‘The people want(s) to bring down the regime’: (positive) nationalism as theArabSpring's revolution

Abstract

When and what is the nation, and nationalism, and when have both emerged in the Arab world? I suggest new ways of approaching these questions, and new answers. Revisiting the 'dating debate', I propose distinguishing between negative nationalism (rejecting foreign rule) and positive nationalism (holding 'the people' as the source of legitimacy), the latter distinctively modern, the former not. Empirically, I examine these theoretical propositions in light of the Arab Spring's dual revolution, vividly captured by its popular slogan: 'The people want(s) to bring down the regime'. I submit that the manifest revolution of toppling regimes pales in comparison with the ideational revolution of engendering positive nationalism. While the former revolution has been a huge surprise, the history of the Arab world abounds in precedents; conversely, Arab societies' subscription to 'the people' as the prime political legitimatorasserting their own inalienable political right to tell right from wrong -is novel. In that sense (positive) nationalism is the revolution of the Arab Spring, challenging both authorities and polities.

Taming self-determination: The trials of a political speech-act

“…Self-determination may be a ‘law of the peoples,’ but finding and defining the latter is elusive. In theory, peoplehood itself is a speech-act: once people speak of themselves as ‘a people,’ they become one (Abulof, 2015c). For example, returning to the exceptional case of Bangladesh, the International Commission of Jurists commented in 1972: ‘A people begin[s] to exist only when it becomes conscious of its own identity and asserts its will to exist’ (cited in Vidmar, 2009: 810).…”

‘The people want …: ’ the populist specter in the Tunisian President’s inaugural speech

“…Existing literature on the discourses accompanying the Arab insurrections has been influenced by post-Marxist discourse analysis, particularly Laclau's (2005) positive appraisal of populism as having a universal transformative power, providing counter hegemonic narrative, and constituting a move towards the enfranchisement and democratization of the Arab world (e.g. Abulof, 2015;Anderson, 2018;Aslanidis, 2017;Smaldone, 2015). Analyzing the slogan of such uprisings 'the people want to bring down the regime', Abulof (2015, p. 658) argues that the Arab uprisings could be seen as incarnation of positive nationalism which proclaims the people as the source of power and legitimacy.…”

Public political thought: bridging the sociological–philosophical divide in the study of legitimacy

“…Likewise, the unprecedented mass demonstrations in Israel, 2011, calling for ‘social justice’, and in India, 2012, demanding ‘gender equality’, went against the grain of the former's ‘cult of security’ and the latter's ‘entrenched patriarchy’. Notably, in all three cases, protestors morally reasoned why authorities and policies should transform (Abulof ; Alfasi and Fenster ). We may readily, perhaps rightly, doubt these moral motivations and criticize their suboptimal outcomes.…”