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The Arab uprisings and the return of repression

Maria Josua & Mirjam Edel

To cite this article: Maria Josua & Mirjam Edel (2021) The Arab uprisings and the return of
repression, Mediterranean Politics, 26:5, 586-611, DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2021.1889298
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MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS
2021, VOL. 26, NO. 5, 586–611
https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2021.1889298

The Arab uprisings and the return of repression

Maria Josuaa and Mirjam Edelb
a
Institute for Middle East Studies, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA),
Hamburg, Germany; bInstitute of Political Science, University of Tübingen, Tübingen,
Germany

ABSTRACT
The Arab uprisings of 2011 led to a reassessment of comparative politics
research on authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa. The Arab
region made its way from area studies into mainstream comparative politics,
and research foci have shifted towards civil-military relations and repression.
Ten years later, we observe higher levels of repression across the region,
reflecting a diversity of repressive trends. Advocating comprehensive research
on this variation, we review recent literature that tackles various dimensions of
repression in Arab autocracies. In addition to disaggregating forms and targets
of repression, we call for its justifications, agents and transnational dimensions
to be considered next to the implications of digital technologies of coercion. We
also reflect on how repression affects the possibility of doing research and how
we can investigate the proposed dimensions of repression.

KEYWORDS Repression; Arab uprisings; Middle East and North Africa; comparative politics;
authoritarianism

Introduction
The Arab uprisings of 2011 caught researchers studying authoritarianism in
the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) off guard. Throughout the region,
citizens contested long-standing authoritarian regimes. This astonished both
observers who had propagated an ‘Arab exceptionalism’, painting Arab states
as different from other world regions and resistant to democracy, and
researchers studying the durability of authoritarianism. The mass protests
challenged arguments about the strength of incumbent governments vis-à-
vis citizens, revealing severe crises of legitimacy. The region-wide contention
in 2010/11 was an exceptional moment that has become the starting angle
for current analyses of Arab politics. Like the political liberalizations in the
early 1990s, the Arab uprisings initially triggered a wave of optimistic expec­
tations for democratization among researchers. As a meaningful phenom­
enon of global relevance, the Arab uprisings have provoked the interest of
mainstream political science. Over the past decade, the Arab region has

CONTACT Maria Josua [email protected]

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 587

gained importance for theory-building in comparative politics (CP), thus

becoming attractive beyond area studies (see the discussion of the Area
Studies Controversy in the introduction by Bank and Busse). However, this
has also been criticized by scholars from the region as ‘Academic Tourists
Sight-Seeing the Arab Spring’ (Abaza, 2011). The Arab uprisings are now cited
as one epochal wave of contention comparable to the Third Wave of
Democratization or the Colour Revolutions, elevating them to a critical junc­
ture in the sense of this Special Issue’s introductory article.
One year after the beginning of mass protests, a special issue in this journal
proclaimed, ‘it is clear that the end product of the MENA peoples’ demands
will be a more accountable political system’ (Pace & Cavatorta, 2012, p. 135).
A few years later, the region offers a more sobering picture, as counterrevolu­
tion did not wait long to arrive. Although rulers fell in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya
and Yemen, the only country where democratization has remained on track
towards consolidation is Tunisia. The trajectories of other states look less
favourable, as Egypt is under the grip of a military dictatorship more repres­
sive than ever under Mubarak. The Bahraini monarchy has also repressed
a strong protest movement with regional assistance. In the violent, interna­
tionalized conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen, statehood is failing, and besides
official security forces, militias play a significant role in killing and displacing
large parts of the population. The bulk of Arab countries somehow muddled
through under the pretence of reform, mixing some political, but mainly
material concessions with a strong crackdown on activism. Except for
Tunisia, all states display a higher degree of repression today than they did
in 2010.
In this article, we review CP research that has emerged in the context of
the Arab uprisings, with special attention to repressive variation among Arab
autocracies. We call for a comprehensive, disaggregated conceptualization of
repression, arguing that such a research focus helps understand many poli­
tical developments in Arab states since 2011. The regional dynamics corro­
borated previous findings of research on the repression-dissent nexus.
Nonetheless, empirical developments shed new light on theoretical and
conceptual assumptions (Davenport & Moore, 2012). The topic of repressive
variation among non-democratic regimes has been under-researched. Given
the pervasiveness of authoritarian rule in the MENA, the region seems parti­
cularly well-suited to advance this research agenda, which we aim to do.
The remainder of the article is structured as follows: after a brief overview
of authoritarianism research before and after the Arab uprisings, we show the
heightened level of repression across MENA states. We then outline various
repressive trends that we observe empirically in different states and review
innovative research that pushes the boundaries of previous scholarship on
repression. We distil various dimensions of repression that have emerged as
important since the Arab uprisings and that we believe to be relevant for
588 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

studying repression more generally. For this purpose, we look at established

categories of repression, such as its levels, forms, agents and targets. Going
beyond these common disaggregation measures, we propose a perspective
incorporating justifications, multiple levels of analysis and new digital tools
that authoritarian incumbents use to control their citizens. We contend that
considering these aspects can illuminate current political developments and
future dynamics across the region and beyond. We then tackle questions of
fieldwork and research ethics, as well as sources and methods for studying
repression before concluding with the lessons learned.

Research on authoritarianism and repression before and during

the Arab uprisings
By the end of the Cold War, hopes for democratization in the Arab world
imbued scholarly works, before this wishful thinking gave way to research on
actual developments in Arab politics. In the 2000s, comparative political
scientists focusing on MENA states studied the recipes for regime durability
in the region, mostly focusing on formal political institutions or elite-level
politics. Repression was assumed to be a relatively constant factor (Albrecht &
Schlumberger, 2004, p. 375). Studying political phenomena ‘beyond coercion’
was prioritized, probably because blatant political violence in the public
sphere was rare. Hence, despite the presence of systematic repressive poli­
cies, research on repression was underrepresented, with some notable excep­
tions (Bellin, 2004; Hibou, 2011).
Since 2011, CP research has tackled such puzzles as the uprisings’ motiva­
tions and triggers, the spread of protests and divergent trajectories (Yom,
2015). Mirroring empirical developments and their consequences for scholar­
ship, research foci have diversified and reconfigured (see Valbjørn, 2015; Kao
& Lust, 2017; Bank, 2018; and the introduction by Bank and Busse). Repression
made a strong return to research regarding two central topics: the protest-
repression nexus and civil-military relations. The relevance of repression as
a research topic was evident in the varying state reactions to the mass
protests in terms of policing. Military behaviour decided on the survival of
political regimes in ‘dictators’ endgame’ scenarios (Bellin, 2012) or ‘endgame
coups’ (Koehler & Albrecht, 2021), inspiring studies that brought civil-military
relations back into research. Counterrevolutionary activities by persistent
autocrats made repression even more worthwhile studying. Some scholars
date the beginning of counterrevolutions – understood as ‘collective and
reactive efforts to defend the status quo and its varied range of dominant
elites against a credible threat to overturn them from below’ (Slater & Smith,
2016, p. 1475) – to mid-March 2011, the time of the Saudi-led GCC interven­
tion in Bahrain and other instances of increased regime violence (Lynch, 2012,
p. 131). At the latest in May 2011, governments upscaled their repressive
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 589

strategies to avoid the outcomes of less fortunate autocrats (Heydemann &

Leenders, 2014, p. 87). In 2013, Heydemann predicted that Arab authoritar­
ianism would become ‘darker, more repressive, more sectarian, and even
more deeply resistant to democratization than in the past’ (Heydemann,
2013, p. 72). Indeed, in the years that followed, repression rose markedly
throughout the region, as the following section explains.

Repressive trends after the Arab uprisings

The overall rise in levels of repression throughout the MENA region is empiri­
cally evident in quantitative data from the Political Terror Scale (PTS), which
has measured the violation of physical integrity rights since 1976 (Gibney
et al., 2019). The data combining reports from Amnesty International and the
US State Department in Figure 1 show that the levels of repression in the
MENA were already rising in the late 2000s, but they jumped significantly in
2013 and peaked in 2015. Between 2013 and 2018, they remained at an
unprecedented regional high: the Political Terror Scale had never reached
similar regional scores for several years in a row.
These data strongly suggest that repression has indeed been rising in the
Arab world over the last decade.1 In that sense, the critical juncture of the
Arab uprisings was a game-changer that has lifted the level of repression in
the region to heights unknown in the last half-century. Nevertheless, this

Figure 1. Levels of political violence in the Middle East and North Africa, 1999–2018
(Political Terror Scale data).
590 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

trend mirrors aggregate data. Arab countries today exhibit a large variance in
repressive practices that is not reflected adequately in average levels. To
capture and structure this variance, we suggest distinguishing four repressive
trends in various Arab states: (1) reduced repression, (2) counterrevolutionary
upscaling of repression, (3) repression during violent internationalized con­
flicts, and (4) readjusted repression.
These empirical trajectories yield different consequences for the rele­
vance of concepts and the usefulness of theoretical arguments. In contrast
to conventional approaches that categorize cases according to how pro­
tests unfolded in 2011 and where leaders fell (e.g., Hinnebusch, 2015), our
trajectories describe the situation in early 2021 and thus present research
themes that have emerged as important for analysing the Arab region. In
this sense, we move beyond the Arab uprisings angle. The protests in
Algeria, Sudan, Iraq and Lebanon in 2019 showed that although the
wave of diffusing protests in 2011 was unique, unexpected mass demon­
strations occur outside of this contingent window. Repression is comple­
mentary to societal mobilization and thus pivotal for evaluating the
potential for and processes of (de)mobilization and (de)radicalization.
Mirroring Goldstein’s and Davenport’s well-known definitions, we under­
stand repression as

state- or government-controlled action that discriminates against persons or

organizations by the actual or threatened use of negative sanctions in the form
of direct violence and coercion or indirect and psychological forms of coercion
and intimidation in an attempt to deter specific activities and/or beliefs per­
ceived to challenge existing power relationships or key governmental policies.
(Edel, 2018, p. 20)

Repression played out differently across Arab states. Below we present four
dominant trajectories and how they relate to existing theoretical assumptions
about repression. All these trajectories point to dimensions of repression that
we discuss in more detail in the following section.
(1) In the singular case of reduced repression, the democratization
process in Tunisia brought the harsh repression of the Ben Ali era to an
end. However, the nascent democracy did not fully support the truth
commission that investigated past state violence, as old elites in parlia­
ment ended its mandate. Changes in the security apparatus were minor
and state archives were not opened to investigators. Nonetheless, the
decrease in the level of state repression has been the most dramatic
worldwide over the past decade.2 This corroborates the claim by domi­
nant research that democracies employ less repression than autocracies.
At the same time, the case suggests that legacies of the prior state
structure and security sector dampen the magnitude of the effect of
regime change on repression.
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 591

(2) In Bahrain and Egypt, a counterrevolutionary upscaling of repression has

taken place. In both countries, mass protests of unprecedented scale had
seriously challenged centres of power. Governments responded with massive
crackdowns and repression has remained on a high level, even after it
crushed oppositional mobilization. In Bahrain, about one in four citizens
took to the streets – arguably the largest per capita protests in human history
(Yom, 2014, p. 52). The confrontation with monarchical minority rule led to
a protracted uprising with harsh repression. In Egypt, mass mobilization first
prompted Mubarak’s resignation and the military establishment taking over.
With mass protests instigated against the Mursi presidency, the military
regained direct power through its 2013 coup. In both Bahrain and Egypt,
spaces for opposition and civil society have declined significantly. The ratio of
political prisoners per inhabitants has skyrocketed. Nevertheless, the two
states employ different repressive practices. For example, hundreds of
Bahrainis have been stripped of their citizenship (Babar, 2017), while Egypt
has become infamous for many forced disappearances. Overall, the upscaling
can be traced back to the magnitude of the perceived and real threat to the
regime, and the mutual dependence of powerful security apparatuses and
the regime centres.
(3) In Libya, Syria and Yemen, repression has occurred in violent
internationalized conflicts that have led to state failure and profound
transformations of political structures. The large-scale and lethal vio­
lence employed by the state apparatuses was not just a consequence of
the escalating conflict dynamics. Especially in Libya and Syria, state
repression arguably was the most important trigger of the violent con­
flicts. The repressive environments before 2011 had made the organiza­
tion of civil society in Libya and Syria virtually impossible. As citizens
revolted in the context of the region-wide uprising, state violence
triggered escalating cycles of protest and repression. Orders to violently
repress the protest movements led to splits in the security apparatus,
provoking some military officers to defect from the regime and fight
against it. In Yemen, the defection of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar
prompted a split of the armed forces. Research building on the civil-
military relations literature has shown that these splits and defections
were largely due to a specific composition and structure of the security
sector, as well as the ruling elites’ relations to (certain) military units,
police and militias. Close ties to the regime and privileging some parts
of the security sector over others are key explanatory factors for defec­
tions. Consequently, state structures broke down, violent non-state
actors assumed a large role and the conflicts were sectarianized (see
also the contribution by Valbjørn in this Special Issue), not least by
international actors.
592 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

(4) In the Arab countries where rulers or ruling families remained in power,
repression was readjusted. This was the case in Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia,
Oman, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, and Algeria and Iraq until 2019. Whether protests
in 2011 were large, small or almost absent, they never posed an immediate
threat to regime survival. Observing the transformations in other countries,
incumbents appeased protest movements through material and some poli­
tical concessions, in addition to repressing them. Over time, they introduced
more restrictive laws, legally backing repression. Almost all Arab monarchies
fall into this group (Yom, 2014), jointly with other oil-rich states that distribute
spoils along clientelist networks. The higher legitimacy enjoyed by some
monarchies made protesters more likely to demand reform instead of the
revolutionary fall of a regime.
This ties in with the general question of how governments combine differ­
ent strategies of political rule: whether they rely more on legitimation or
repression, co-optation or divide-and-rule strategies. However, an analysis of
these regime strategies should be complemented with a realistic assessment of
their success. The uprisings in Libya and Bahrain show that a mechanistic
ascription of stabilizing power to either oil or monarchism does not hold.
Likewise, one could regard some readjustment strategies as authoritarian
upgrading (Heydemann, 2007). However, in view of lessons from 2011 as well
as recurrent protests, we should not assume that all upgrading is sophisticated
and ensures regime durability; rather, the consequences of regime strategies
need to be assessed empirically in terms of implementation and possible side
effects.
As noted, the breakdown of state structures is one central outcome of the
political developments in 2011. Thus, it seems important to bring the state
back into research, complementing the previous focus on regime structures.
Crucially, regime and state breakdown did not always coincide: while the
regime in Tunisia broke down but left statehood intact, Syria saw a continuity
of regime agents and practices in the face of state breakdown (Heydemann,
2018; Schlumberger, 2016). It is important to ‘distinguish more carefully
between “regime” on the one hand and “state” on the other’
(Schlumberger, 2016, p. 37) in order to grasp the political realities ten years
after the uprisings and to analyse the prevailing repressive trends, as char­
acteristics of the state, regime and challenge jointly shape the features of
repression (Josua & Edel, 2015).

What to study: Dimensions of repression since the Arab uprisings

Across the Arab region, incumbents increased and/or modified their
repressive practices, showing that one of the few law-like relationships
in political science also applies in the Middle Eastern context: the higher
the threat perception by incumbents, the more repression they employ
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 593

(Davenport, 2007). The Arab uprisings not only provoked immediate

crackdowns but also evoked a sustained feeling of insecurity among
powerholders. The latter imposed new restrictions trying to compensate
for the severe crises of legitimacy, of which the uprisings were sympto­
matic (Josua, 2017). Rather than striving for new social contracts in
order to overcome these crises and regain legitimacy, most incumbents
have intensified repression in order to stay in power. This partially lies
in the natures of regimes that display neo-patrimonial features and thus
make pacted transitions unlikely (Stepan & Linz, 2013). Besides their ‘will
to repress,’ strong security apparatuses make for a high ‘capacity to
repress’ (Bellin, 2004, 2012). Where this is not the case, external actors
are often willing to help out and support incumbents, financially or
militarily.
The overall rise in levels of repression in Arab states is an insight in
itself. Still, the quantitative level alone provides only limited information
on political dynamics. An exclusive focus on aggregate numbers
obscures the variegated forms that acts of repression can assume.
Acknowledging repressive variation is important because of its diver­
ging consequences. Researchers sometimes study the consequences of
repression with a perspective of an over-simplified dichotomy of deter­
ring vs. radicalizing effects. However, the conditions under which
repression occurs are decisive (Opp & Roehl, 1990, p. 523), as the effects
of repression are highly contextual. Often the main effect on opponents
is tactical shifts (e.g., Grimm & Harders, 2018; Taylor & Dyke, 2004).
Furthermore, short- and long-term consequences can differ considerably
(De Jaegher & Hoyer, 2019). Thus, while it may seem tempting to
hypothesize one dominant effect of repression, past research has pro­
ven that such an approach does not lead us very far. Since repression
has more complex effects than previously imagined (Sullivan &
Davenport, 2017), our conceptual tools and theoretical approaches
need to resonate with this empirical reality. Thus, currently emerging
trends acknowledging the importance of microlevel dynamics in dissi­
dent movements and disaggregating characteristics of repression –
which are at the centre of this article – represent a promising way
forward.
Below, we present various issues related to repression that have
emerged as important since the Arab uprisings and that have received
attention by scholars in both North America and Europe alike.3 To grasp
the variance of repression in the region, we propose taking several
dimensions into account. After discussing consequences of repression
in the current regional context, we delineate not only the traditional
categories of forms and targets of repression, but also its justifications,
visibility, agents and its extension beyond borders and into the digital
594 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

sphere. Manifold links between these aspects invite a rethinking of

research foci, concepts and categories, and a cross-fertilization of
research approaches.

Consequences of repression
Studying the effects of repression is paramount for understanding the
dynamics of political contention. The consequences of repression also include
medium- and long-term effects. However, only ten years after the Arab
uprisings, long-term effects of heightened repression are yet to be observed.
While some recent research has pointed to medium- and long-term effects of
repression such as polarization (El Kurd, 2019; Nugent, 2020), most of the
relevant literature deals with short-term effects.4 The forms, levels, and
degree of indiscriminateness evoke different reactions by protesters that, in
turn, shape regime responses. For instance, brutal repression has at times led
dissenters to shift their tactics towards more violence, as in Syria in 2011/12.
Similarly, in Bahrain, some low-scale insurgency activities were reported
between 2012 and 2017. In other cases, the opposite was true, and higher
levels of repression crushed the opposition. For example, Egyptians have
remained largely non-violent (except for contention on the Sinai) since
2013, downscaling protests to more flexible and decentralized forms
(Ketchley, 2017, p. 141).
In the counterrevolutionary and persistent autocracies, repression had
some short-term ‘success’ in containing dissent. However, possibilities for
future protests remain. Though facing more obstacles, some demonstra­
tions have occurred under harsh repression. Examples include protests in
Egypt against the sale of islands to Saudi Arabia; and even in war-torn
Syria, unfaltering citizens in Idlib protested against the regime in 2019.
Massive teachers’ strikes in Jordan in the fall of 2019 and frequent socio-
economic unrest related to oil or food prices epitomize the tendency to
mobilize for single-issue topics (see the article by Weipert-Fenner in this
Special Issue). Thus, even after protests seem to be pacified, authoritarian
incumbents can never be sure of their grip on power.
Repression may result in higher mobilization of peaceful protesters and
even trigger violent responses. Such a backlash originates from dynamics on
the microlevel, namely bystanders and activists feeling anger or outrage over
use of violence that they perceive as disproportionate or unjust. These emo­
tions spur mobilization even in high-risk settings, as shown for Egypt under
El-Sisi (Ayanian & Tausch, 2016). For example, the lethal violence that Algerian
security forces employed against mass protests in 1988 led to a backlash
resulting in political liberalization, free elections that were then aborted, and
finally civil war.
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 595

In order to understand such varying consequences of repression, it is

crucial to pay attention to its contextual characteristics. We support the
growing scholarly consensus that the targeting and forms of repression
are important in this regard. Our own contribution is a call for also
considering justifications, visibility and agents of repression. These factors
determine how repression is perceived, which, in turn, shapes reactions
to it.

Forms and targets of repression

A common way of disaggregating repression is to look at its forms and
targets. As mentioned, in protest policing it makes a great difference whether
security forces employ lethal repression or not. We distinguish between three
different forms of repression: constraining, incapacitating and eliminating
repression, which differ in their effect on the direct targets. Measures to
constrain challengers range from subtle to grave restrictions of civil liberties
as well as various forms of physical harassment that leave some room for
manoeuvre. By contrast, incapacitating and eliminating repression comple­
tely forestall the targets’ capacities to continue their activism. Incapacitating
repression mostly takes the form of imprisonment, house arrest, exiling and
temporary disappearances, whereas eliminating repression results in the
target’s death. For example, in 2019, the governmental reaction to protests
in Algeria largely took the form of constraining repression through preventive
tactics such as cutting off access to protest sites and moderate policing.
Security routines in Iraq differed markedly, as security forces employed lethal
force, killing hundreds of protesters. Despite a similar challenge in these two
republics, the patterns of repression displayed remarkable variance. Besides
the type and level of the challenge, state resources and preferences, regime
characteristics and past experiences thus influence the choice of certain
forms of repression (Josua & Edel, 2015). Although monarchies used less high-
intensity repression (Yom, 2014) in line with established findings, they display
wide variation (Lawson & Legrenzi, 2017). To explain the impact of regime
types, the proposed distinction between incapacitating and eliminating
repression could be helpful.
Constraining repression is reconfigured across the region, as legal frame­
works have become much stricter.5 For instance, Gulf states increasingly strip
dissidents of their citizenship (Babar, 2017). Restrictive laws with broad
definitions of offences pave the way for the arbitrary repression of regime
opponents that is now enhanced through ‘legality.’ Thus, repression is prac­
ticed more openly, while international actors such as the US government
have toned down their criticism of human rights violations.
The targets of repression vary according to whom incumbents perceive as
a threat. They may be dissidents or protesters, but also members of certain
596 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

ethnic, cultural or sectarian communities, ideologically defined groups such

as secularists, communists or Islamists, and intellectuals or academics.6 With
the electoral victories of Muslim Brotherhood parties in numerous Arab
states, their opponents tried to push back by outlawing the organization as
such (Darwich, 2017). This move has been successful in some states but not in
those where the groups have been historically more embedded in societies
and integrated into the political systems. In virtually all states, journalists and
bloggers have increasingly been restricted by legal frameworks.
Whether repression is targeted or indiscriminate is an important distinc­
tion that shapes the consequences of repression. Lawson and Legrenzi (2017)
showed that to explain different repressive outcomes in Gulf states we need
to analytically distinguish between the level of repression and its degree of
indiscriminateness. As Blaydes (2018) found for Iraq under Saddam Hussein,
targeted repression is often used when surveillance capacity is higher.
Nugent (2020) demonstrated that targeted repression led to the polarization
between groups and thus hindered co-operation among the opposition in
Egypt, while indiscriminate repression in Tunisia laid common ground that
later enabled co-operation among political forces during the transition. The
extent to which repression is targeted is also important in relation to digital
techniques of repression, which we discuss below.

Justifications and visibility of repression

Highly visible forms of repression attract the attention of the broader popula­
tion and sometimes even alert the international community. Anti-regime
mobilization on the domestic level, or shaming and sanctions on the inter­
national level, are likely consequences. To avoid such backfire scenarios,
incumbents often try to either justify repressive acts or decrease the latters’
visibility: They hide their repressive measures from the public or put forward
rhetorical or procedural justifications to influence how the former are per­
ceived (Edel, 2018). This can take the shape of securitization (Pratt & Rezk,
2019). Scartozzi (2015) demonstrated how the changing narrative in Syria
influenced popular support for the regime in the early years of the civil war.
Autocrats often frame dissenters as enemies of the state, as was the case in
Egypt when Muslim Brotherhood supporters were massacred after the 2013
coup (Edel & Josua, 2018).
Such rhetorical framings can be backed by arguments about legality.
Linking back to legislation shrinking spaces for societal organization and
free expression, governments use their discretion to claim illegality and
forestall activism (Josua, 2020). Declaring that dissidents or groups operate
illegally and should be shut down on legal grounds is a powerful tool in the
hands of autocrats, not least towards external observers. Incumbents often
claim that protesters are criminals to hinder larger mobilization or sympathy
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 597

among the larger population. Another popular frame is to accuse opponents

of being terrorists (Josua, 2020). The nascent research areas of judicial repres­
sion and justifications widen the common focus of repression research to go
beyond protest policing.

Agents of repression: Bringing civil-military relations back in

Kao and Lust called for considering human agency more in the study of
Middle East politics (2017). While we deem structures as essential in fostering
(and, importantly, foreclosing) political dynamics, we concur that agency is an
essential factor, also with regard to repression.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the heydays of military coups in Arab
republics, the relevance of the military was obvious to analysts of the region.
More recently, only a few scholars have studied coup-proofing strategies
(Kamrava, 2000) or military elites. Since 2011, however, militaries have re-
emerged as critical actors. Stacher argued that ‘[t]he Arab uprisings’ most
visible product to date has been the militarization of politics and societies’
(Stacher, 2015, p. 260). The crucial point in every uprising was how the
endgame questions were answered, namely ‘would the military defect?’
and ‘would the military shoot the protesters or not?’ (Bellin, 2012, p. 130).
Thus, Albrecht (2015) suggested reconsidering the effectiveness of coup-
proofing.
When studying political violence, it is essential to consider the whole
security sector rather than the military only (Santini & Moro, 2019).
A nuanced analysis situates the military within the structure of the security
apparatus, including militias, police and gendarmerie forces, as well as intelli­
gence services. Forces other than the regular military often shape outcomes,
mirroring conflicts within the security apparatus. In the case of Tunisia, for
example, the interplay between police forces, presidential security and mili­
tary was decisive for regime breakdown (Holmes & Koehler, 2020). The
growing political power of security forces, such as the police (Abdelrahman,
2017), and the balancing of different security institutions are consequential
(Albrecht et al., 2016; Springborg, 2016). Disenfranchised branches are more
likely to defect from the ruler by refusing to engage in repression, depending
on their corporate interests and composition in terms of recruitment patterns
(Grewal, 2019).
Beyond state agents, repression by militias and thugs merits attention. In
some contexts, such as Iraq, no state actor has a full monopoly on the use of
violence. The brutal repression of protesters by security forces and militias in
2019 and early 2020 corroborates claims in the literature that extrajudicial
killings become more likely when militias are involved (Mitchell et al., 2014).
In other instances, the deployment of non-state actors is part of the elites’
598 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

calculus to decrease the visibility of violent repression and to deny

responsibility.
Business interests also influence the armies’ behaviour, as they are often
powerful economic actors. Conversely, business elites are involved in vio­
lence, financing repression not least by bankrolling non-state actors. While
the role of Gulf businessmen funding jihadist groups in Syria and elsewhere is
well-known, private entrepreneurs paid thugs to attack demonstrations in
Cairo, notably in the infamous Battle of the Camel in February 2011 (Ketchley,
2017, p. 66). When studying elite shifts (and continuities) throughout the
region, the intertwinement of armies and business thus deserves special
attention (Grawert & Abul-Magd, 2016).

Transnational and subnational repression

While leaders on the national level often order repression to preserve their
rule, it is vital to acknowledge the roles both transnational and subnational
dimensions of repression play. In violent conflicts with foreign interference,
international actors are important in terms of aiding repression, boosting the
capacities of militaries and militias. Beyond the context of violent internatio­
nalized conflicts, security services have extended their reach to the transna­
tional environment to target dissenters (Tsourapas, 2020). Moss (2016)
described how Libyan and Syrian diaspora populations in the US and UK
experience transnational repression. Yom (2016) highlighted cross-policing,
with security apparatuses prosecuting dissenters in other Gulf monarchies.
Further repressive practices also diffuse across the region (Bank & Edel, 2015;
Darwich, 2017; Josua, 2020). On the individual level, tracing a single ruler’s
learning from negative examples in other countries and subsequent strategic
decisions can offer interesting insights, as Leenders' (2013) study of Syrian
decision-making demonstrates. Thus, it is worthwhile studying repression
within a region from the perspective of recent research on international
learning, diffusion and cooperation of authoritarian regimes.
Besides the transnational dimension of repression, its sub-national level is
increasingly being considered. Numerous scholars have pointed out the
disparities within states, with protests emanating from disenchanted periph­
eries. Thus, the provinces are important sites of mobilization and offer reality
checks of policies made in the capital (Schwedler, 2012). Likewise, the forms
of repression that governments choose, as well as the visibility and impact of
coercion, also depend on the location within a given country. This effect can
go both ways, increasing lethal repression in the countryside where visibility
is lower, or in the capital where the symbolic value of protests and sensitivity
are higher. In Cairo, for example, the securitization of public spaces depends
on their strategic importance, and sites of protest shape interactions between
dissidents and security forces (Ketchley, 2017: 145ff.).
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 599

Digital tools and repression

Many initially hailed the Arab uprisings as examples of social media-
supported civic self-empowerment, and research investigated how Internet
usage facilitated protests. Over time, however, governments have learned to
exploit the manipulative potential of digital tools. Digital repression connects
to and cuts across the aforementioned dimensions of repression. Digital tools
are used for repressive ends in two ways. First, digital repression is a form of
repression in and of the digital sphere, via the censoring of web contents or
the denial of access to Internet services (to individuals or collectively). In that
narrow sense, it is part of constraining repression. Second, the use of digital
tools can enhance offline forms of repression; that is, it serves as a way of
economizing other forms of repression by employing them in a more tar­
geted way. Beyond state actors who are involved in digital repression, private
transnational actors play an enabling, if not critical, role.
While some Arab countries have always fundamentally constrained activ­
ities in the online sphere, their regional neighbours have followed suit since
the Arab uprisings. The Freedom of the Net index substantiates this claim
when comparing data from the 2011 and the 2018 reports. On a scale from 0
(full freedom of the net) to 100 (worst restrictions on the net), Saudi-Arabia
moved from 70 to 73, while severe drops were seen in Egypt (54 to 72) and
Bahrain (62 to 71). Widely used tactics encompass the full range of digital
repression, from censoring specific contents to complete Internet shutdowns
and surveillance practices supported by artificial intelligence. During the 2011
protests, for example, Bahraini authorities actively used social media to
monitor the population, censor activists and spread propaganda. Tactics
ranged from information gathering to trolling the ‘disrupted social media
space by assimilating it as part of the regime’s surveillance apparatus’ (Jones,
2013, p. 82). In the context of the 2017 Qatar crisis, allegedly false news
implanted onto a website was the pretextual trigger of the boycott by the
UAE, Saudi Arabia and others. The ensuing propagandistic media onslaught,
led by the latter states, was intensified with Twitter bots (Jones, 2019). During
the 2019/20 protests in Iraq, Internet access was frequently shut down, and
‘nightly internet curfews’ were introduced. Most Internet providers blocked
prominent social media channels like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and
Instagram for almost two months.7 Similar practices prevail throughout the
region.
Tech companies and governments outside the MENA region often
facilitate digital repression. Already before 2011, regimes bought digital
surveillance software from Western firms.8 Private tech companies with
headquarters located in democratic countries struck lucrative deals with
authoritarian governments that enabled thorough repression through
pervasive surveillance and control. An example is the UK-based Gamma
600 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

Group, which has distributed surveillance software to multiple countries

in the region since 2010.9 While some countries have outlawed the sale
of programs that obviously serve domestic repression, more innocuous
Western firms such as Google and Twitter are also complicit in coop­
erating with autocratic governments, providing user data to them and
censoring content upon request. Thus, the digital dimension of repres­
sion is closely intertwined with questions of actor constellations and
transnational assistance.
Digital tools not only offer an additional layer of repression that
pervades spheres perceived as private. They also impact on offline repres­
sion, enhancing the repressive capabilities of authoritarian governments.
Emerging research asks whether digital repression influences the balance
of repressive tactics. It has been suggested that digital repression com­
plements rather than substitutes ‘traditional’ repression (Frantz et al.,
2020). There is evidence that digital surveillance can change the forms
of repression. In Syrian regions with higher Internet penetration, regime
violence is employed in a more targeted way, while repression is indis­
criminate elsewhere (Gohdes, 2020). Digital repression also enables trans­
national repression, as states control and harass their critical citizens
living abroad through online means (Moss, 2018).
Thus, digital tools provide new channels to collect information and to
disseminate and manipulate narratives, and new areas where constraining
repression is used. However, repression of the online sphere does not sub­
stitute for incapacitating and eliminating forms of repression. In the reasser­
tion of authoritarian self-confidence, repression sometimes escalates, as the
assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi shows. Saudi authorities had
accessed conversations between Khashoggi and a fellow dissident, whose
phone (besides others) they had infected with spyware.10 This use of digital
tools preceding a killing epitomizes the close connections between digital
and other forms of repression.

How to study repression

The heightened repression since the Arab uprisings has repercussions on the
practical level of doing research. While repression as a phenomenon needs to
be studied, gathering data on such a sensitive topic is never easy (Clark &
Cavatorta, 2018). At the same time, repression is the prime reason why
conducting political science research in the MENA in general has become
riskier in recent years. Repression has inter alia targeted academics, deterring
scholars from tackling certain topics and impeding the possibility of doing
fieldwork. This has consequences for the ways in which researchers can
conduct their work in the first place. In line with the third key issue Bank
and Busse identify in their introduction to this Special Issue, below we
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 601

describe the ethical and practical difficulties that MENA researchers encoun­
ter in general and when working on repression in particular, before laying out
some remedying research strategies.

Conducting research in repressive environments

Political scientists conducting research under conditions of authoritarianism
face distinct challenges. Most facets of academic freedom, such as the free­
dom of individual scholars, independence of research institutions and cam­
pus integrity, are precarious in autocracies (Spannagel et al., 2020). This
becomes even more relevant when repression itself is the object of study.
The high sensitivity of the topic and challenging access to data complicates
the study of issues related to repression. Consequently, scholars often self-
censor their choice of topics and cases, as conducting research would put
interlocutors and themselves at high risk.
The Academic Freedom Monitoring Report by the Scholars at Risk network
reports 255 incidents of academic freedom violations in the Arab MENA states
since early 2011, including 88 cases of killings, violence or disappearances
and 80 cases of imprisonment.11 In Egypt, for example, ‘21 extrajudicial kill­
ings and 1,181 student arrests’ have occurred, and universities are treated ‘as
military facilities that fall under military jurisdiction’ (Saliba, 2018, p. 315).
Everywhere, the red lines of what is permitted have become less clear against
the backdrop of nervous security apparatuses. Thus, field research has
become nearly impossible in many parts of the MENA, particularly in counter­
revolutionary states and those mired in violent conflict. Interlocutors are
afraid of negative repercussions or suspicious of foreign interference. When
researchers take ethical considerations seriously, the current situation fore­
stalls many avenues of research to preserve the safety of researchers and their
collaborators and respondents.
High levels of repression especially affect scholars living and conducting
research in the respective countries. This is most concerning for citizens of
MENA states, who are threatened, jailed, or convicted, sometimes in absentia.
Regarding research on sensitive topics such as repression, scholars from
outside the region have appeared less vulnerable to reprisals by the states
they study.12 However, even international researchers have come under
attack during their field research, notably two PhD candidates based in the
UK. Most unsettling to the research community was the torture and killing of
Giulio Regeni in Egypt, who had studied independent unions, on the fifth
anniversary of the January 25 Revolution. Furthermore, the UAE convicted
Matthew Hedges, who was researching the Emirates’ national security strat­
egy, of spying and jailed him, with several months spent in solitary confine­
ment in Abu Dhabi. Such outrageous treatment of scholars sent strong
deterring signals to researchers all over the world to either abandon their
602 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

research topics or to avoid travelling to certain countries. The old perception

that Western passports somehow protect scholars has been shaken up. As the
red lines are less clear and governments feel more threatened, fieldwork is an
endeavour that many scholars may find too risky. At the same time, local
researchers are in even greater danger, as repression might adversely affect
their physical wellbeing, reputation, livelihoods, and families (Ryzova, 2017,
p. 511).
In the current repressive environment, conducting comparative research is
particularly precarious. As different levels of sensitivity prevail in various Arab
states, what can be studied in one country is impossible in the next. When
research on the ground is possible, scholars who are new to the field in
particular must rely on advice by experienced colleagues on how to minimize
risks, how to frame research projects towards interlocutors and the autho­
rities, and how to act when interacting with security apparatus (Clark &
Schwedler, 2018).

Sources and methods for studying dimensions of repression

The obstacles outlined above notwithstanding, there are multiple pos­
sible sources and research strategies at hand for studying various
dimensions of repression. For investigating levels, forms, and targets
of repression, reports from human rights organizations are a good
starting point. Conducting interviews with dissidents and other victims
of repression is mainly possible in former autocracies (Nugent, 2020). In
other cases, exiled citizens can narrate their experiences, offering vital
insights into the consequences of repression (Pearlman, 2017). Shedding
light on the actors, Grewal (2019) conducted the first survey of retired
military officers in Tunisia. Apart from conventional written and oral
sources, videos documenting repressive incidents have become
a resource of transparency ever since the killing of Khaled Said, which
was the trigger for mobilization in Egypt in 2011. Videos are also
important for investigating state crimes, as the Syrian Archive epito­
mizes (Deutch & Habal, 2018). Open-source documents that are freely
accessible offer novel possibilities for research. For studying historical
instances of repression, it is insightful to consult archives, memoirs, and
biographies, as scholars did for the cases of Iraq or Syria (Blaydes, 2018;
Bou Nassif, 2020). Through recent advancements in data collection,
event data have become more sophisticated and can sometimes be
helpful, especially when multiple datasets are integrated (Donnay
et al., 2019). However, Arabic news outlets are under-represented in
cross-country event datasets, and the further development of quantita­
tive text analysis for Arabic media is overdue (see the contribution by
Weipert-Fenner in this Special Issue). Justifications of repression can be
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 603

studied with document and speech analysis (Edel & Josua, 2018). To
demonstrate the microfoundations that underpin the after-effects of
repression, El Kurd (2019) and Nugent (2020) conducted lab experi­
ments in the West Bank and Tunisia, respectively.
Digital tools can only partially remedy decreased access to the field, as the
online sphere underlies the restrictions sketched out in the section before,
and both ethical and cybersecurity questions need to be considered. Self-
censorship and social desirability affect the collection of data online when
online surveillance is high. Nevertheless, social media (meta-)data and Twitter
posts by both government and opposition are valuable, if not representative,
sources (Jones, 2013). A significant advantage of social media data is that it
provides detailed, unobtrusively collected information. Within certain limita­
tions, online surveys offer unprecedented and time-sensitive access to certain
groups. For example, Ayanian and Tausch (2016) conducted an online survey
of Egyptian activists promoted via Facebook and Twitter during a phase of
intense contention.
Triangulating sources and employing multi-method research designs to
corroborate results should be the gold standard, especially when sources
include data gathered online (Monier, 2018). While collecting data on repres­
sion remains difficult, recent research has shown that there are innovative
ways to make sense of what is happening. Should the trend towards higher
repression recede in some countries, previously untapped sources might
emerge so that we can, at some point, scrutinize the dimensions and impact
of repression more thoroughly.

Lessons learned
With the Arab uprisings of 2011, the sustained crises of legitimacy in
many states in the region developed from latent to open, manifest
conflicts between political elites and opposition forces. Instead of
renewing social contracts and regaining legitimacy, governments have
resorted to higher levels of repression and reconfigured it in all Arab
countries except Tunisia. We have reviewed and discussed recent
research that has analysed repression in the MENA region and call for
investigation not only of the levels, but rather the specific characteris­
tics of repressive measures. Oversimplified analyses of causes and con­
sequences of repression often blur our understanding of political
dynamics more than they illuminate them.
Time will tell whether the current high level of repression in Arab states is
a temporal or a permanent feature. Many regimes had some ephemeral
‘success’ in containing dissent, but compensating low levels of legitimacy
with repression may only lead to temporal regime durability rather than
actual ‘stability.’ As conditions and motivations for large-scale mobilization
604 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

linger, dissidents adapt to repressive environments with tactical shifts. The

2019 dynamics in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon demonstrate that the
Arab world is anything but immune to large-scale protests. Without some
form of limited pluralism as a safety valve and responsiveness to political and
economic demands, the narrowing of boundaries could lead to new revolu­
tionary situations. Unexpected factors might become influential as ‘there is
now a widespread feeling that everything is potentially political’ (Valbjørn,
2015, p. 229).
The increased repressiveness in the Arab world mirrors global developments.
The features and mechanisms we have described are not unique to the MENA
region, but are observable elsewhere as well. This global trend is an argument
against Arab exceptionalism and for studying MENA developments using gen­
eralizable theoretical approaches. There has been a surge of repression in many
other states, especially in the context of protests, as in Belarus, Chile, Hong Kong
and Venezuela. These cases also highlight that opportunities for achieving real
and lasting democratic change often remain limited even in the face of large
mobilization, as in Egypt and Bahrain in 2011, or in Algeria and Iraq in 2019/20.
Around the globe, a climate of fear coincides with a toning down of human rights
discourses and a sense of impunity for powerholders. Against the backdrop of
digitalization and citizens’ empowerment through social media, states have
employed new digital tools for repression. This poses serious challenges for
oppositional activities but also for researching repression.
Therefore, tracing repressive dynamics within Arab states is increas­
ingly vital to draw lessons for other world regions. Our MENA insights
recommend cross-fertilizing protest-repression research with literature on
non-violent resistance, civil-military relations and authoritarian rule, as
well as engaging more systematically in cross-regional comparisons
(Bank, 2018). Insights into psychological micro-level mechanisms could
also be a promising way forward. Tapping into innovative strategies of
data collection and analysis may partly compensate for the difficult
research situation on repression.
Our discussion shows that it is important to differentiate forms, targets,
agents and justifications of repression in order to better understand varying
dynamics and consequences. We stress multi-level analyses of transnational
and subnational aspects of authoritarian strategies and the integration of
digital tools, legal foundations and framing of repression. Many of the most
pressing and interesting research puzzles lie at the intersection of more than
one dimension. It is only through the processes of disaggregating repression
and rethinking concepts and categories that we can get to the bottom of causal
relations and mechanisms.
We propose that future research on repression, both in the MENA region
and globally, should focus on three interplays. First, underlining the ‘nonmo­
nolithic nature of regimes’ (Chenoweth et al., 2017) and the importance of
 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS 605

regime type, we recommend studying the interplay of mobilization and

regime constellations, taking (regime) agency more seriously. Second, we
call for bringing the state (back) in once again by differentiating between
state and regime. Considering the whole security sector and militias and
factoring in state capacities and path dependencies of state institutions
helps to make better sense of repressive outcomes. Third, repression as
a strategy of power maintenance interacts with legitimation strategies, but
they do not linearly substitute one another. Rather, repression itself is latently
in need of legitimation, making rhetorical justifications and legal foundations
of repression a significant future research area.

Notes
1. To some extent, this mirrors the violent conflicts in the region. When we
exclude data for the war-torn countries Syria, Libya and Yemen, the level of
repression peaks in 2013–2014.
2. According to the V-Dem Indicator, which measures how strongly civil society
organizations are repressed (‘CSO Repression’), the Tunisian score improved from
1.14 to 3.47 points between 2010 and 2018 on a scale from 0–4, 4 signifying
absence of CSO repression (https://www.v-dem.net/en/analysis/VariableGraph/).
3. Researchers from the region figure less prominently in pertinent literature,
not least because they are directly affected by such policies; see also the
section on conducting research in repressive environments below.
4. Other consequences of repression include international reactions such as
sanctions and economic effects, which are beyond the scope of this article.
5. For example, the score of all Arab countries measured in the Rule of Law Index
of the World Justice Index dropped between 2015 and 2019 (https://worldjus
ticeproject.org/our-work/research-and-data/wjp-rule-law-index-2019#&gid=
1&pid=2).
6. See also the section on conducting research in repressive environments below.
7. https://netblocks.org/reports/social-media-partially-unblocked-in-iraq-after-50-
days-18lJJrBa
8. https://www.zdnet.com/article/wikileaks-microsoft-aided-former-tunisian-
regime/
9. https://citizenlab.org/2015/10/mapping-finfishers-continuing-proliferation/
10. https://marsad-egypt.info/en/2019/08/27/digital-authoritarianism-is-on-the-
rise-in-the-middle-east/
11. https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/academic-freedom-monitoring-project-index/
12. We are aware that a dichotomous perspective of a researcher’s position­
ality does not do justice to the multifaceted personal life conditions in
a globalized world nor to intersectional approaches to privilege.
Nevertheless, we focus on the legal aspect of citizenship, which is most
important for reprisals from state actors following research activities.
606 M. JOSUA AND M. EDEL

Acknowledgments
We thank André Bank, Jan Busse, David Kuehn, Nadine Sika, the editor of
Mediterranean Politics and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
We are also grateful to Farah al-Lama’ for helpful research assistance.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research
Foundation) under Grant number JO 1499/2-1 as well as the Arab-German Young
Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) that has been funded under the German
Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) [Grant 01DL20003].

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