Understanding Alternative Forms of Mobilization across the Arab World within Restrictive Contexts in a Post-Uprisings' Era

Following the restitution of authoritarian regimes in spite of public uprisings that deposed four dictators, this study sheds light on alternative venues of mobilization within restrictive contexts in order to better. understand the role of individual psychology and emotions in inducing a societal change. Social Movement Mobilization Theories revealed adaptive means for activists’ action and resistance under repression. SMTs enabled the examination of the role of individual psychology and emotions in the appropriation of tools of action, such as discourses, emotions, and individual action into adapted means of action and mobilization, such as quiet activism, and cyberadvocacy. Building on SMTs ‘agency’ and ‘micro-level mobilization,’ how would scholars better understand individual mobilization, quiet activism, and cyberadvocacy within restrictive contexts

In order to answer this question, this study uses SMTs’ mobilization theories and cultural opportunity structures in order to highlight the specificities of adapted forms of mobilization which emerged following the Arab uprisings. In light of the rise of structural-legal restrictions against conventional modes of mobilization and activism, LGBTQIA and academicians capitalized on cyber-advocacy and quiet activism in order to sustain the memory of revolutionary events which occurred during the Arab uprisings toward inducing an uncontested mode of social and political change. Taking into consideration variations in operational contexts and resources’ matching, SMTs were able to capture quiet activism and cyberadvocacy in the post-uprising era. Using SMTs’ cultural opportunity structures, this study highlights how agency and micro-mobilization were concretized as alternative means of mobilization by LGBTQIA and academicians in the Arab world. This study draws inspiration from LGBTQIA cause framing and cyberadvocacy and academicians’ individual emotions and quiet activism in order to show how SMTs’ cultural opportunity structures provides a broad spectrum conceptual framework which was variably operationalized across Arab countries in the post-uprisings era.