Different Reactions of armed forces to the Arab Spring and Iran revolution in 1979: A Comparative Study
Abstrakt
This paper is one part of my doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University. The analysis of the revolution of 1979 in Iran and the process of regime changes in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria during the uprisings, known as the Arab Spring, indicates that the armed forces have been one of the leading players in all these revolutionary changes.
This paper aims to offer a comparison between the process of pre-revolutionary, revolutionary and post-revolutionary changes in five countries with a focus on the role and the actions of the armed forces. It attempts to understand different behavioral principles of the armed forces and their effects on the formation and dimension of violence during the process of revolutionary change and the consequences of the changes on the armed forces.
The armed forces in these countries reacted differently to the popular uprising and protests. In a comparative study, this paper explains the different military behavior in the Arab Spring and Iran revolution in 1979.
This Comparative Study will consider six variables to examine the different responses of the armies in the five countries to the revolutionary changes: 1.The Role of the armed forces on political power and Decision-making Structure 2. The armed forces share in economic interests. 3.The armed forces relations with global and regional system. 4.Coherence and integrity within the armed forces. 5.Individual characteristics and personality of senior commanders. 6. ethnic favoritism.
According to this comparative study, I attempt to answer, the following issues: Why the process of revolutionary changes in the some of these countries leads to a collapse of the whole state structure, rather than a peaceful transition, as well as the reasons behind the increase in violence levels in these countries. How does the process of revolutionary change affect the armed forces in the post-revolutionary period? This comparative study lead to some conclusions in the analysis of civil-military relations during process of revolutionary changes including: rejection of monocausal explanations, rejection of militaries as principally unitary players, Importance of military role in power structure, side effect of coup-proofing tactics, Importance of ethnic favoritism, Importance of economic interests of the military and finally the armed forces relations with global and regional system.