When Hybrid Autocratic Regimes Abuse the “Constitutional State of Emergency” : Repression Towards Social Movements

Abstract: Global awareness of governments’ abuse of the Constitutional State of Emergency “CSoE” took place after the COVID-19 pandemic, although it is not a new phenomenon and is widely used, especially by hybrid autocratic regimes. However, few studies have studied its impact on social movements’ Political Collective Action “PCA” and were limited to the analysis of single deviant cases. In order to fill the gap, the research is aimed to investigate how, if at all, social movements in hybrid regimes overcome the PCA challenges under the CSoE? As a corollary, the study will examine the four PCA challenges -organization, interest, demands, and mobilization- in the context of Egypt, with emphasis on the “legal” procedures deployed by hybrid regimes via the highlight of social movement repression.The findings of the comparison conducted is consistent with the proposed causal mechanism, as it implies that when social movement overcome PCA challenges, their level of threat increases, placing a significant cost on the government, which increases the likelihood of the repression.