Regulating Resistance: From Anti to Counter-Revolutionary Practice - and Back Again - in Bahrain
- Autores: Simon Mabon
- Localización: Partecipazione e conflitto, ISSN-e 2035-6609, Vol. 14, Nº. 2, 2021 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Special Issue on: "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa" & "The value of the city. Rent extraction, housing and conflicts for the use of urban space"), págs. 743-759
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
- Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
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Resumen
On 14 February 2011 Bahrainis took to the streets demanding political reform as part of a broader wave of protests that swept across the Arab world. In the months that followed, the ruling Al-Khalifa family deployed mechanisms of sovereign power in an effort to ensure the survival of the regime. This article explores counter-revolutionary efforts deployed by the Bahraini state in an effort to eviscerate protest movements born out of the Arab Uprisings. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben's ideas about sovereign power, I argue that the Al-Khalifa regime was able to deploy a range of different tools in pursuit of survival, framing Shi'a groups as nefarious fifth columnists operating within a broader regional struggle pitting Saudi Arabia and Iran against one another. The article argues that while sect-based difference is an important aspect of contemporary Bahraini politics – facilitated by securitisation processes led by the Al-Khalifa – counter-revolutionary efforts have their roots in a state building project that gave the ruling family the ability to ensure their survival. This approach created an "anti-revolutionary" environment which prevented the emergence of widespread protest, yet when faced with serious challenges, anti-revolutionary processes morphed into counter-revolutionary mechanisms.
