The role of emotions during the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt in light of repertoires

ABSTRACT

This article examines the role of emotions during the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt in the context of collective level emotions in mobilizations. Emotions are understood as a catalyst whose mechanism of action is performed through repertories. This article seeks to answer how emotions, having a triggering role, are performed through repertoires while accelerating mobilization against authoritarian orders, creating the intersection of individual and collective level emotions in public spheres of Tunisia and Egypt, and thus affecting the transnational diffusion of emotions. The significant reason to address emotions is to explain what stimulated the Arab Spring and how it spread over the region starting from Tunisia and Egypt. This article synthesizes two literatures: International Relations (IR) and social movements studies in light of emotions and components of repertoires which are as follows: collective action, collective identity, symbolic politics, network society and information politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• Arab Spring
• repertoires
• collective level emotions
• social movements

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Efser Rana Coşkun http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3703-8550

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Efser Rana Coşkun

Efser Rana Coşkun is a PhD Candidate and Teaching Assistant in the Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Turkey. She holds an MSc degree in International Development from University of Bristol, United Kingdom, and BSc in Global and International Affairs from Middle East Technical University in Turkey and Binghamton University, USA. Her research interests cover the fields of theories of International Relations with a particular focus on non-Western perspectives, emotions, resilience, the interplay between development studies and social movements, and humanitarianism particularly in terms of Turkey’s humanitarian agency in Somalia and Syrian refugee crisis.