Activism in the Middle East and North Africa in times of upheaval: social networks’ actions and interactions
Frédéric Volpi and Janine A. Clark
ABSTRACT
We seek to better understand recent changes in social mobilization in the MENA region by analysing the formation and evolution of social networks. We propose an interactive perspective linking up contentious politics with routine governance through a dynamic articulation of repertoires of contention. At the heart of our analysis of social networks lie important questions regarding agency, strategic action and outcomes that have significance for social mobilization, social movements and politics at large. We outline how mobilization can change suddenly in the face of dramatic social and political events that transform societal interactions and adopt a bottom-up approach that highlights how micro level interactions in times of crisis produce specific logics and dynamics inside networks and shape what the networks achieve. By starting with descriptions of interactions at the grassroots level, we seek to explain macro level dynamics between networks and other players, including the state. In our approach, the role of other players becomes as important as, if not more than, structural characteristics. By adopting an interactionist orientation, we reveal the temporal dimension of strategic and non-strategic choices of these different players. In this perspective, the internal dynamics of the networks play a crucial part in determining the strategy of mobilization at the time of unrest; they also shape the possibilities for reformulating of the identity of the movement. Equally, the interactions between networks and other social and political players during episodes of contention contribute to validate or invalidate the internal choices of the networks; they also shape the impact of the networks’ mobilization on the trajectory of the protests. Finally, the resonance of the networks with the behaviours and identities activated by the upheaval simultaneously empower them as players and tie their fate to a specific type of demands and needs which may be more or less transient.
The 2011 Arab uprisings have had, and continue to have, a profound effect on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Beyond questioning why some regimes fell or why some protest movements faltered, a look back at these recent uprisings offers us a unique opportunity to comparatively examine changes in social mobilization over time and space in a sub-region characterised by waves of contention. It enables us to examine not only how social and political actors became protestors but, following an uprising, how, in some cases, protestors became institutionalized social and political actors. This spatial and temporal frame moreover allows us to question whether new types of social mobilization have come to the fore as a result of the 2011 Arab Uprisings. 2011 stands as a temporal marker of change in the region following the first outburst of regime-challenging mass popular protest in Tunisia and the resultant wave of contention that spread throughout the region. Has the nature and type of protest changed in the region as a result of 2011? Alternatively, what continuities lie with the past? Furthermore, if 2011 can be thought of as ‘temporal marker’ vis-à-vis social mobilization, it can also be thought of as a temporal marker with respect to the ways we study social mobilization.
We argue that 2011 caught most scholars of the MENA off-guard and forced many of us to rethink the dominant structuralist approaches to the study of social mobilization. As a consequence, a growing number of scholars of the MENA are turning to explanations that put a greater focus on agency (Bennani-Chraïbi & Fillieule, 2012; Kurzman, 2012). This turn towards agency has meant a far greater focus on the micro-level, on individuals, on groups and social networks, and on local causal mechanisms.
By focusing on the formation and evolution of social networks, this collection seeks to better understand recent changes in social mobilization in the MENA region. Rather than assuming that contentious episodes and the periods of normalization that follow them are ‘logical’ outcomes of particular political and socio-economic situations and adjustments, we investigate the views, behaviours and strategies of the actors at the centre of these processes. This approach enables us to move away from static and dualistic models of contentious politics (for instance: protest vs. control, regime resilience vs. regime change) and towards a more interactive perspective linking up contentious politics with routine governance through a dynamic articulation of repertoires of contention (Volpi and Jasper 2018).
The study of social networks within social movement theory roots itself in resource mobilization theory where social networks are considered important types of informal social movement organizations (SMOs). Social networks provide movements with a membership base, legitimacy, money, prestige, information and power (Aveni 1978). However, theorists generally conceptualize social networks as playing their most significant role at the stage of movement recruitment. Social networks make people more available for recruitment, more inclined to join (particularly if friends and family are already members), and the targets of recruitment (Klandermans and Oegema 1987). While recruitment does not occur simply because of ‘structural availability’, interpersonal ties encourage the extension of an invitation to participate and ease the uncertainty of mobilization (McAdam and Paulsen, 1993).
At the heart of the analysis of social networks thus lie important questions regarding agency, strategic action and outcomes that have significance for social mobilization, social movements and politics at large. Like Diani and Mische (2015), we take networks to be a combination of longer-term ongoing relationships that structure the interactions of the members and interactions that shape the more immediate activities and agenda of these actors. In this perspective, the nature of networks can evolve slowly over time due to the evolution of social relations and repertoires, or it can change suddenly in the face of dramatic social and political events that transform societal interactions. The latter is squarely the focus on the works contained in this collection and which address questions such as: how do network dynamics that ‘make sense’ in localized contexts unfold and how are they shaped by the goals and practices of a wider movement in a national or supranational context? In other words, what is the interaction between the various localized network dynamics and practices, which may be found in a broader national or supranational process of social movement mobilization? How do networks created in situations of uprising or upheaval transform over time (whether the situation reverts to the status quo or produces regime change)? How do pre-existing networks that operate through an episode of uprising or upheaval shape national outcomes, such as transitions?
To begin to shed some light on these issues in the MENA we adopt a bottom-up approach that highlights how micro-level interactions in times of crisis produce specific logics and dynamics inside networks and shape what the networks achieve. In this perspective, we use as the building blocks of our analysis the notion of ‘players’ interacting within ‘arenas’ developed by Jasper and Duyvendak (2015). By starting with descriptions of interactions at grassroots level, we seek to explain by aggregation and repetition the more macro level dynamics between networks and other players (including the state). In this approach, the role of other players becomes therefore as important as, if not more than, the more structural characteristics of arenas. By adopting an interactionist orientation (see Bennani-Chraïbi & Fillieule, 2012; Duyvendak & Fillieule, 2015; Jasper & Volpi, 2018), we are able reveal the temporal dimension of strategic and non-strategic choices of these different players.
Structure, agency, interactions
Jasper (2011a) emphasises the interactions between the different actors, or ‘players’, in a protest situation. This perspective underscores the role of players in shaping their environment, or ‘arena’, and as a result the very nature of the political opportunities that are available to them.1 Jasper thus moves away from overtly structural explanations of social mobilization and, in doing so, takes a step back from the more rational-choice approaches of protest behaviours. Instead, Jasper and his colleagues stress the repeated causal input of emotions in the processes of mobilization (Goodwin, Jasper, & Polletta, 2001). Emotional responses are not simply irrational reactions but common drivers of behaviour that are particularly meaningful in specific circumstances where they directly facilitate or hinder mobilization (Castells, 2012; Jasper, 2011b). This dimension of protest behaviours demands a more subjectivist and inter-relational perspective that cannot fit into a strict rational choice model. It requires a more in-depth analysis of the choices and actions of the different players to make sense of what they construe as political opportunities at specific moments in time.
Kurzman (2012) suggests that the more one pursues this inter-subjective and inter-relational line of inquiry, the more one constructs an alternative to a purely causal account of an event, one that considers ‘the lived experience of the uprisings’. In this perspective, to understand how actors frame the possibility of protest and make strategic choices during hectic moments of political confusion is not the same as to build a general model for understanding social mobilization. This approach is not only more subjectivist but also more time-attuned as it considers the rise and fall of particular behavioural features, such as bravery, that crucially shape the processes of mobilization at specific historical juncture before seemingly disappearing from the scene. These interactionist approaches to social mobilization bypass some of the factors that have been well studied in the literature, particularly in connection to repertoires of contention.
The transmission of repertoires of contention within and between protest episodes, as emphasised by Tarrow (1993), remains undoubtedly relevant for understanding the behaviours of protest actors and movements. However, to focus on set repertoires moves the explanation away from the dynamics of protest episodes. Tarrow is right to point out that the relevance of specific repertoires is made evident over time as these are transmitted between different generations of participants. Yet this tells us more about the ability of movements to transmit these repertoires over time than about the relevance of the practices in specific protest situations. Because some repertoires are successfully transmitted over time, it does not necessarily mean that they are effective at doing what they are meant to do. Bayat’s (2010) argument in favour of viewing pre-2011 social changes in the Middle East in relation to the actions of ‘nonmovements’ was an attempt to address the issue of the apparent ineffectiveness of structured social movements in the region. Noting that the ‘collective actions of noncollective actors’ triggered change, ‘even though these practices are rarely guided by an ideology or recognizable leaderships and organizations’, Bayat (2010, 14) widened the scope of investigation to encompass implicit repertoires of contention.
Positing implicit repertoires is not without difficulties, but Bayat usefully drew attention to the overlooked micro-practices of mobilization. Whilst the notion of a nonmovement may be difficult to operationalize across the board, there are indeed moments during which non-structured protest discourses and practices can induce significant changes – the kind of changes that structured movements could not produce. In a different context, Snow and Moss (2014) point to the causal importance of ‘spontaneity’ in the bottom up articulation of protest actions. The spontaneity of protest actions like the emotional responses of the players do not negate the relevance of structured movements or set repertoires of contention. As it has been observed in a variety of contexts, from the Umbrella movement in Hong Kong (Cheng & Chan, 2017) to the Occupy movement in the U.S. (Juris, 2012), spontaneous and programmatic elements generally combine in different ways to produce a particular protest outcome.
Middle Eastern and North African dilemmas
In the Middle East and North Africa, research on social movements has tended to focus primarily on Islamist movements. Early regional analyses grounded in mainstream social movement theory (Kurzman, 1996; Munson 2001; Wickham 2002; Hafez 2003; Wiktorowicz, 2003; Clark, 2004; Schwedler 2006) had shown the adaptability of this approach to social movements in stable authoritarian situations. The rarity of significant (let alone successful) protest movements in the last couple of decades led most scholars to focus on institutionalised movement organisations rather than spontaneous protest dynamics. In Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, published just before the Arab uprisings, Benin and Vairel (2011) presented perspectives that highlighted these routinized social dynamics. The analytical model that they used in their introduction was inspired from McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly’s Dynamics of Contention (2001) and as a result was more attuned to reflect the structural characteristics of organized networks than the complex dynamics of leaderless (or leaderful) movements. Unsurprisingly, these insights proved of limited use to understand the wave of protests that spread across the region subsequently; even though in themselves they provided valuable observations of routine dynamics of mobilization in authoritarian contexts.
After the political earthquake of the 2011 uprisings, many scholars unavoidably focused more on the processes and mechanisms of social mobilization during periods of upheaval (Allal & Pierret, 2013; Gunning & Baron, 2014; Kretchley 2017; Volpi, 2017). Clearly it was not only the uprisings that made these issues relevant for explaining and understanding social mobilization in the region. Kurzman (2004, 2008)) had already advocated these perspectives from the vantage point of Iranian studies. The wave of mobilization witnessed across the Arab world in 2011 simply made their relevance stand out. During this episode of protests, researchers could pin point the workings of spontaneity, emotions, reframing, etc., as protesters mobilized in unexpected ways. Analysing the beginning of protest actions in Syria and Egypt respectively, Pearlman (2018) and El Chazli (2018) highlighted the complex interactions between organized activism and spontaneous protest behaviours. It is this interlinkage between longer-term dynamics and short-term processes (or social relations and interactions in Diani and Mische’s terminology) that needs to be understood better in the contemporary debate. Hence, the articulation of these different temporalities of mobilization – mobilization, demobilization, remobilization – is one of the main foci of this collection.
By promoting an analytical shift to interactions over time in informal social movements, we do not propose an argument about social mobilization that is specific to the Arab world or to Muslim societies. Studies of Islamist mobilization have already illustrated that the specifically religious aspect of Islamic activism does not fundamentally transform the mechanisms and structures of social mobilization (Wiktorowicz, 2003). Similarly, Bayat’s (2010) notion of a nonmovement is not tied to an Arab or Muslim social system but is indicative instead of a closed authoritarian political system. Identity and culture are important structuring elements of social mobilization, but no more so in the Arab world or Muslim communities than they are in other regions of the world or religions. Furthermore, cultural and religious referents are inherently polysemic and even markers like ‘Islamism’ are consistently being reinterpreted (Volpi, 2010). The relevance of bloc recruitment and mobilization by Islamist leaders showed its limitations during the Arab uprisings as some of the main Islamist networks which had traditionally orchestrated contentious politics were repeatedly bypassed by protest movements (Clarke, 2014). The very idea of who or what constituted an Islamist movement was even reshaped in the circumstances as both pro- and anti-regime actors played the Islamic card (Lacroix & Shalata, 2016). Other culturally influenced movements like women’s networks also made use of the new circumstances created by the uprisings to reorganize themselves and strategically engage pro- and anti-regime actors (Khalil, 2015). These observations underscored that it was often misleading to second guess the role of networks in the light of their previous organization and practice, or conversely, to view their mobilizational role as a structural outcome o...
