A comparative study of the role of the ineffectiveness of the repressive apparatus in Arab revolutions: A case study of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen

This article aims to examine the role of the ineffectiveness of the repressive apparatus in Arab revolutions of 2011. This year, the four Arab regimes (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen) collapsed one after another but others, such as Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, and Jordan, despite being faced with massive protests, did not experience the revolution. Several common factors have been effective in the collapse of political regimes in Arab world, or what is known as the Arab revolutions. This study, according to the experiences of previous revolutions and expected outcome of the revolutionary ideas, to investigate one of the most determine the causes of the revolutions, seeks to answer this question: Is the ineffectiveness of the repressive apparatus and specifically the Army, has been effective in the Arab revolutions? The results of this study by comparing four revolutionary (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen) and two non-revolutionary cases (Algeria and Morocco) with using comparative method and Mill,s difference techniques shows that The ineffectiveness of the repressive apparatus in all four cases is common and Arabic countries, despite the similarities with these countries but did not experience the revolution in 2011, these factors were absent. So the presence and absence of this factor has been determined in the occurrence / non-occurrence of these revolutions.