RE: Social Movements and Democratization

Social movements have been extremely important to the MENA region in terms of paving the way to democratic representation. There are also many different types of states within the MENA region, and of course each social movement is going to look very different in each state. I think that in order for a social movement to work, the state itself must allow for large amounts of people to organize easily. For example, a state that heavily censors social media, it may be harder for people to organize a large social movement. In turn, social movements may be small and perhaps ineffective. It is important to have a vast amount of representation in order for a social movement to be effective, and those people must be able to organize themselves in a way that sends a clear message to the government to go forward with legitimate social change. A possible challenge to the function of social movements is how exactly to unite these people. For example, the MENA region in general is lacking nationalism, so it is hard to unite the citizens just under the belief that they are all from nation. Instead, some social movements have united based off Islam, which is strong enough in the region to have a vast influence, bring people together, all while still having an impact on the government itself to move towards social change. This are the things that unite enough people to lead to a revolution.