The 'Arab Spring' one year on

This Saturday marks a year since the end of Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade reign over Egypt. Only a few weeks before that, Tunisia’s revolution ended with the toppling of the Ben Ali regime. Since then, Libya’s and Yemen’s long-serving dictators have also been overthrown – although in more violent circumstances, and Syria is on the verge of civil war. Elsewhere, with the exception of Bahrain, the oil-rich Gulf States’ spending power has ensured that they have emerged relatively unscathed. However, although the near term prospects for the resource-poor countries are worse than the oil-rich states, we think that there could be a role reversal in the long term.