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How significant were popular mobilizations like the colour revolutions and the Arab Spring in raising legal regulatory barriers for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Eastern Europe and the Middle East? How do different types of nondemocratic regimes approach NGO laws and state-society relations? This paper investigates and provides a comparative analysis of the NGO regulatory environment of nondemocratic regimes in Eastern Europe and the Middle East from 1995 to 2013, based on an original dataset measuring the severity of laws for the registration and operation of civic groups. We examine whether the uprisings instigated the passage of legal initiatives designed to curb NGO activism in each region, and assess whether patterns emerge based on differences in nondemocratic regime types. We determined that while NGO regulations have largely increased in Eastern Europe, they have actually declined in the Middle East on average. Moreover, greater NGO regulations exist in authoritarian and closed regimes that approach civil society by erecting clear legal blockades to civic activism. In contrast, hybrid regimes employ more-intricate legal strategies in order to raise the costs of entering and working in the NGO sector without necessarily overtly stifling civic activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact mobilized publics have had on Yemen's domestic political environment by examining two case studies initiating collective action, with autonomous agency, yet with distinct differences in access to resources. The first case is the Marib Cause, a semi-organized, non-registered community group that protests corruption and demands basic services, employment opportunities and resource redistribution for the benefit of a marginalized region. The second is al-Watan (Homeland), a registered political party established by youth activists who had been involved in the 2011 movement. Both groups emerged as a result of the transformation period, which resulted in an opening up of the political sphere allowing these actors the opportunity to engage in collective action with the goal of impacting policy. The role of these two mobilized publics is analysed by examining their resources and strategies within the political context and tactical interactions between them and the PRE. The two cases represent levels of popular mobilization specific to an exceptional time. Although they were not able to directly influence Yemen's transformation process, their potential impact on the long-term political, social and cultural environment is significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a conceptual framework for a special issue of Mediterranean Politics that investigates the transformation processes inaugurated in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen in 2011 in the wake of the uprisings commonly referred to as the "Arab Spring". It proposes that these processes should not be conceptualized as linear and centrally crafted transitions from authoritarian orders towards preconceived outcomes, but rather, as contested and open-ended transformations. These are best understood through an actor-centered approach that focuses on the choices and strategies of the 'Politically Relevant Elite' (PRE) and its interactions with citizens intent on exerting influence, described here as 'Mobilized Publics'. Drawing on the results of eight research papers presented in this volume, this article argues that the PRE perceived the transformation processes as mechanisms to maximize political resources and monopolize power. The ensuing, increasingly polarized contestations hastened the cooptation and instrumentalization of mobilized publics by the PRE, thus spelling the end of their capacity to offer avenues for broad, bottom-up participation and preparing the ground for renewed top-down control in Egypt and Tunisia, and to state failure and civil war in Libya and Yemen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the dynamics and underlying conditions of the first few months of the uprising in Syria, from mid-March 2011 until the summer of that year. Together with the contributions from Dalmasso and Kandil, it exploits the opportunity created by the Arab uprisings to shed new light on patterns of social mobilization and collective action that research programmes focusing on authoritarian resilience had tended to overlook. Specifically, it presents an analysis that critically and loosely borrows from, communicates with and hopes to make a modest contribution to social movement theory (SMT). While threat and opportunity are necessary elements for popular mobilization, they are not sufficient. Both ‘threat’ and ‘opportunity’ therefore need to be contextualized within the specific social and political environment, real or perceived, of the ‘early risers’ in Syria, in order to appreciate their local significance. The article further argues that protestors, when under threat and faced with the opportunity, collectively rose up by capitalizing on their dense social networks. Strong clan-based or tribal social structures, circular labour migration, cross-border linkages and proliferating practices denoted as ‘criminal’ variably played a key role in cementing these social networks. It is also contended that these networks' ability easily to dissolve into one another due to their high degree of interconnectedness was instrumental in collective mobilization and their ability to pose a strong and enduring challenge to the regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey has experienced a heterogeneous collection of social movements and protests. While scholars have given substantial attention to coups in this context, it remains unclear if the Turkish Armed Forces have ever defected in favour of civilian mobilization during periods of political instability. In large-N databases on defection, cases in Turkey are either disproportionately skewed towards coups or are fully absent of observations on defection during resistance campaigns. In this study, we analyse cases spanning 1959–2017 to trace patterns of defection. Through triangulating qualitative evidence from memoirs of former military officers, media reports, and interviews carried out with multi-generational political actors, our analysis reveals that three instances of defection occurred in times of mass mobilization, two of which were vertical and one horizontal. Alongside three other instances of defection that occurred during coup attempts, these results illustrate the highly dynamic nature of defection in the Turkish context through interrelated processes of mobilization, defection, and coups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the relationships between the M15 movement and radical labour organizations in Spain. Based on semi-structured interviews and document analysis, it concludes that to the extent that the economic crisis has evolved, the relations between the M15 and the trade unions have moved from mistrust to convergence. This is especially evident in the case of radical trade unionism with which the M15 shares several features. Although the M15 has been studied as an example of a ‘new social movement’, recent changes suggest certain shifts in relation to the type of activated subject and to the motivating factors for collective action. One of the consequences of this is the closeness to the institutions of the workers’ movement, which blurs the borders between old and new social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the formal transformation process in Libya faltered and political and local elites were locked in contestation over shares of power and resources, spaces opened for non-formal movements of citizens pushing to exert influence on the political sphere, and to pursue their interests vis-à-vis state institutions with hitherto unknown forms of contentious action. This article investigates two distinctively different examples of such initiatives: on the one hand, the movement against militia rule and the extension of the mandate of the General National Congress (GNC) that emerged in Tripoli in the fall of 2013 and organized demonstrations for new elections throughout the spring of 2014. On the other, a movement for more equitable access to resources and citizenship rights that emerged in the provincial town of Ubari in the Fezzan region and gained momentum in late 2013 through the (largely peaceful) disruption of oil production. The chapter argues that through their mobilization capacities and innovative forms of contentious action, both movements compelled political and institutional actors to recognize mobilized publics as a force to reckon with, and modify the ways they interact with citizens and the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of civil society actors played a major role in the 2011 uprisings in Tunisia that ousted President Ben Ali, but its influence waned in the course of the following transformation process. This article looks at different forms of expressions of contentious politics and non-institutionalized movements, framed here as 'mobilized publics', that have intervened in the political process in Tunisia. It proposes that there are significant differences in their respective views on the transformation and the role that they can play in it, and hence the approaches to activism that they chose. Three case studies of mobilized publics - in the field of gender justice, socio-economic justice and transitional justice- are examined according to their different degrees of institutionalization, resources and strategies. The analysis shows how struggles for socio-economic justice and transitional justice have been marginalized and discredited as disruptive by a political elite that wagered on increasing polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]