Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East has become a place that almost everyone "knows" something about. The region is rarely considered a site for socially conscious activism, and is frequently written off as culturally defined by Islam, strongly anti-Western, and uniquely susceptible to irrational political radicalism, authoritarianism, and terrorism. However, as this new volume reveals, the region is rich with political mobilizations that neither inexorably lead toward democratization nor degenerate into violence. The authors present case studies of Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey inspired by Social Movement Theory (SMT). However, they also critique and expand the horizons of SMT's classical concepts of political opportunity structure and collective action frames, and mobilize structures and repertoires of contention based on intensive fieldwork. This strong empirical base allows for a nuanced understanding of contexts, culturally conditioned rationality, the strengths and weaknesses of local networks, and innovation in contentious action in the enduring authoritarian regimes of the region where, with the exception of Turkey, there is little sign of democratization.