Anti-corruption ‘from below’ and digital media during regime change: A comparative analysis of two North African countries

This chapter accounts for the role played by digital media when it comes to grassroots anti-corruption struggles in two North African countries, Tunisia and Algeria, that have respectively experienced a revolutionary process leading to full or partial political changes. Inspired by a grounded theory approach, and based on ethnographic research, this study scrutinises the anti-corruption mobilisations that occurred over time in the two countries and describes a variety of initiatives supported by diversified uses and understandings of digital media. The objective of this study is to fill the theoretical and empirical gaps in the literature. While academic works on the MENA region have largely focused on digital media and anti-corruption as two separate subjects of inquiry, this chapter aims to combine the two dimensions in a consistent theoretical framework, by providing an empirical analysis of two exemplary case studies. Overall, findings suggest overcoming normative and teleological explanations accounting for the role of digital media and the anti-corruption struggles in countries facing uncertain and fluid situations characterised by the reconfiguration of power relations.