Forefront of the Revolution: Early Risers in the Arab Spring

• In Event: 282 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 04. Revolution, Social Movements, and the World

Abstract

This paper seeks to address the following, twofold question: How did individuals come to participate in the Arab Spring, and what was the impact of prior experiences with activism on their involvement? To address this, I draw on in-depth interviews I conducted with four “early riser” participants. I propose that past activism involvement of early riser participants enabled them to develop a “permanent protester identity.” As such, they became involved in the Arab Spring to protect this identity, independent of perceived political opportunities or constraints. This challenges standard explanations of social movement mobilization that rely on the perception of a political opportunity as a prerequisite for movement participation. Instead, the paper offers a framework for understanding social movement participation as it relates to past activism experiences. Additionally, it contributes an understanding of the Egyptian Arab Spring as a product, at least in part, of a series of lesser-known protests that occurred in the prior decade.

Author

• Jennifer Aliza Shore, Harvard University