Arab Winter

The Arab Winter (Arabic: الشتاء العربي, romanized: ash-shitāʼ al-ʻarabī) is a term referring to the resurgence of authoritarianism and Islamic extremism in some Arab countries in the 2010s in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The term "Arab Winter" refers to the events across Arab League countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including the Syrian civil war, the Iraqi insurgency and subsequent war in Iraq, the Egyptian Crisis, the Libyan crisis, and the Yemeni crisis including the Yemeni civil war.

The term was first coined by Chinese political scientist Zhang Weiwei during a debate with American political scientist Francis Fukuyama on 27 June 2011. Fukuyama believed the Arab Spring movement would spread to China, while Zhang predicted the Arab Spring would soon turn into an Arab Winter.

According to scholars of the University of Warsaw, the Arab Spring fully devolved into the Arab Winter in 2014, four years after its onset. The Arab Winter is characterized by the emergence of multiple regional wars, mounting regional instability, economic and demographic decline of Arab countries, and ethno-religious sectarian strife. According to a study by the American University of Beirut, by the summer of 2014, the Arab Winter had resulted in nearly a quarter of a million deaths and millions of refugees. Perhaps the most significant event of the Arab Winter was the rise of the Islamic State, which controlled swathes of land in the region from 2014 to 2019.

In 2025, multiple armed conflicts are still continuing that might be seen as a result of the Arab Spring. The Syrian civil war has caused massive political instability and economic hardship in Syria, with the Syrian currency plunging to new lows. In Yemen, a civil war and subsequent intervention by Saudi Arabia continues to affect the country.