The Arab Spring :On mass protests and political openings

During the past decade, public resistance increased against authoritarian regimes throughout the world from the Middle East to Europe and the United States. These large-scale protests have shown that popular uprisings can overthrow autocratic leaders. The aim of this thesis is explaining how leaders react when they face a popular uprising (mass protest). In case of a demonstration, do leaders respond with democratic opening or repression? This thesis analyzes the reason why authoritarian leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria reacted differently to similar uprisings and experienced different transitional outcomes on the way to democracy following the Arab uprisings in 2011. More specifically, this thesis analyzes how leaders responded to the uprisings in the Arab countries through the Arab Spring with the goal of contributing to general theories that aim to predict leader behavior (such as embracing a democratic speech vs. using police pressure and the approach of military) in response to mass protests. The thesis argues that leaders' initial speeches can predict post-movement political environment. When leaders adopt a moderate speech and police violence against protestors is low, then there is more chance for peaceful change through a democratic election.