The influence of Authoritarian Learning on Decision making in Authoritarian Regimes in times of Contentious Politics. Morocco during the Arab Uprisings in 2011

Authoritarian regimes under pressure can draw upon different strategies to respond to a challenge. Naturally, the magnitude of the threat to their authority and the type of the challenger influence the regime’s response (Josua and Edel 2014, 6–7; Franklin 2009; Davenport 2007). Furthermore, the regime type and the resources the dictator can deploy to contain contestation influence the response strategy (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2014; Svolik 2012; Barany 2013). However, the actions of regimes under pressure are embedded in a regional and international context that can have decisive impacts on a regime’s response to growing contestation and thus on its survival (Della Porta 2014; Hale 2013). Expanding on previous works on diffusion and learning mechanisms in social movement theory (Della Porta and Tarrow 2011; Walsh-Russo 2014) and policy diffusion (Simmons, Garrett, and Dobbin 2008; Gilardi 2010; Gilardi 2012), I argue that under circumstances of regional diffused contention, authoritarian learning (Heydemann and Leenders 2011; Heydemann and Leenders 2014) can have a crucial impact on how authoritarian regimes under threat respond to contestation (Levitsky and Way 2010; Della Porta 2014; Della Porta and Tarrow 2011). Investigating the events in Morocco during the period of regional contention in 2011, I will highlight the importance of diffusion processes through learning mechanisms for the regime’s response to the challenge created by the protests in 2011. Building on conceptual insights from other literatures on learning mechanisms, the case study will accompanied by a theoretical and methodological plea for spelling-out mechanisms of learning in authoritarian contexts in order to improve our understanding of diffusion of practices amongst authoritarian regimes.