British Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring analysis

British Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring

The British government’s varied responses to the popular uprisings of the “Arab Spring” have been criticised for being inconsistent and/or selective. British actions ranged from providing substantial military support for the rebels in Libya to offering notably muted reactions to government suppression of protests in Bahrain.
On assuming office, the new foreign secretary, William Hague, suggested that Britain would have a networked approach to foreign policy with a greater awareness of the bilateral interests that Britain had with other countries around the world. This analysis offers a provisional examination of the security, economic, and societal networks that Britain holds with states in the Arab world and, in doing so, tests whether these have any correlation with the British government’s policy towards protests in the region.
The British government issued policy statements on each Arab country between 1 December 2010 and 31 December 2011.10 Predicate analysis identifies the social construction of each situation by British foreign policymakers and ascertains whether the British attitude towards the government or the protestors was positive, negative, or neutral. 
On this evidence, the British government formulated three main types of response to protests in each country: 
substantial support for the protesters; substantial support for the
regime; and no substantial commitment to either side. 
These categories summarise the British government’s overall disposition towards each situation rather than suggest British support for any particular policy.