This chapter identifies ten lessons for international relations that emerge from the book.

The book argues that the success or failure of prodemocracy social movements is inextricably linked to the regional and international external environment of states undergoing transitions from authoritarian rule. The seven country cases all have experienced both coercive and noncoercive forms of external influence by regional and international actors and states. To account for cross-national variation and to capture patterns of convergence and divergence, the chapter scrutinizes the conditions and processes that motivate intervention calculations by foreign actors. It examines two forms of external influence – foreign aid allocations and disbursements, and coercive military interventions. In the absence of direct interventions, the protest movements in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt (prior to 2013) were able to develop organically. Conversely, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen experienced directly military interventions that produced more violent transitions resulting in autocratic survival or protracted civil wars and failed states.