At a crossroads. The third year of the Arab revolutions

Resumen

The ongoing revolutionary processes in the Arab world have been analysed from many different perspectives. Among all these perspectives, there are two that stand out. On the one hand, those that emphasise the sociocultural characteristics of this region, and which sometimes take a certain �orientalist� approach. On the other hand, those that tend to subsume too easily these processes within an abstract and standard theory about modernisation and democratic transitions. While it is true that valuable contributions can be drawn from these two perspectives, both suffer from a trend towards unilateralism and formalism, however. It is therefore necessary to develop an alternative that takes account of the complexity of the social structures along with the existence of different social and political forces at stake. At this point, the contributions of Marxism are of great interest. This analysis must, in turn, be linked more closely with a theory of modernisation devoid of certain teleological and evaluative tendencies.