“Arab Decay”

So What’s in common between the protests in Tunisia, the explosion in Alexandria, the riots in Jordan and the political turmoil in Kuwait?

Marc Lynch offers a theory:

These four seemingly unrelated incidents over the last month all draw attention to the accelerating decay of the institutional foundations and fraying of the social fabric across many of the so-called “moderate,” pro-Western Arab regimes. What seems to link these four ongoing episodes, despite the obvious differences, is a combination of authoritarian retrenchment, unfulfilled economic promises, rising sectarianism at the popular level, and deep frustration among an increasingly tech-savvy rising generation

What’s interesting to me is the lack of any social upheavals in Lebanon that are not related to politics. Does this mean that our system of sectarian checks and balances produces a more dynamic and adaptable social fabric?