Papers by David L . Suber
International Journal of Cultural Property, Nov 1, 2022
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psx-10.1177_00323217211034050 for Protest Demobilization In Post... more Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psx-10.1177_00323217211034050 for Protest Demobilization In Post-Revolutionary Settings: Trajectories To Counter-Revolution And To Democratic Transition by Katia Pilati, Giuseppe Acconcia, David Leone Suber and Henda Chennaoui in Political Studies
Trends in Organized Crime
This article examines people smuggling in the Kurdish borders between Turkey and Iran, and descri... more This article examines people smuggling in the Kurdish borders between Turkey and Iran, and describes how members of local Kurdish border communities use their roles as kaçakçı (smuggler in Turkish) to navigate externalised EU border controls amid internal displacement and poverty. It draws upon ethnographic data collection between 2020 and 2022 in the Turkey-Iran border that has not been considered in studies on the EU-supported external counter-smuggling. This article specifically narrows down on corruption, an often mentioned yet understudied element of smuggling, and discusses the payment of bribes to border officials, and the creation of riskier routes to facilitate border crossing. We show how unequal access to corruption allow some people smuggling attempts to result in relatively uneventful passages while others are permeated by risks and death. While vilified by governments, corruption is also widely known and accepted as a social equalizer: as a safety valve that allows mar...
Trends in Organized Crime, 2023
This article examines people smuggling in the Kurdish borders between Turkey and Iran, and descri... more This article examines people smuggling in the Kurdish borders between Turkey and Iran, and describes how members of local Kurdish border communities use their roles as kaçakçı (smuggler in Turkish) to navigate externalised EU border controls amid internal displacement and poverty. It draws upon ethnographic data collection between 2020 and 2022 in the Turkey-Iran border that has not been considered in studies on the EU-supported external counter-smuggling. This article specifically narrows down on corruption, an often mentioned yet understudied element of smuggling, and discusses the payment of bribes to border officials, and the creation of riskier routes to facilitate border crossing. We show how unequal access to corruption allow some people smuggling attempts to result in relatively uneventful passages while others are permeated by risks and death. While vilified by governments, corruption is also widely known and accepted as a social equalizer: as a safety valve that allows marginalized Kurds-both kaçakçı and border and security guards-to navigate precarity and survive borderland enforcement regimes. Our analysis from the perspectives of Kurds working as kaçakçı in the context of conflict and internal displacement seeks to move away from the dominant lens used in the analysis of people smuggling, which has almost solely examined it as a form of transnational organized crime and/or as an element of externalised border governance.
Political Studies, 2021
This article examines two outcomes of demobilization in post-revolutionary contexts, democratic t... more This article examines two outcomes of demobilization in post-revolutionary contexts, democratic transition and counter-revolution. Complementing elite-driven approaches, we argue that the way demobilization ends is conditional upon the capacity of challengers to promote enduring alliances. Following a paired controlled comparison, we analyse two cases, Egypt and Tunisia and processes of alliance building and fragmentation preceding the 2013 coup d’Etat in Egypt, and the adoption of a new Constitution in 2014 in Tunisia. Data from semi-structured and in-depth interviews were collected through fieldwork in multiple localities of Egypt and Tunisia between 2011 and 2019. Results show that the fragmentation of the challengers’ coalition in post-revolutionary Egypt contributed to a counter-revolution while, in Tunisia, challengers’ alliances rooted in the pre-revolutionary period lasted throughout the phase of demobilization and supported a democratic transition. We conclude by discussing...
Social Movement Studies, 2019
This paper investigates the role of social groups in mobilizing resources for protests in repress... more This paper investigates the role of social groups in mobilizing resources for protests in repressive contexts. In particular, it examines the impact of organizations and informal groups on individual engagement in the protests developed in 2010 in Tunisia and in 2011 in Egypt. The empirical analysis draws on the following data
Migrazioni nel Mediterraneo. Dinamiche, identità e movimenti; Franco Angeli Editore, 2019
Dati alla mano, l'accordo sui rimpatri fra Italia e Tunisia è fra i più funzionali mai sviluppati... more Dati alla mano, l'accordo sui rimpatri fra Italia e Tunisia è fra i più funzionali mai sviluppati negli ultimi anni. Nel 2015 su un totale di 2.850 rimpatri svolti dalle autorità italiane, il 35% furono Tunisini. Nel 2016 la proporzione è cresciuta fino al 43%, arrivando al 62% nel 2017. 1 Andare oltre ai dati per analizzare l'impatto effettivo delle politiche di rimpatrio non è semplice. Se da una parte l'esistenza di accordi per il rimpatrio di migranti irregolari è argomento spesso trattato dai media, le pratiche specifiche a questi accordi vengono raramente rese pubbliche. 2 Questo articolo prende in considerazione gli accordi bilaterali di rimpatrio stipulati fra Italia e Tunisia negli ultimi decenni mettendo insieme dati pubblicamente disponibili e nove mesi di ricerca e interviste con fonti dirette, per analizzare l'efficacia del sistema di rimpatrio italo-tunisino e il presupposto per nuove emergenti politiche di rimpatrio fra l'Europa e paesi terzi. Nel 2015, 1,022 Tunisini sono stati rimpatriati dall'Italia all'aeroporto di Enfidha, in Tunisia. Nel 2016 il numero di rimpatri si è alzato a 1,268 persone su 2,899 rimpatri totali (vedi figura 1). I dati derivano dalla relazione al parlamento (2017) del garante nazionale dei diritti delle persone detenute o private della libertà personale: Rapporto sui centri di identificazione ed espulsione in Italia (aggiornamento gennaio 2017), Disponibile Online: http://www.senato.it/application/xmanager/projects/leg17/file/repository/commissioni/dirittiumaniXVII/allegati/Cie_rapport o_aggiornato_2_gennaio_2017.pdf I dati riguardanti i rimpatri nel 2017 sono forniti dal rapporto annuale della polizia di Stato, 166° anniversario della fondazione della polizia di Stato, Esserci Sempre, Cristiano Morabito e Cristina Di Lucente (2017). Disponibile online: https://poliziamoderna.poliziadistato.it/statics/23/dati-2017.pdf#page=5 2 Ci sono voluti quasi nove mesi di ricerca a tempo-pieno per mettere insieme le informazioni necessarie a fornire gli argomenti presentati in questo articolo. La cooperazione da parte di autorità italiane e tunisine è stata scarsa e sporadica.
Social Movement Studies, 2019
This paper investigates the role of social groups in mobilizing resources for protests in repress... more This paper investigates the role of social groups in mobilizing resources for protests in repressive contexts. In particular, it examines the impact of organizations and informal groups on individual engagement in the protests developed in 2010 in Tunisia and in 2011 in Egypt. The empirical analysis draws on the following data sources: the second wave of the Arab Barometer (2010-2011), two focus groups in Egypt conducted between 2011 and 2015 with members of trade unions and of Popular Committees who had participated to the 2011 protests in Egypt, eight semi-structured interviews conducted in 2017 to workers in Tunisia who had participated to the 2010-2011 protests, and interviews conducted in January and February 2011 to 100 women in Tunisia within a study tackling police violence against women during the Tunisian uprisings.
Findings show that both in Egypt and Tunisia protests were neither spontaneous nor fully organized as formal organizations and informal and spontaneous groups strictly interconnected in sustaining protests. In Egypt, established Islamic charity networks provided the structural basis for Popular Committees to engage in the 2011 protests and the initially spontaneous workers’ groups, institutionalized through the legalization of EFITU, were crucial for national wide protests occurred throughout 2011. In Tunisia, the major trade union UGTT, was essential for mobilizing workers in the initial stages of protests but was backed by informal and spontaneous groups of workers during the process of protest diffusion.
Results remark that the 2010-2011 Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings were therefore well-grounded on intermediate mobilizing structures capable to survive in the interstices of an authoritarian context. Findings suggest to consider that, in repressive context, spontaneous groups and more established and formal organizations continuously switch from one form to another, overlap, and transform themselves faster than they would do in democratic contexts.
This opinion article invites the reader to reflect about the processes that brought the inhabitan... more This opinion article invites the reader to reflect about the processes that brought the inhabitants of the refugee and migrant 'Jungle' camp in Calais to develop agency over the construction and running of the camp. In engaging with this Journal's theme of " Refugees and Work " , we look at how the Calais' Jungle inhabitants gained direct involvement in the running of two key activities going on in the camp: the construction of shelters and schooling. As volunteers in the Calais' Jungle ourselves, we wrote this article by reordering first hand observations stemming from our participatory experience in the camp. Thus, we hope to provide readers with a direct account that, based on our participation and involvement, surely needs to be considered as informative as partial and biased by our own individual experience. In looking at the dynamics of interaction between the Jungle's inhabitants and other groups present in the camp, be them independent volunteers, established humanitarian organisations or border authorities and police, this article seeks to give testimony of the ways in which the camp's inhabitants negotiated their own involvement in organising life in the camp. At the same time rejecting the humanitarian logics of protection and dependence, as well as the security logics of policing and control, their presence and agency over the camp's activities, despite often problematic and conflicting, embodied their struggle against the France-UK border regime. Recognising this form of agency might be important when engaging with similar situations emerging in the future.
This article will provide an account of how readmission agreements have been working between Ital... more This article will provide an account of how readmission agreements have been working between Italy and Tunisia in the last few years. Considering available data on the matter, as well as three months’ worth of personal research and interviews with direct sources in Tunisia, this article will then examine some of the shortcomings of the Italian repatriation system, so as to counter the widely held assumption that Italy and Tunisia are setting a model case for how readmissions are to be operated in Europe.
Books by David L . Suber
Trends in Organized Crime, 2023
This special issue of Trends in Organized Crime brings together recent empirical research on migr... more This special issue of Trends in Organized Crime brings together recent empirical research on migrant smuggling. Challenging the overemphasis on criminal networks that has long characterized mainstream discussions on smuggling, and which gained renewed traction during the pandemic, the contributions refocus our attention towards critical but underexamined dynamics present in the facilitation of irregular migration in corridors around the world. The contributors demonstrate how the excessive attention to the persona of the smuggler present in smuggling research and migration policy has led to the invisibility of the mobility efforts facilitated by other critical actors –most notably, migrants themselves. Furthermore, using intersectionality-informed approaches, the authors shed light on the roles lesser examined elements in smuggling like race, ethnicity, class, gender, sex and intimacy play in irregular migration, often becoming key determinants in the ability of a person to migrate.
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Papers by David L . Suber
Findings show that both in Egypt and Tunisia protests were neither spontaneous nor fully organized as formal organizations and informal and spontaneous groups strictly interconnected in sustaining protests. In Egypt, established Islamic charity networks provided the structural basis for Popular Committees to engage in the 2011 protests and the initially spontaneous workers’ groups, institutionalized through the legalization of EFITU, were crucial for national wide protests occurred throughout 2011. In Tunisia, the major trade union UGTT, was essential for mobilizing workers in the initial stages of protests but was backed by informal and spontaneous groups of workers during the process of protest diffusion.
Results remark that the 2010-2011 Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings were therefore well-grounded on intermediate mobilizing structures capable to survive in the interstices of an authoritarian context. Findings suggest to consider that, in repressive context, spontaneous groups and more established and formal organizations continuously switch from one form to another, overlap, and transform themselves faster than they would do in democratic contexts.
Books by David L . Suber
Findings show that both in Egypt and Tunisia protests were neither spontaneous nor fully organized as formal organizations and informal and spontaneous groups strictly interconnected in sustaining protests. In Egypt, established Islamic charity networks provided the structural basis for Popular Committees to engage in the 2011 protests and the initially spontaneous workers’ groups, institutionalized through the legalization of EFITU, were crucial for national wide protests occurred throughout 2011. In Tunisia, the major trade union UGTT, was essential for mobilizing workers in the initial stages of protests but was backed by informal and spontaneous groups of workers during the process of protest diffusion.
Results remark that the 2010-2011 Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings were therefore well-grounded on intermediate mobilizing structures capable to survive in the interstices of an authoritarian context. Findings suggest to consider that, in repressive context, spontaneous groups and more established and formal organizations continuously switch from one form to another, overlap, and transform themselves faster than they would do in democratic contexts.