| Summary/Abstract |
In July 2013, the cover of Time magazine announced that Egypt has both the world's “best protesters” and “worst democrats.”1 In the same month, the cover of The Economist asked, “Has the Arab Spring failed?”2 The media oscillated between euphoria over the democratic potential of “Facebook revolutions” and dismissal (or even gloating) when they did not seem to pan out. This response to the Arab uprisings is part of a broader trend. Popular accounts of mass uprisings tend to label them neatly by color (orange, green, rose) or season (spring, winter). They give an oversimplified portrait of mass mobilization as teleological: Protests are “successful” if they quickly bring about a stable democracy, and “failed” if they do not. This is often matched by a fascination over whether protesters are “like us” — by their use of social media, rejection of extremism, embrace of Europe and free markets, or hatred of dictatorship. Indeed, debates about the success or failure of mass uprisings often reflect a problematic obsession with the question of whether protesters are “ready for democracy.”
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