The European Union, NATO and the “Arab Spring”

Anton Bebler

Abstract

In this paper the author analizes political upheavals in Northern Africa and the Near East, trying to investigate their causes and outcomes. The author also compared these protests to earlier Eastern European wave of liberal democratization. Social unrest in Arab countries was generated by political, social and economic problems, along with the regimes’ loss of legitimacy and oppression. The outcomes of the upheavals vary from one affected country to another. The author wanted to underline that EU and NATO had different roles in this democratizing political transformation. Whereas European Union was too passive, NATO took much more active role in this process.

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