The Arab Spring uprisings of 2010–11 were widely viewed as a popular response to the crumbling of the social contract model that had persisted across the MENA region since the mid-20th century.
In the decade since the Arab Uprisings, governments across the region have taken diverging approaches to build resilience and restore stability and a degree of popular legitimacy, leading to new models of the social contract emerging.
This project examines three key developments shifts that are driving and defining post Arab Spring politics in the MENA region, namely governance reform and accountability, climate change resilience and mitigation, and technological innovation and the future of work.
By exploring how state-society relations have changed and in elevating regional academic perspectives on the shifting social contract, this project offers insights into how both governments and societies may respond to regional, political, economic and other developments in the future, and the implications for the stability and prosperity of the region.
The project is supported by the Carnegie Corporation New York.