New Authoritarian Practices in the Middle East and North Africa

Edited by Ozgun Topak, Merouan Mekouar, Francesco Cavatorta

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Examines new authoritarian practices and state control in MENA countries to target and neutralise dissidents

  • Identifies the continuities and discontinuities in the practice of authoritarianism in the MENA region
  • Promotes a comparative approach when analysing new forms of authoritarian control
  • Offers an analysis of 17 MENA counties: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen

This book examines the new authoritarian practices MENA countries developed in the aftermath of the major uprisings in the region. These include new forms of digital surveillance (such as through internet, social media, and spyware), new protest policing practices, new forms of control over the judiciary, civil society and media, and new security and communication laws and state of emergencies. The book also emphasizes continuities with past authoritarian practices such as intimidation, imprisonment, torture, extrajudicial killing and ill treatment of dissidents, as well as other practices to suppress dissent and control activists, opposition parties, the judiciary and the media, under new forms and through new combinations with digitally mediated practices. It is by focusing on micro-practices of repression that this book balances the more macro-structural explanations of authoritarian persistence despite widespread social discontent and opposition.

Foreword

  1. Introduction - New Authoritarian Practices in the MENA Region: Key Developments and Trends - Özgün E. Topak, Merouan Mekouar, and Francesco Cavatorta
  2. Maintaining Order in Algeria: Upgrading Repressive Practices Under a Hybrid Regime – Islam Amine Derradji and Merouan Mekouar
  3. The authoritarian topography of the Bahraini state: political geographies of power and protest – Ala’a Shebabi
  4. Authoritarian Repression Under Sisi: New Tactics or New Tools? – Kira Jumet
  5. Deep Society and New Authoritarian Social Control in Iran after the Green Movement – Saeid Golkar
  6. Silencing peaceful voices: practices of control and repression in post-2003 Iraq – Irene Costantini
  7. Israel/Palestine: Authoritarian Practices in the context of a Dual State Crisis – Hilla Dayan
  8. Jordan: A Perpetually Liberalizing Autocracy – Curtis Ryan
  9. Libya: Authoritarianism in a fractured state – Ronald Bruce St John
  10. "The Freedom of No Speech": Journalists and the Multiple Layers of Authoritarian Practices in Morocco – Driss Maghraoui
  11. New Authoritarian Practices in Qatar: Censorship by the State and the Self - Alainna Liloia
  12. Digital repression for authoritarian evolution in Saudi Arabia – Robert Uniacke
  13. The evolution of the Sudanese authoritarian state: The December uprising and the unraveling of a ‘persistent’ autocracy – Yousif Hassan
  14. Authoritarian nostalgia and practices in newly democratising contexts: the localised example of Tunisia – Giulia Cimini
  15. An Assemblage of New Authoritarian Practices in Turkey - Özgün E. Topak
  16. The United Arab Emirates: Evolving Authoritarian Tools – Christopher Davidson
  17. Authoritarian Practice and Fragmented Sovereignty in Post-Uprising Yemen – Vincent Durac

Özgün E. Topak is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University, Canada. His degrees are from Istanbul University (BA), the Middle East Technical University (MA) of Turkey, and Queen’s University (PhD) of Canada. Dr. Topak is an interdisciplinary social scientist interested in topics of surveillance, authoritarianism, migration and human rights. He published extensively in these areas. His recent work on authoritarianism and surveillance appears in Security Dialogue and Surveillance & Society. He was awarded the 2019 Surveillance Studies Network Early Career Researcher Prize.

Merouan Mekouar is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University, Canada. Most of his writing has focused on social movements, authoritarianism and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), as well as the diffusion of social norms. His first book titled Protest and Mass Mobilization: Authoritarian Collapse and Political Change in North Africa was published with RoutIedge in 2016. He received numerous awards and grants including the Abner Kingman Fellowship, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Grant, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connection Grant, SSHRC Small Fund, York University Faculty Association Teaching Grant and the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies Seed Grant among others.

Francesco Cavatorta is professor of political science and director of the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur l’Afrique et le Moyen Orient (CIRAM) at Laval University, Quebec, Canada. His research focuses on the dynamics of authoritarianism and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa. His current research projects deal with party politics and the role of political parties in the region. He has published several journal articles and books.

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