The Future of the Arab Spring Civic Entrepreneurship in Politics, Art, and Technology Startups By Maryam Jamshidi (Oxford, UK and Waltham, MA: Butterworth- Heinemann, 2013. 124 pages.)

Abstract

The Arab Spring, which began in December 2010, mobilized the Arab masses
to depose once-uncontestable autocratic rulers. Many observers predicted that
this regional uprising would move the Arab world from autocracy to democracy
in no time. However, the present scenario speaks to the contrary. Although
many are struggling to understand its long-term effects, one thing is
certain: This ongoing event has engendered a significant change in the people’s
sociopolitical awareness. Consequently, many writers have approached
it from various social, political, economic, and religious aspects.
The book under review seeks to examine and explore this subject
through a unique and different aspect: the contribution of “civic entrepreneurship,” defined as an innovative, non-violent, and peaceful “citizen-driven
effort to mobilize communities to respond to opportunities or crises in order
to advance the collective good” (p. 2). In its seven chapters, the author emphasizes
the revolution’s non-violent roots under three main sections: “Civic
Entrepreneurship in Politics and Society, Civic Entrepreneurship in Art and
Culture, and Civic Entrepreneurship in Technology Startups” (p. 3). The
first three chapters attempt to form the theoretical foundation for her main
argument ...