Brismes

Torture, tear gas, bird shot, electrocution, anal rape, and beatings are just some of the examples of state-sponsored violence undertaken by the Bahraini regime since 2011. This more commonplace 'state-sponsored' violence has monopolised the headlines due to its egregious nature and visceral unpleasantness. Yet the rise of social media, and the devolution of acts of surveillance and online vigilantism has confused this binary of state versus loyalist violence. Now, acts of social control undertaken by those representing the hegemonic order, such as balṭajiyya (thugs), but not necessarily agents of the state, are becoming increasingly important as a regime survival strategy in Bahrain. This paper acknowledges the importance of violent acts undertaken by those representing the hegemonic order, while also problematising the notion of violence itself. In Bahrain, where surveillance and social media are increasingly an important tool in the state's intimidation of activists and civilians, it is important to critically interrogate how the generation of fear through social media and surveillance constitutes violence itself. These strategies of control, which generate physiological responses such as fear anxiety, should no longer be distinguished entirely from acts of physical violence, and taken more seriously as a form of repression.

Recent and popular developments of the so-called “Arab Spring” reached Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria in 2011, offering a unique opportunity to research the causes of the emergence of collective action. The empirical evidence leads us to a two-part puzzle: Why have some countries experienced collective action while others have not? Which are the causal mechanisms of the emergence of the collective action? This paper focuses on the period prior to the onset of collective action to examine its nature and dynamics in the light of the social movement theory. Its aim is twofold: on one hand, to revise the social movement theory to clarify the phenomenon and on the other, to analyse the causes of the emergence of collective action in Yemen and the prevalence of the status quo in Algeria. The concept of “collective action” is outlined based on necessary and sufficient conditions and family resemblance approach. Cases are studied using a process-tracing methodology to identify causal mechanisms in order to explain our outcome. Finally, the paper provides some insights to study the phenomenon in future research.