Technological Foundations of Political Change

Abstract: We attempt to explain why popular unrest during “the Arab Spring” have not ceased after the successful ousting of the incumbent. In our model, the next leader is drawn from the pool of citizens who participated in the protest. As people’s willingness to participate in a revolt depends on the policy platform of the incumbent and the policy platform of the expected next leader, there is a possibility of revolt that ends up with a more radical incumbent, who is more likely to be overthrown in the next period. The exogenous parameters that affect the protest dynamics include the personal cost of citizens’participation and cost of coordination, which was greatly reduced by the spread of new social media. We juxtapose the predictions of the model with the observed data of 18 countries of Arab Spring and use case studies of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Algeria.