Abstract
Although the Middle East has long been an outpost of authoritarianism, political oppositions have consistently acted as agents of change across the region. This chapter sets the theoretical frame for the remainder of the volume. Based on the work of scholars observing Contentious Politics, it notes the ways in which regimes and oppositions shape one another, the survival techniques that oppositions develop to weather authoritarianism and the long-term imprint that authoritarianism can leave on oppositions after the fall of the regime. The chapter shows that while the rupture of structure-agent power relations caused by the 2009 Green Movement protests and 2011 Arab Uprisings inevitably changed the nature of political contestation in the Middle East, much continuity remains in patterns of government-opposition relations.
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- 1.
This categorisation of opposition movements under authoritarianism was proposed by Holger Albrecht. See: Holger Albrecht, ‘Political Opposition and Arab Authoritarianism,’ in Contentious Politics in the Middle East: Political Opposition under Authoritarianism, ed. Holger Albrecht (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010). p. 21.
- 2.
Ellen Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents and Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Holger Albrecht, Raging against the Machine: Political Opposition under Authoritarianism in Egypt (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2013).
- 3.
Abbas Milani, (2010) ‘The Green Movement,’ United States Institute of Peace: The Iran Primer, (October 6) http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/green-movement
- 4.
‘After the Green Movement: Internet controls in Iran 2009–2012,’ (2013) OpenNet, https://opennet.net/sites/opennet.net/files/iranreport.pdf
- 5.
Hamid Dabashi, (2011) ‘The Green Movement in Iran,’ Transaction Publishers, p. 43.
- 6.
Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). p. 5.
- 7.
Sidney Tarrow, ‘Inside Insurgencies: Politics and Violence in an Age of Civil War,’ Perspectives on Politics 5, no. 3 (2007). p. 596.
- 8.
Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
- 9.
Bob Clifford, The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).; Todd A. Eisenstadt, Politics, Identity, and Mexico’s Indigenous Rights Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).; Ralph A. Thaxton, Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao’s Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).; Donatella Della Porta and Alice Mattoni, ‘Patterns of Diffusion and the Transnational Dimension of Protest in the Movements of the Crisis: An Introduction,’ in Social Movements in Times of Crisis, ed. Donatella Della Porta and Alice Mattoni (Colchester: ECPR Press, 2014).
- 10.
Cited in Jason Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). p. 26.
- 11.
Holger Albrecht, ‘Political Opposition and Arab Authoritarianism,’ in Contentious Politics in the Middle East: Poliitcal Opposition under Authoritarianism, ed. Holger Albrecht (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010). p. 21.
- 12.
Daniel Brumberg, ‘Democratization in the Arab World? The trap of liberalized autocracy,’ Journal of Democracy 13, no. 4 (2002). p. 58.
- 13.
I. William Zartman, ‘Opposition as Support of the State,’ in Beyond Coercion: The Durability of the Arab State, ed. Adeed Dawisha and I. William Zartman (New York: Routledge, 1988). pp. 61–64.; Jason Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization. p. 9.
- 14.
Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics. p. 136; Ellen Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents and Institutions.
- 15.
‘Lawless Government and Illegal Opposition: Reflections on the Middle East,’ Journal of International Affairs 40, no. 2 (1987). p. 219.
- 16.
Jack A. Goldstone and Charles Tilly, ‘Threat (and Opportunity): Popular Action and State Responses in the Dynamics of Contentious Action,’ in Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, ed. Ronald R. Aminzade, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- 17.
Ibid. p. 180.
- 18.
Cited in Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics. p. 175.
- 19.
‘Challenge and Survival: Political Resistance in Authoritarian Burma’ (George Washington University, 2011). p. 230.
- 20.
Cited in: ibid. p. 229.
- 21.
Carrie R. Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Europe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). p. 225.
- 22.
Michael Schmidmayr, ‘Islamist Engagement in Contentious Politics: Kuwait and Bahrain,’ in Contentious Politics in the Middle East: Political Opposition under Authoritarianism, ed. Holger Albrecht (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010). p. 173.
- 23.
Ibid. p. 172.
- 24.
Shelley Rigger, ‘Mobilisational Authoritarianism and Political Opposition in Taiwan,’ in Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia, ed. Garry Rodan (London: Routledge, 1996). p. 302.
- 25.
Nathan J. Brown, When Victory Is Not an Option: Islamist Movements in Arab Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). p. 2.
- 26.
Nancy Bermeo, ‘Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship,’ Comparative Politics 24, no. 3 (1992). pp. 273–274.
- 27.
Vincent Boudreau, Resisting Dictatorship: Repression and protest in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). p. 11.
- 28.
Ibid. p. 161.
- 29.
Donatella Della Porta, Mobilizing for Democracy: Comparing 1989 and 2011 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). p. 157.
- 30.
Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics. p. 189.
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Tarrow, Sidney. “Inside Insurgencies: Politics and Violence in an Age of Civil War.” Perspectives on Politics 5, no. 3 (2007): 587–600.
Thaxton, Ralph A. Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao’s Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Tilly, Charles, and Sidney Tarrow. Contentious Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Wickham, Carrie R. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Europe. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Zartman, I. William. “Opposition as Support of the State.” In Beyond Coercion: The Durability of the Arab State, edited by Adeed Dawisha and I. William Zartman. New York: Routledge, 1988.
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Conduit, D., Akbarzadeh, S. (2018). Contentious Politics and Middle Eastern Oppositions After the Uprisings. In: Conduit, D., Akbarzadeh, S. (eds) New Opposition in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8821-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8821-6_1
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