The Arab uprisings and the return of repression

Abstract

The Arab uprisings of 2011 led to a reassessment of comparative politics research on authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa. The Arab region made its way from area studies into mainstream comparative politics, and research foci have shifted towards civil-military relations and repression. Ten years later, we observe higher levels of repression across the region, reflecting a diversity of repressive trends. Advocating comprehensive research on this variation, we review recent literature that tackles various dimensions of repression in Arab autocracies. In addition to disaggregating forms and targets of repression, we call for its justifications, agents and transnational dimensions to be considered next to the implications of digital technologies of coercion. We also reflect on how repression affects the possibility of doing research and how we can investigate the proposed dimensions of repression.