“Beware of Terrorists, Spies and Chaos!”: Stabilization Techniques from the Arab Uprisings

Abstract

Based on work on the Arab Uprisings, this chapter shows how authoritarian regimes legitimize themselves as centres of power to colonize the digital public spheres. They rely on the dissemination of fear during times to stabilize the public mobilization and discredit social movements who challenge them. Using empirical examples, this chapter is interested in the qualitative thematic analysis of regimes’ arguments that spread fear, and connects them to the political, social and cultural access points in the Arab societies. The findings show how the regime framed any challenging potential for change as chaos and destabilization. The findings of three case studies show that securitization strategies were a central thread as on one level the Tahrir uprising was against the police, representing a repressive coercive state apparatus. In a conservative patriarchal society, the three cases showed how the need of security and stability is constructed through xenophobic, conservative and exclusive argumentation. Long before the US- and Euro-centric realization that social media contribute to polarized communication instead of Habermasian consensus, post-truth mediated politics were born in the MENA region.