An uncertain future: youth frustration and the Arab Spring
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Citation
Abstract
Many scholars and media analysts have attributed the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 primarily to the desire for regime change and democracy by citizens in the region. In this paper, M. Chloe Mulderig, a 2011 Pardee Graduate Summer Fellow and Boston University doctoral candidate in anthropology who had done field work in the region, argues that cultural and economic factors preventing youth from obtaining the usual markers along the path to adulthood — quality education, secure employment, marriage and family – played a significant role in the uprisings, and that must be acknowledged. Looking at the situation through an anthropological lens, she maintains that countries that don’t begin to address the issues creating widespread youth frustration face the prospect of long-term continued unrest even as new governments are established.
Description
This repository item contains a single issue of The Pardee Papers, a series papers that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The Pardee Papers series features working papers by Pardee Center Fellows and other invited authors. Papers in this series explore current and future challenges by anticipating the pathways to human progress, human development, and human well-being. This series includes papers on a wide range of topics, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and a development orientation.
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