Sovereign Performance Project in collaboration with
CRG Book Launch Series
Special Issue Launch: Opposition Learning in the Middle East and North Africa
Conversation with authors: Alfonso Casani (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Francesco Colin (Ghent University),
Anne Kirstine Rønn (Aarhus University), and André Bank (GIGA Institute)
Date. Nov. 9, 2026 ( Monday)
Time: 1400 – 15:30
Venue: 3rd Floor, Room John Vincke, Technicum 1, UFO Campus, Ghent University, Belgium
Book Description:
Despite the resilience of authoritarian states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), social and political contestation continues to threaten their hegemony. Opposition actors have shown their capacity to adapt to authoritarian resilience and change their strategies and practices to express disagreement. Drawing on a broad array of case studies, this Special Issue aims to answer the following question: how do opposition actors learn to navigate the reorganization of authoritarian regimes in the MENA? The Special Issue is situated within theoretical debates on the study of opposition in non-democratic regimes. It defines opposition learning as the processes through which opposition actors change the claims, loci, structures and networks of their expression of disagreement based on the context, their experiences and their capacity to navigate authoritarian policies and practices. The mechanisms of opposition learning discussed in the case studies included in this Special Issue distinguish between the effects of endogenous and exogenous factors on opposition actors and the active or passive roles these actors assume in this process of change. The interplay of these two variables allows us to identify and test four mechanisms of opposition learning: upgrading, isomorphism, internal and external diffusion.
About the speakers:
Alfonso Casani (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Alfonso Casani is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). His research focuses on North Africa, political Islam, and opposition dynamics in authoritarian regimes. He is the author of Contemporary Islamist Opposition in Morocco: Resisting Inclusion and Moderation (Edinburgh University Press, 2025).
Francesco Colin (Ghent University)
Francesco Colin is a postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University who works on the performative dimension of rights claims, focusing on citizens and civil society engagement across political spaces. Before working on the Catalan independence movement within the SovereignPerformance project, he studied local citizenship performances in Morocco and the learning trajectories of opposition actors in the MENA. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and public-facing outlets.
Anne Kirstine Rønn (Aarhus University)
Anne Kirstine Rønn is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at Aarhus University and a former Postdoctoral Fellow at the London School of Economics Middle East Centre. Her research investigates political opposition and social movements in divided societies, with a particular focus on Lebanon. Her recent book, Anatomy of an opposition – the struggle against sectarianism in postwar Lebanon, came out with Manchester University in September.
André Bank (GIGA Institute)
Dr. André Bank is Senior Research Fellow at GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg. His research on authoritarian politics and conflict dynamics, focusing on the Middle East but also comparatively, has been published in Democratization, Internationale Politik, Mediterranean Politics and Middle East Policy.
To register, click HERE.