About This Project (2005-2008):
2007 Dissent/Repression Poster (PowerPoint)
2008 Dissent/Repression Poster (PowerPoint)
The interaction between political dissidents and states is critical for many aspects of human life, cutting across politics, culture, economics, and psychology; yet, it remains poorly understood. How do dissent and repression influence each another? What kinds of repression produce what kinds of dissent and vice versa? How are contentious activities influenced by the dominant forces of economic and political globalization? How do they operate as "agents of change?"
Additionally, how should the interactions between dissidents and the state be analyzed, especially addressing the interactive nature of dissent and repression as well as the often contradictory findings of qualitative and quantitative research? Although scholarship examining the "dissent/repression nexus" has been quite productive over the last 40 years, it has also produced dissimilar, even contradictory results. We maintain that this conundrum results from underdeveloped conceptualizations that are also balkanized into different social scientific disciplines and from methodologies that rely on a single approach.
To tackle the dissent/repression nexus, we come together as an interdisciplinary team of political scientists and sociologists with expertise in international relations and complementary theoretical and methodological skills to focus on dissent and repression in the Middle East. The project aims to:
- develop a database that incorporates data from both quantitative and qualitative sources
- train students and professionals in the use of multiple methodologies related to understanding the repression/dissent nexus
- maintain a webpage with frequent updates on the theoretical and methodological aspects of the project
- develop a special journal issue on multi-method techniques and their applications to problems of dissent and repression, and
- write a monograph on understanding repression and dissent in a globalized society.
While this project tackles establishing a general framework to be applied broadly, it focuses on dissent and repression in the Middle East; in particular, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Kuwait and Turkey, from 1990 to the present. These geographical locations make it possible to examine the process of transformational change, the reciprocal relationship between individuals and social action, and the implications of cultural variation for conflict across different environments with nuanced geographical features.
Despite the general importance of dissent and repression as well as the significance of the Middle East itself, there has been little systematic analysis of conflict dynamics within and particularly across the relevant countries in this region. Even more, most research has drawn on a single methodology - either event analysis, field research, or social surveys. Each omits important aspects of the dissent/repression nexus. The research proposed here creates event catalogs from computer-generated as well as human-generated data, field research, social surveys, and historical records in order to provide a more comprehensive picture of dissent and repression as well as their interactions.
"The Dissent/Repression Nexus in the Middle East" is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (project # SBS-0527631 Human and Social Dynamics: Agents of Change)
