Francesco Cavatorta is Senior Lecturer at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University, Ireland.

Ellen Lust is Director of Undergraduate Studies, Modern Middle East Studies, and Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Department of International and Area Studies at Yale University, USA.

This volume examines theoretical and comparative perspectives on civil society activism under authoritarian constraints to offer a better understanding of its relationship with regime change.

Rejecting a normative approach, the authors focus on the whole range of civic activism under authoritarianism, from resistance to support for the political system in place. They explain how activism under authoritarianism is subject to different opportunities structures and demonstrate how active citizens have tried to claw back powers of expression and contestation, but also sought to create a voice for themselves as privileged interlocutors of the regime. The volume also examines the manner in which society and activated citizenship influence policy-making and can become part of the policy process.

With a strong empirical focus on a wide range of countries and authoritarian regimes, this book presents cross-country comparisons on Spain, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Central Asia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan and Burma. It will be of interest to students and scholars of international politics, comparative politics, civil society, Middle East politics and regime change.