Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: New Authoritarian Practices in the MENA Region: Key Developments and Trends
- 2 Maintaining Order in Algeria: Upgrading Repressive Practices under a Hybrid Regime
- 3 The Authoritarian Topography of the Bahraini State: Political Geographies of Power and Protest
- 4 Authoritarian Repression Under Sisi: New Tactics or New Tools?
- 5 Deep Society and New Authoritarian Social Control in Iran after the Green Movement
- 6 Silencing Peaceful Voices: Practices of Control and Repression in Post-2003 Iraq
- 7 Israel/Palestine: Authoritarian Practices in the Context of a Dual State Crisis
- 8 Jordan: A Perpetually Liberalising Autocracy
- 9 Libya: Authoritarianism in a Fractured State
- 10 ‘The Freedom of No Speech’: Journalists and the Multiple Layers of Authoritarian Practices in Morocco
- 11 New Authoritarian Practices in Qatar: Censorship by the State and the Self
- 12 Digital Repression for Authoritarian Evolution in Saudi Arabia
- 13 The Evolution of the Sudanese Authoritarian State: The December Uprising and the Unravelling of a ‘Persistent’ Autocracy
- 14 Authoritarian Nostalgia and Practices in Newly Democratising Contexts: The Localised Example of Tunisia
- 15 An Assemblage of New Authoritarian Practices in Turkey
- 16 The United Arab Emirates: Evolving Authoritarian Tools
- 17 Authoritarian Practice and Fragmented Sovereignty in Post-uprising Yemen
- Index
11 - New Authoritarian Practices in Qatar: Censorship bythe State and the Self
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: New Authoritarian Practices in the MENA Region: Key Developments and Trends
- 2 Maintaining Order in Algeria: Upgrading Repressive Practices under a Hybrid Regime
- 3 The Authoritarian Topography of the Bahraini State: Political Geographies of Power and Protest
- 4 Authoritarian Repression Under Sisi: New Tactics or New Tools?
- 5 Deep Society and New Authoritarian Social Control in Iran after the Green Movement
- 6 Silencing Peaceful Voices: Practices of Control and Repression in Post-2003 Iraq
- 7 Israel/Palestine: Authoritarian Practices in the Context of a Dual State Crisis
- 8 Jordan: A Perpetually Liberalising Autocracy
- 9 Libya: Authoritarianism in a Fractured State
- 10 ‘The Freedom of No Speech’: Journalists and the Multiple Layers of Authoritarian Practices in Morocco
- 11 New Authoritarian Practices in Qatar: Censorship by the State and the Self
- 12 Digital Repression for Authoritarian Evolution in Saudi Arabia
- 13 The Evolution of the Sudanese Authoritarian State: The December Uprising and the Unravelling of a ‘Persistent’ Autocracy
- 14 Authoritarian Nostalgia and Practices in Newly Democratising Contexts: The Localised Example of Tunisia
- 15 An Assemblage of New Authoritarian Practices in Turkey
- 16 The United Arab Emirates: Evolving Authoritarian Tools
- 17 Authoritarian Practice and Fragmented Sovereignty in Post-uprising Yemen
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The small state of Qatar has garnered a level ofnotoriety for its rogue foreign policy and whatother GCC countries view as a refusal to play by therules. Whether making a home for exiles fromorganisations marked as ‘terrorist’ by the UnitedStates, aligning itself with Islamist politicalparties in the region or offering tacit support forthe commentary championing populist resistance inother Middle Eastern nations by the state-owned newsnetwork Al Jazeera,Qatar has irked its Gulf neighbours to the point ofrift (twice) while stubbornly refusing to back down.Particularly since the 2011 Arab uprisings, theQatari state has sought to represent itself as aprogressive force for change in the region, andcreate distance between itself and other autocraticregimes in the region that have responded to dissentwith harsh and repressive measures. However, despiteimplementing new domestic political reforms andaligning its foreign policy discourse with thehegemonic Western paradigms of democracy and humanrights, the state has continued to engage inauthoritarian measures at home to maintain andenforce its power, and has limited theimplementation of democratic political reforms.
These and other factors make the topic ofauthoritarianism in Qatar a particularlyinteresting, albeit puzzling, case for politicalpundits and scholars alike, who have sought tounderstand Qatar's seemingly contradictory domesticand foreign policies. Moreover, the topic of Qatar'sforeign policy has received renewed attention inpopular media and academic scholarship since the2017 Gulf crisis, which involved Saudi Arabia, theUAE and other Arab nations enacting a blockadeagainst Qatar and accusing the state of sponsoringterrorism, among other accusations. In thetwenty-first century, Qatari rulers have faced newchallenges to consolidating their domestic rule andbuilding a positive reputation for internationalconsumption, particularly as new forms of socialmedia communication and the expansion of the digitalsphere have made it more difficult to control thedissemination of national narratives among domesticand international audiences. This chaptercontributes to filling a gap in current scholarshipon authoritarianism in Qatar by examining thestate's use of new authoritarian measures,particularly digital media censorship, to fulfil itsdomestic and foreign policy agendas and consolidateits social and political power.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Authoritarian Practices in the Middle East and North Africa , pp. 208 - 227Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2022