A large body of literature is concerned with how contemporary authoritarian regimes have been learning and transforming their autocratic tools with the rise of digital technologies (Tucker et al., 2017; Frantz et al., 2020; Feldstein, 2021; Schlumberger et al., 2023). Recent reviews of research on how political participation is limited and shaped by these digital authoritarian transformations presented contradictory findings. While some argued that societies likewise upgrade and learn, maneuvering and counteracting these new authoritarian tools (Hobbs and Roberts, 2018), others argued that it has further deepened the asymmetry between societies and dictators (Schlumberger et al., 2023) and has a “protest-reducing effect” (Weidmann and Rod, 2019). Therefore, an important question arises: How can we better understand the different levels and styles (dynamics) of societal reactions under these recent authoritarian transformations? This study posits that a micro-level analysis is needed to make sense of the contradictory findings of the macro-level analysis of political participation. Building on the existing micro-level literature on political participation and social movements, I specifically adopt James Jasper’s approach of “Strategic Agency” (2012) in investigating the varying political participation patterns in the Middle East autocracies (case selection is still under progress, and will be ready before the submission of the paper). The article will employ both qualitative and quantitative analyses drawing on a combination of political participation data and in-depth narrative interviews. Shifting the focus to the agency of civil society, the article not only aims to link the micro to the macro in understanding patterns of participation, but also to (1) move away from the dichotomy of 'protest or not to protest' and rather investigate the innovative "modes" of political participation (Hay, 2007; Dalton, 2008) and (2) provide a better insight into how this strategic choice of individuals takes place under a highly digitized autocracy, in alternative, newly reinvented, and sometimes, hybrid (online-offline) civic spaces.