> people-powered demonstrations seemed part of what political scientists refer to as a wave of democratization—a larger narrative about inevitable progress toward ever-greater freedom.

One could argue the opposite, that the governments around the world have only been increasing in size and power (see: surveillance has massively increased and speech is increasingly restricted), they’re not getting any smaller or more liberal, putting greater pressure on citizens freedoms. This could merely be a reaction to that, not some proactive ideological shift seeking greater freedom - just not constantly less.

There was a famous study showing that almost all the major Arab spring protests were initially spark by food prices and similar failures directly affecting peoples day to day lives, not simply changes in political world-views.

There’s also some claiming the policies of the World Bank and IMF have been a big catalyst for these “bread” riots since the 1980s. As they often pushed for greater amounts of food exports as a means of being economically self sustaining. What ended up happening was a top down movement which replaced normal food production with things like fruit popular in foreign countries and run by a bunch of mini cartels in each country backed by the elite. Which only increased the public’s dependency on gov subsidies for basic food costs as it cannibalized the farmers industry and did little to increase the average workers income.