Revolutions as Dominoes

The events in North Africa over the last two months have been a surprise to most.  Just as in 1989, when nobody could have predicted the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing collapse of European communism and its ramifications for Central and Eastern Europe, eventually the Soviet Union and more globally, the Cold War itself.  So, as in 1989, will the tremors reverberate further than the immediate region? 

One thing that all these popular uprisings have in common is that they are fundamentally opposed to long-standing leaders and their regimes.  They are not necessarily fighting against an (common) ideology, as was the case in the 1980s.  For this reason it is of interest to look at another region, which houses long-term leaders: Central Asia.

Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have leaders who have reigned since the end of the Soviet Union.  Turkmenistan would have been in the same position had former leader Saparmurat Niyazov not died in 2006, allowing the current incumbent to take office.

Given the region’s huge geo-political importance, buffered as it is between Russia to the North, China to the East, Iran to the South-West and Afghanistan and Pakistan to the South-East, with India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the periphery coupled with the enormous amount of natural resources, which are located there, perhaps more attention should be afforded to the possible relationship between what’s happening in North Africa and the political situation in Central Asia.  Political upheaval in the region has the potential to bring all of the aforesaid powers into play.

Bailouts and Nationalist Responses

It has been written that nationalistic sentiment is found when an austerity programme is introduced into a state, which intends to repay a proportion of its external debt [Rogers, 2010].  Payments are usually channelled to large (financial) institutions such as the EU, IMF or World Bank, or in some cases, foreign countries.  This was the case with regards to two particular states: Hungary and South Korea (ROK) [ibid].

However, perhaps these reactions have become a trend recently.  It has been seen of late (February 2011) how there have been large protests in Iceland, which has resulted in a rise in nationalist feeling, against repaying foreign governments, who initiated a bailout to cover losses incurred by a domestic bank.  In fact, a referendum is planned to see if, and how repayment will commence.

In 2010 it was documented how nationalist responses resulted from IMF-led bailouts in both Greece and the Ukraine.  These are interesting results.  Nationalist reactions may now be considered a sociological reality.  Perhaps the most significant signs to look for in the future would be to see if these tendencies continued within other states who have received a bailout from an external source.  Furthermore, it would be of interest to analyse the activities of nationalist parties within the aforementioned states, to guage the extent to which the bailout is used for campaigning/garnering support and funding etc.


Appendix 25/02/2011


Today sees a General Election in Ireland.  As a direct result of the IMF-led bailout of 2010, the ruling party Fianna Fáil is expected to lose power to the centre-right Fine Gael.  More significantly, Sinn Féin, a nationalist party is expected to double its amount of seats in the parliament.  Other independents are also predicted to do well, feeding on widespread anger towards all mainstream parties.