Siobhan Shilton (University of Bristol) The revolutions that began to sweep across countries in North Africa and the Middle East in December 2010 – like other revolutions in diverse modern historical contexts – have often …
Month: February 2022
Back to Writing but Not the Same River
Shereen Abounaga (Cairo University) In the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty first century women’s presence was conspicuous through the arts; terms like subjectivity formation and self-expression were …
Exclusion, Repression, and Ethnic Mobilization in Divided Societies: Iraqi Dissident Elites and anti-Ba’athist Resistance (1991-2003)
How do common legacies and shared histories of repression shape the mobilization calculations of dissident elites in divided societies? What factors bind and fracture consensus formation and ethnic elite bargaining during democratic openings? Focusing on …
State-led Mobilization in Iran: Organizational Infrastructure, War-time Origin, and Threats
Ali Kadivar (Boston College) When the United States assassinated General Qasem Soleymani in Iran, the correspondents, TV anchors, and viewers all were stunned by the massive turnout in his funeral in Tehran. While at the …
Online Repression and Tactical Evasion: Evidence from the 2020 Day of Anger Protests in Egypt
Neil Ketchley (Oxford University) Following the 2011 Arab Spring, autocrats have sought to limit citizens’ ability to publicize offline protests over social media. In this paper, we explore how users can adapt to these restrictions. …
New Post-Uprisings Feminist Voices in North Africa
Fatima Sadiqi (Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University) The 2010-2011 uprisings in the Maghrib were instigated by new actors, and also by the new ambiguities that postcolonial rule in the region created. After more than a …
Egypt’s #me too Movement and the Politicization of Women’s Rights amid Authoritarian Politics
Hind Zaki (University of Connecticut) Egypt is currently witnessing a moment of reckoning with sexual violence with women from different wakes of life coming forward to share their experiences with gender-based violence in the workplace, …
The Politics of the Veil
Nermin Allam (Rutgers University) The literature on contentious politics has not traditionally engaged with the politics of the veil in protest movements. In this paper, I investigate how shifts in opportunities influence women’s choices around …
Springtime of Counter-revolution
A widespread sense of ‘suspension’ and ‘impasse’ seem to overwhelm the activists in the Middle East today—a sense that whatever they do to alter the political status-quo does not yield. Why is that? In this …
The Rise of Hyperauthoritarianism under al-Sisi
Bruce Rutherford (Colgate University) The regime of Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi exhibits a deeper form of authoritarianism than its predecessor. Its distinctive features include a higher level of violence against the country’s civilian population. This paper …