2011
Mini-Assignment 9: Explaining Protest and Regime Change
In an article on the protests in Egypt, the U.S. director of national intelligence stated that “specific triggers for how and when instability would lead to the collapse of various regimes cannot always be known or predicted”. And while there was not a specific trigger that caused the revolution in Egypt, the Jasmine Revolution which took place just before is said to have been an indirect trigger.
The New York Times article lists the “large unmet expectations of the people; the large numbers of youth, many of them well educated but jobless; and the dynamic role of the Internet” as pressures that were building in the region long before Tunisia’s revolution. The article lists “the regressive regimes, the economic and political instability, a stagnation, the lack of freedoms,[and] the need for political reforms” as evidence that has contributed to the pressures that were building. The Telegraph also lists similar factors that contributed to the popular protests such as hundreds of thousands protestors “fed up with high unemployment, a corrupt elite and police repression”.
While the role of the Internet lead to the mobilization of protesters that caused Mubarak to step down, it’s probably the most useful to attribute the unemployment of the Egyptian youth to the cause of protesting. Many political scientists acknowledge economic factors as causes for democratization and in class today, we discussed the dissatisfaction that arises from economic inequality. This is the dissatisfaction that was felt by the youth in Egypt that created the atmosphere of mistrust between the people and the government that was not doing enough to procure employment its qualified citizens.
It seems that economic activity is a common cause outlined in many news report for Egypt’s crisis. I too believe that the convoluted issue with the problem of employment opportunities is plausible, since many of those who are witnessed in the involvement of the revolution is the younger generation that also makes up the large majority of people who are unemployed.