February 24, 2011 – The cascading crises in the Middle East are being seen as a democratic transition and yet are raising concerns about social stability. One concern is the possibility of a transition to Iranian type theocracy. More generally, widespread violence has begun in some countries and may spread. To develop a solution to the risks of social unrest …

While many viewed the protests and revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East starting in December of 2010 as an “Arab Spring,” with a potential for a wave of democratization, our complexity based analysis published in February 2011 predicted otherwise. Not only did our analysis discount the likelihood of democratization, it anticipated a risk of power vacuums and forceful …