Any debate on political culture in the Arab world, especially ten years since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, must tackle dominant assumptions that have been used by some outside observers regarding how the region does politics. These assumptions are wide and varied and range from seeing the Arab world’s political culture as tied to autocracy, to regarding sectarianism as a dominant feature of political culture in the region, to trying to understand political culture through the prism of Islamism versus secularism. These assumptions are often based on dichotomies that are not just simplistic but also anachronistic as they fail to take into account ongoing changes happening in the region. Seeing the region through the lens of such assumptions also ignores wider processes that are taking place, which have to do with the relationship between the elites and ordinary citizens and the relationship between each and the state, and the implications of this for notions of national identity and collective memory. These complex dynamics are at the heart of political culture whether in democratic, quasi-democratic or non-democratic settings.
