Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T16:43:53.633Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Decentralization of Revolutionary Unrest: Dispersion Hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2017

Navid Hassanpour
Affiliation:
Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Get access

Summary

… too many protests in too many places.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, Cairo, January 28, 2011

Following three days of unrest and to counter the growing urban protests across Egypt, in the early hours of January 28 Mubarak's regime shut down the Internet and cell phone networks across the country. The surprising events of the next day suggest the incumbent's tactics were misguided. The protests in Cairo which were contained in Tahrir Square and surroundings up to that day, proliferated across the city and flared in every corner of Cairo. By 6 p.m. on January 28, the police forces were overwhelmed, and the military was called in to replace the police. In the following days a practically neutral military played a major role in the political developments of the country resulting in the ousting of Mubarak on February 11. The expansion of the protests on the 28th questions common wisdom on the role of social media in civil unrest, and the traditional logic of collective action. If an unlimited flow of information were to be indispensable to the escalation, then the disruption of the media across Egypt in the early morning hours of January 28th, should not have proliferated the unrest and exacerbated the decentralized nature of revolutionary contention.

In the following, using tens of mobilizational emails sent prior to the first day of unrest, I focus on the minute by minute developments on January 25, and contrast the dynamics of collective action on that day with those on the 28th. I argue that disrupting social and mobile media, contrary to Mubarak's intent, fostered more contention of a decentralized nature. An analysis of the singular dynamics of collective action in urban environments during blackouts reveals the distinct characteristics of leading from the periphery. It is as if in the absence of centralizing powers of far reaching communication, clandestine components of decentralized contention come to the fore.

Interestingly enough, disrupting media is a common characteristic of many revolutionary situations. Sometimes it is a byproduct of the paralyzing unrest; often it is the result of a governmental crackdown.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×