ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of social groups in mobilizing resources for protests in repressive contexts. The dependent variable of the Egyptian sample considers whether individuals joined the protests against former president Hosni Mubarak between January 25 and February 11, 2011. The dependent variable for the Tunisian sample consists of whether individuals engaged in the protests against former president Zain Al-Abdeen Ben Ali between December 17, 2010, and January 14, 2011. The workers involved in our second focus group in Egypt, members of independent trade unions, confirmed their early participation in the 2011 protests in Mahalla al-Kubra. Nonetheless, this does not contradict the high degree of spontaneity in the ways in which protesters both joined and performed protest in December 2010 and January 2011 in Ben Arous. Protests in repressive contexts, therefore, develop in spaces characterized by both spontaneity and organization.
