Contesting narratives of repression: Experimental evidence from Sisi’s Egypt

Abstract

Authoritarian regimes frequently attempt to justify repression by accusing their opponents of violent behavior. Are such claims successful at persuading the public to accept state-sponsored violence, and can these claims be contested effectively by human rights organizations seeking to publicize evidence contradicting the regime’s narrative? To evaluate these questions, we conducted a survey experiment in Egypt using Facebook advertisements to recruit respondents safely. The experiment evaluates the persuasiveness of competing information provided by a human rights organization and the Egyptian security forces in shaping attitudes toward an incident of state-sponsored violence in which security forces killed several leaders of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood. We find evidence for the ability of Egyptian security forces to increase support for this repression when they control the narrative about why violence was used. However, we also find that the effects of this propaganda disappear when paired with information from Human Rights Watch that counters the security forces’ justifications. These findings provide experimental evidence that propaganda can help authoritarian regimes to increase public support for repression, but they also indicate that human rights organizations can play some role in mitigating this support when they succeed at disseminating countervalent information in these contexts.

Dynamics of People, State, and Cyber Power in the Internet Shutdown Policy at Papua and West Papua In 2019

“…In the same research, Williamson dan Malik [25] also explains that authoritarian regime often tries to justify repression by accusing their opposition of using violence. This also happens in Indonesia, where the government insisted that there is a 'specific and abnormal' situation which requires security approach due to 'the Papuans' characteristic' without ever specifically explaining said situation which in turn makes it difficult to trust since demonstrations (which then leads to riots) are common in various regions in Indonesia and is not a defined characterizations of Papuans alone, as mentioned by Samuel Abrijani Pengerapan, Director General of Informatics Application in MoCI, and Albert Rudolf Rodja Head of Papua Regional Police Force in Judgement No.230/G/TF/2019/PTUN-JKT State Administrative Court.…”

“…Though the state's concern for national security during the demonstrations on August-September 2019 was a valid one, we also consider Williamson and Malik's [25] thoughts that national security is often used to justify repressive actions; in their research, they explained that as long as the state (security apparatus) controls narrations to justify a policy, the people are most likely to support the state's policy, but if said narrations are contested by other organizations which brought upon human rights perspective into their contra-narration, people's opinion will change. This description of Williamson and Malik's research fits perfectly to this case.…”

Internet Shutdown Policy at Papua and West Papua through the Public Policy Perspective

“…In the polar opposite of this thought will be the research done by Williamson and Malik (2020), who found that authoritarian regime often justifies repression by accusing their opposition of violence which prompts the regime to use security approach for the safety of the people. This research found that as long as the state controlled the narration surrounding a justification of murder, people tend to support their (the state's) decision.…”

“…These two thoughts exist in the polar opposite on how to understand the concept of national security. In this research, I am using the concept of national security as the base of the state's action without discounting Williamson and Malik's (2020) view when analyzing the contra narration of Internet Shutdown at Papua and West Papua in 2019.…”

How to Improve Representativeness and Cost-effectiveness in Samples Recruited through Meta: A Comparison of Advertisement Tools

“…Paid advertisements running on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram offer a unique opportunity for researchers, who need quick and cost-effective access to a pool of online survey participants. During the last few years, scholars have used Facebook Ads for recruitment in countries all around the world, such as Egypt (Williamson & Malik, 2020), Indonesia (Ananda & Bol, 2020), Kenya and Tanzania (L. R. Rosenzweig & Zhou, 2021), Thailand (Jäger, 2017), Turkey (Elci, 2021), and Uruguay (Bentancur et al, 2019). The Coronavirus pandemic has further revealed the potential of Facebook for scholarly research.…”