Authoritarian Security Cooperation: From Arab Spring to Winter

International cooperation of autocracies shape and guide regimes’ actions in the international arena. Since autocracy research only recently turned to the international dimension of authoritarian rule, we still lack systematic knowledge on drivers of authoritarian cooperation. Further, the conditions under which autocracies translate cooperation into long-term and deepened forms of collaboration are understudied. In this paper, we look at vertical crises, that is mass protests, as drivers of increased international security cooperation of autocracies, and the factors that explain different forms of autocratic cooperation. In order to test our arguments, we conduct case studies on regional and transregional cooperation of Arab autocracies after the Arab Spring. Our results indicate that vertical crises and their aftermaths foster security cooperation amongst regimes, which have similar institutional and social structures, are geographically close, and share interests regarding regional power relations.