The aim of this paper is to analyse them from the perspective of the classic studies of democratisation and to describe those elements that make them distinctive from other processes of democratisation studied in the past. The center of attention of our study is the “contagion” effect of the processes of democratisation in the MENA area. Cross-border spill-over effects are not new to the studies of democratic transition. However, from this comparative perspective the study of the study of the Arab Spring process of democratisation is interesting for a unique feature that it possess. While in the classic processes of democratisation the spill-over effect was always from the politically most advanced countries to the less advanced (and this is something that happens in all the different waves of democratisation), in the case of the Arab spring movements, for the very first time in the history of the processes of democratisation, the impact has also worked from “South” to “North”. In the case of the Arab revolutions, in addition to the classic contagion to non-democratised countries (the contagion from Tunisia, to Egypt, Lybia, Syria, Yemen, Bahrein and others), there is an impact in other countries that are consolidated democracies. The influence of the Arab Spring over the Western democratic countries is both in terms of the goals of the revolution (demands for a real participative democracy) and the methods (with the use of the social networks).
In our paper we analyse in a comparative way the Arab Spring revolutions and the goals that were set and confront them with the demands generated in Western processes of democratisation since 2010, with a special focus on Spain. We will also analyse the connection of the methods used in both democratising processes by the “pro-democracy” activists in both sides of the Mediterranean sea.
