Schaaf (2021), Litigating the Authoritarian State: Lawful Resistance and Judicial Politics in the Middle East

Steven D. Schaaf. Litigating the Authoritarian State: Lawful Resistance and Judicial Politics in the Middle East. Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2021.

In authoritarian countries, law is more deferential to state authority than protective of citizens’ rights. Nevertheless, people throughout the Arab world routinely deploy law to contest a broad array of state abuses: land expropriations, unlawful arrests, revocations of citizenship, and so on. When and why do people mobilize law to resist states that operate above the law? And what are the consequences of legal contention against the authoritarian state, both inside and outside of the courthouse? My dissertation answers these questions using a theory of “lawful resistance” to explain when, how, and to what effect citizens access legal institutions and seek to hold authoritarian states accountable to the rule of law.This dissertation explores lawful resistance in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine in three steps. First, I argue that individuals choose to litigate their grievances against authoritarian officials when they view the state judiciary as an assertive and attainable ally in contentious politics. Second, I trace the radiating effects of lawful resistance on the dynamics of contention outside of court, showing how legal opportunity structures and cause lawyering communities condition whether litigation is either a complement or substitute for anti-state protest activity. Third, I analyze the outcomes of lawful resistance in court and demonstrate that even authoritarian judiciaries can often exhibit a meaningful capacity to hold public officials accountable to legal norms.Evidence used to test these arguments through a comparative analysis of Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine comes from: (1) interviews; (2) survey experiments; (3) original data tracking anti-state protests and lawsuits; (4) historical case studies of litigation and protest activity; (5) original data on judicial decision-making in 3,035 lawsuits against state actors; and (6) two years of fieldwork shadowing judges as they conducted business in the courthouse, discussed their dockets, and wrote their verdicts. 

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