New Authoritarian Practices in the Middle East and North Africa

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 emphasises 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.

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.