Framing Arab socio-political space: state governmentality, governance and non-institutional protestation

Abstract

This article proposes a framework for understanding the reconfiguration of sociopolitical space in the Arab world in the last 15 years through the interplay between states’, civil societies’ and contestation movements’ actors which correspond respectively to state governmentality, governance and non-institutional protestation. A special focus will be on the emergence of the figure of the expert who will compete with the elected elite. This reconfiguration has occurred in a context of transformation of nation-state sovereignty and citizenship and the emergence of new elites which cohabit and compete with the old ones. Citizenship has taken different forms including the emerging form of flexible citizenship and non-citizenship in the Arab world.