Religion in the Arab Spring: Between Two Competing Narratives (original) (raw)

Protest and Religion: An Overview

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2019

After decades-long neglect, a growing body of scholarship is studying religious components of protests. Religion’s role as a facilitator, the religious perspective of protesters, the goals of religious actors as participants, and faith-based outcomes of protests have been examined using quantitative and qualitative methodology. Although it is now a thriving research field, due to recent contributions, incorporating faith-based variables in protest research is a challenging task since religion travels across different levels of analysis; effortlessly merges with thick concepts such as individual and collective identity; and takes different shapes and color when it surfaces in various social contexts across the globe. Therefore, at the religion and protest nexus, there are more questions than answers. Research in the field would improve by investing more on theoretical frameworks and expanding the availability of qualitative and quantitative data.

Religion and Political Protest: A Cross-Country Analysis

Comparative Political Studies

Religion’s effect on individual tendency to engage in political protest is influenced both by the resources available to citizens at the individual level and opportunities provided to religious groups and organizations at the country level. Combining data from last two waves of the World Values Surveys with aggregate data on religious regulation, we show that private religious beliefs reduce an individual’s protest potential while involvement in religious social networks fosters it. At the country level, we find that government regulation of religion decreases individual tendency to protest, and has an especially detrimental effect on the likelihood of religious minorities joining peaceful protest activities. These findings are in line with opportunity structure theories that stress the importance of system openness for fostering political protest.

"Religion, Populism, and Resistance: Perspectives from the Wretched of the Earth"

European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS) Program , 2022

Analysis of the complex interrelations of religion and modern protest movements draws attention to the ways that pervasive societal anxieties are taken up in religious, interreligious and transreligious discourses. The last years have seen forms of major social upheaval in the form of protests the world over. These have included popular protest movements in well over twenty countries, from Asia and Southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America to North America to Europe. These have led to major policy backdowns and/or governmental crackdown (Hong Kong, Belarus) and even the overthrow of governments (Bolivia, Peru, Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Malta). Triggers can be seemingly minor (such as bread prices in Sudan and taxes on whatsapp messages in Lebanon) or sudden and shocking (such as in cases of police brutality). In both cases, protests often then develop along predictable sightlines of economic concern and political parties. Recent protests and counter protests have been surrounded by a deluge of disinformation and conspiracy (for example, surrounding elections or the pandemic). In several cases, inconspicuous beginnings led to society-wide or global debates concerning religion, ethnicity, the stability of democratic institutions, fundamental human rights, and even the future of humanity. Religious contributions and reactions to such upheavals vary widely and can be unpredictable. Across religious traditions, religious communities sometimes engage with social questions citing theological principles of siding with the oppressed or freedom of religion, while at other times this same logic is deemed inapplicable. Some religious leaders remain at a cautious distance from protest movements or even actively side with pro-government suppression, appealing to divine sovereignty, while in other situations religious communities have provided field hospitals, water and food. In looking at the relationship of religion and protest, one could almost speak of the emergence of a new rank of politico-religious leaders - including both those actively supporting and those condemning protests.

Religion and Politics in the Arab Spring and Its Aftermath

Making the New Middle East, 2019

It is often claimed that there is no separation between religion and politics in Islam. Although this point has also been disputed, scholars continue to argue that there is something distinctive about Islam's relationship to politics (Hamid 2016, 5). This is not to say that Islam in any way determines the politics of the Middle East but that a significant number of the inhabitants of the Middle East believe that Islam provides the best foundation for justice, and therefore for political legitimacy. To some extent, each of the chapters in this part of the book deals with aspects of the relationship between religion and politics in the contemporary Middle East-in the Arab uprisings and their aftermath, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the power struggles in Egypt during the writing of two new constitutions, the struggle for political identity in Turkey today, and security challenges in North Africa. Religion was largely absent in the language of the Arab Spring protests. Protesters demanded democracy, freedom, dignity, and an end to corruption, without reference to religion. The protests that began in the working-class towns of Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine in Tunisia were spontaneous expressions of outrage by ordinary workers, prompted by the abuse, humiliation, and sheer desperation that led Mohammed Bouazizi to set himself on fire on December 17, 2010. The bloggers in Tunis who learned via Facebook of the protests and their brutal suppression by the police were educated, middle class,

Religion and Political Mobilization

The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity

What is the role of religion in political mobilization? In this chapter, we examine developments in the literature as it considers the role of religion in political mobilization. Broadly speaking we outline two predominant lines of thinking about religion as a driver of political mobilization, the marketplace and theology. The former strand of thinking, we show, traces its roots as far back as the behavioral revolution and even further still. The second strand, popularized by global conflict events framed in religious terms, focuses on theology and differences between religions as motivating factors in mobilization. This line of thinking has largely been supplanted, while at the same time, it has forced the acknowledgment that while religion is an intervening instrument in mobilization

A Quantitative Analysis of Protest Participation in the Arab World from 2011 to 2019

2020

Eugenio Dacrema, ISPI Associate Research Fellow Over the last eight years, contentious actions such as street protests and sit-ins have been a constant presence in news reports from the MENA region. While a significant number of academic, journalistic, and think-tank articles have focused on the causes of social discontent and contentious actions in the region since 2011, few works have used a quantitative approach to investigate the determinants of protest participation. This paper contributes to this literature by offering a comparative analysis of protest participation in 2011 and 2018–2019 in four Arab countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Algeria), using the data provided by the second and fifth wave of the Arab Barometer. It finds a persistent and increasing level of protest participation throughout the two waves, even in countries such as Egypt, where repressive policies have worsened over the last years. Moreover, gender, education level, income, and level of religiosity em...

The resource, structural, and cultural bases of protest

2005

www.democ.uci.edu Political protest has a long, albeit uncertain, history in the repertoire of political action and the course of political development. 1 From DeToqueville's description of the French Revolution to Gurr's Why Men Rebel (1970), some analysts have described protest as a tool used by the disenfranchised and the politically frustrated to pressure the government. In contrast, other scholars claim that contemporary protest has become an extension of conventional politics by other means (Inglehart 1990; Norris 2002), used by those who are generally active in politics. There is also debate about whether levels of protest are changing. Protest is apparently increasing in advanced industrial democracies, and there are claims that protest has spread on a global scale. In her recent study of political participation, Pippa Norris describes protest as a nearly ubiquitous part of contemporary politics: Public demonstrations are used today by a multiplicity groups ranging from Norwegian anti-fuel tax car-owners to Florida retirees protesting the ballot design of Miami-Dade county, Philippino 'people power' intent on ousting President Estrada, local farmers critical of the McDonaldization of French culture, street theatre like the gay Mardi Gras in Sydney, and consumer boycotts such as those used against British supermarkets stocking genetically-modified foods. Events at Genoa combined a mélange of mainstream charities like Oxfam and Christian Aid, as well as radicals like British 'Drop the Debt' protestors, the German Freie ArbeiterInnen Union, and Italian anarchists like Tute Bianchi and Ya Basta! Collective action through peaceful channels has become a generally accepted way to express political grievances, voice opposition, and challenge authorities. (Norris 2002: ch. 10). Because of the centrality of protest to the processes of political change, theorizing on protest is rich and varied-but these theories are often untested. Scholarly interest in protest is long-standing, but the factors that shape levels of protest in a nation are still uncertain. Because it is an unconventional activity, actual counts of protest activity are not as readily available as participation in conventional politics, such as election turnout or political party membership. Evidence of protest activity for developing nations is typically limited to descriptive examples or estimations based on events data from media reports. And without firm estimates of the level of protest across nations, it is difficult to explain what generates protest, and thus what are the political implications of contentious action. This paper presents a large-scale cross-national study of protest activity based on reports from the publics themselves. We first describe the aggregate level of protest across more than 70 nations based on data from the 1999-2002 and 1995-98 waves of the World Values Survey. This provides the most accurate assessment of protest around the globe that has ever been possible.