New Authoritarian Practices in the Middle East and North Africa

Examines new authoritarian practices and state control in MENA countries to target and neutralise dissidents

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This collection examines new authoritarian practices that 16 MENA countries have developed in the aftermath of major uprisings across the region. These span new forms of digital surveillance, new protest policing practices, new forms of control over the judiciary, civil society and media, through to 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 dissents and control activists, opposition parties, the judiciary and the media. By focusing on micro-practices of repression, New Authoritarian Practices in the Middle East and North Africa balances macro-structural explanations of authoritarian persistence alongside widespread social discontent and opposition.