Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Economics and Political Science - Department of Political Science

The year 2011 the whole world witnessed a burst of popular protests and solidarity movements that swept the whole world. Such phenomena proved that the democratic diffusion is inevitable and raised many questions on the world democratization waves. In the light of these events this thesis has a twofold purpose; the first is determining the impact of the Colored Revolutions that occurred in Eastern Europe on the Egyptian Revolution 2011 and more generally the Arab Spring to stand upon the nature of these revolutions, this is done through comparing and contrasting the most influential factors in inaugurating the change in both regions; these are the role of youth, the mobilization techniques and the role of new media. The second purpose is determining the limits of the democratization map, to respond to the contradicting statements on the existence of a fourth wave of democratization or if the third wave is still ongoing. It concludes that the Arab Spring countries were directly affected by the cases of the Colored Revolutions, furthermore, the study placed these revolutions in the third wave of democratization and negated the existence of a fourth wave

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