Reflections on the Failure of the Egyptian Revolution

Abstract:

Between January 2011 and July 2013, Egypt underwent a revolutionary period. While the roots and sequences of the Egyptian revolution have been studied comprehensively, much less has been said about the reasons behind the revolution’s defeat. The reason is twofold. On the one hand, scholars prevalently have explored democratization’s failure. On the other hand, the way in which Egyptian events were understood logically prevented the possibility of analyzing the 2011–2013 situation as an example of a failed revolution. By showing that the emergence of democracy was the most unlikely outcome and adopting an inter-social approach, the present article deals with the failure of social revolution in Egypt. In particular, it argues that the interaction between worldwide ideologies, epochal intellectual currents and (supposedly) successful contemporary revolutions on the one hand, and an internal context shaped by the legacies of Nasserism, the peculiar fate of the communist left and the institutional environment on the other, negatively affected the capacity of the subaltern classes even to outline an alternative political system. The non-emergence of popular bodies rendered unlikely the collapse of state apparatuses, making it impossible for revolutionaries to take power by extra-constitutional means and determining the defeat of the revolution.

Key Words:

• Arab revolutions
• Dual power
• Egypt
• Egyptian revolution
• Popular bodies
• Revolution
• Revolutionary failure
• Revolutionary situation

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Anne Alexander, Jamie Allinson and Asef Bayat for their insightful comments on early drafts. Any errors or omissions remain mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 See, for example, Anne Alexander & Mostafa Bassiouny (2014) Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: Workers and the Egyptian Revolution (London: Zed Books Limited); Joel Beinin (2016) Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (Stanford: Stanford University Press); Brecht De Smet (2016) Gramsci on Tahrir: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Egypt (London: Pluto Press); and Philip Marfleet (2016) Egypt: Contested Revolution (London: Pluto Press).

2 Mazen Hassan, Jasmin Lorch & Annette Ranko (2020) Explaining Divergent Transformation Paths in Tunisia and Egypt: The Role of Inter-Elite Trust, Mediterranean Politics, 25(5), pp. 553–578.

3 Tarek Masoud (2014) Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

4 Neil Ketchley (2017) Egypt: In a Time of Revolution: Contentious Politics and the Arab Spring (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

5 Beinin, Workers and Thieves.

6 For a similar approach see Asef Bayat (2017) Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring (Stanford: Stanford University Press); John Chalcraft (2021) Egypt’s 2011 Uprising, Subaltern Cultural Politics and Revolutionary Weakness, Social Movement Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2020.1837101; and Brecht De Smet (2020) The Prince and the Minotaur: Egypt in the Labyrinth of Counter-Revolution, LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series, 36, pp. 1–24.

7 Hazem Kandil (2014) Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen: Egypt’s Road to Revolt (London and New York: Verso); Ketchley, Egypt: In a Time of Revolution; and Walter Armbrust (2019) Martyrs and Tricksters: Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

8 Andrea Teti & Gennaro Gervasio (2011) The Unbearable Lightness of Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Arab Uprisings, Mediterranean Politics, 16(2), pp. 321–327; and Jamie Allinson (2019b) A Fifth Generation of Revolution Theory? Journal of Historical Sociology, 32(1), pp. 142–151.

9 Kandil, Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen.

10 Sean McMahon (2017) Crisis and Class War in Egypt: Class Warfare, the State and Global Political Economy (London: Zed Books); and Angela Joya (2020) The Roots of Revolt: A Political Economy of Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

11 Maha Abdelrahman (2014) Egypt’s Long Revolution: Protest Movements and Uprisings (New York: Routledge); and De Smet, Gramsci on Tahrir.

12 Jamie Allinson (2019a) Counter-Revolution as International Phenomenon: The Case of Egypt, Review of International Studies, 45(2), pp. 320–344; and Armbrust, Martyrs and Tricksters.

13 Counter-revolutionary successes and revolutionary failures should be seen as two partially different processes. On this aspect, see Allinson, Counter-Revolution as International Phenomenon, p. 328.

14 Joel Beinin, (2013) Was There A January 25 Revolution? Available online at: www.jadaliyya.com/Details/27899, accessed January 4, 2020.

15 See also Hugh Roberts (2013) The Revolution that Wasn’t, London Review of Books, 35(17), pp. 3–9; and McMahon, Crisis and Class War in Egypt.

16 Theda Skocpol (1979) States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 4.

17 Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries, p. 154.

18 De Smet, Gramsci on Tahrir, p. 74.

19 Allinson, Counter-Revolution as International Phenomenon, p. 328.

20 Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries, p. 154.

21 Mathijs van de Sande (2013) The Prefigurative Politics of Tahrir Square: An Alternative Perspective on the 2011 Revolutions, Res Publica, 19(3), pp. 223–239; Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution; Gilbert Achcar (2016) Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (London: Saqi); and Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution.

22 Sune Haugbølle & Andreas Bandak (2017) The Ends of Revolution: Rethinking Ideology and Time in the Arab Uprisings, Middle East Critique, 26(3), pp. 191–204.

23 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution, p. 2.

24 James M. Jasper (2010) Social Movement Theory Today: Toward a Theory of Action?, Sociology Compass, 4(11), pp. 965–976.

25 Charles Kurzman (2004) Can Understanding Undermine Explanation? The Confused Experience of Revolution, Philosophy of Social Sciences, 34(3), pp. 328–351.

26 William H. Sewell (1996) Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille, Theory and Society, 25(6), p. 845.

27 Bjørn Thomassen (2012) Notes Towards an Anthropology of Political Revolution, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 54(3), pp. 684.

28 Mounia Bennani-Chraïbi (2017) Beyond Structure and Contingency: Toward an Interactionist and Sequential Approach to the 2011 Uprising, Middle East Critique, 26(4), pp. 373–395; Haugbølle & Bandak, The Ends of Revolution; and George Lawson (2019) Anatomies of Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

29 Daniel Ritter (2015) The Iron Cage of Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 7.

30 Colin Beck (2015) Radicals, Revolutionaries and Terrorists (Cambridge: Polity), p. 16.

31 See also, De Smet, Gramsci on Tahrir, pp. 70–77.

32 Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries.

33 Charles Tilly (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley), p. 190.

34 Ibid, p. 191.

35 Bennani-Chraïbi, Beyond Structure and Contingency, p. 374; Ketchley, Egypt: In a Time of Revolution, p. 5; De Smet, The Prince and the Minotaur, p. 14.

36 Lev Trotsky (2017 [1932]) The History of the Russian Revolution (London: Penguin); John Foran (2005) Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 7; and Thomassen, Notes, p. 680.

37 For a similar approach see Foran, Taking Power, p. 8; and Lawson, Anatomies of Revolution, p. 88.

38 Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions; Jeff Goodwin (2001) No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); and Eric Hobsbawm (2007) Revolutionaries, Revised and Updated Version, 5th ed. (London: Abacus).

39 For a sharp critique, see John Holloway (2002) Change the World Without Taking Power (London: Pluto Press).

40 Alexander & Bassiouny, Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, p. 216.

41 Kandil, Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen, p. 234.

42 Francesco De Lellis (2019) Peasants, Dispossession and Resistance in Egypt: An Analysis of Protest Movements and Organisations before and after the 2011 Uprising, Review of African Political Economy, 46(162), pp. 582–598.

43 Saker El Nour (2015) Small Farmers and the Revolution in Egypt: The Forgotten Actors, Contemporary Arab Politics, 8(2), p. 205.

44 Hatem M Hassan (2015) Extraordinary Politics of Ordinary People: Explaining the Microdynamics of Popular Committees in Revolutionary Cairo, International Sociology, 30(4), p. 387.

45 Alexander & Bassiouny, Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, p. 325.

46 Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries, p. 203.

47 Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution, p. 160.

48 Anne Alexander & Jad Bouharoun (2016) Syria: Revolution, Counter-Revolution and War (London: Socialist Worker).

49 Beinin, Workers and Thieves, pp. 65–70.

50 Gianni Del Panta (2020) Cross-Class and Cross-Ideological Convergences over Time: Insights from the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutionary Uprisings, Government and Opposition, 55(4), pp. 634–652.

51 Beinin, Workers and Thieves, p. 117.

52 Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution, p. 155.

53 Beinin, Workers and Thieves, p. 118.

54 Antonio Gramsci (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (London: Lawrence and Wishart).

55 Gennaro Gervasio & Andrea Teti (2021) Prelude to the Revolution: Independent Civic Activists in Mubarak’s Egypt and the Quest for Hegemony, The Journal of North African Studies, 26(6), pp. 1099–1121.

56 Byung-Chul Han (2017) Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (London: Verso).

57 Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries, pp. 23, 170.

58 De Smet, The Prince and the Minotaur, p. 8.

59 Chalcraft, Egypt’s 2011 Uprising, p. 6–14.

60 Roberto Roccu (2019) Democratization beyond Capitalist Time: Temporalities of Transition in the Middle East after the Arab Uprisings, Middle East Critique, 28(3), pp. 227–241.

61 Lawson, Anatomies of Revolution, p. 64.

62 Fred Halliday (1999) Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power (Durham: Duke University Press).

63 Nader Sohrabi (2002) Global Waves, Local Actors: What the Young Turks Knew about Other Revolutions and Why It Mattered, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 44(1), p. 47.

64 Jean-Pierre Reed & John Foran (2002) Political Culture of Opposition: Exploring Idioms, Ideologies, and Revolutionary Agency in the Case of Nicaragua, Critical Sociology, 28(3), p. 358.

65 William H. Sewell (1985) Ideologies and Social Revolutions: Reflections on the French Case, Journal of Modern History, 57(1), p. 61.

66 Theda Skocpol, (1985) Cultural Idioms and Political Ideologies in the Revolutionary Reconstruction of State Power: A Rejoinder to Sewell, Journal of Modern History, 57(1), p. 91.

67 Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries, p. 18.

68 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution, p. 80.

69 John Chalcraft (2012) Horizontalism in the Egyptian Revolutionary Process, Middle East Research and Information Project, 262(Spring), pp. 6–11; Ali Sonay (2018) Making Revolution in Egypt: The April 6 Youth Movement in a Global Context (London: I. B. Tauris).

70 Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries, p. 334.

71 John Foran (2014) Beyond Insurgency to Radical Social Change: The New Situation, Studies in Social Justice, 8(1), p. 9.

72 Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries, p. 335; Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution, p. 81.

73 Foran, Beyond Insurgency, p. 9.

74 Haugbølle & Bandak, The Ends of Revolution, p. 199.

75 Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries, p. 203.

76 Sonay, Making Revolution in Egypt, p. 92.

77 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution, pp. 92–106.

78 Foran, Beyond Insurgency, p. 13.

79 Holloway, Change the World.

80 Foran, Beyond Insurgency, p. 14.

81 Sonay, Making Revolution in Egypt, p. 92.

82 Lawson, Anatomies of Revolution, p. 71.

83 Alexander & Bassiouny, Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, p. 37–45; Allinson, Counter-Revolution as International Phenomenon, p. 334.

84 Beinin, Workers and Thieves, p. 18.

85 Sara Salem (2019) Haunted Histories: Nasserism and the Promise of the Past, Middle East Critique, 28(3), p. 262.

86 Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution, p. 161; Chalcraft, Egypt’s 2011 Uprising, pp. 6–14.

87 Roberts, (2013) The Revolution that Wasn’t, pp. 5–6.

88 Beinin, Workers and Thieves, p. 27.

89 Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution, p. 104.

90 Gennaro Gervasio (2020) Marxism or Left-Wing Nationalism?, in: Laure Guirguis (ed) The Arab Lefts: Histories and Legacies, 1950s–1970s, pp. 148–167 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).

91 Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution, p. 106.

92 Beinin, Workers and Thieves, p. 29.

93 Gervasio, Marxism or Left-Wing Nationalism?, p. 152.

94 Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution, p. 191.

95 Gervasio, Marxism or Left-Wing Nationalism?, p. 161.

96 I wish to thank an anonymous peer reviewer for pointing out this aspect.

97 Marfleet, Egypt: Contested Revolution, p. 191.

98 Michel Camau (2002) Sociétés Civiles ‘Réelles’ et Téléologie de la Démocratisation [Civil societies: ‘Realities’ and explanation of democratization], Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée [International review of comparative politics], 9(2), pp. 213–232.

99 Masoud, Counting Islam, p. 32.

100 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution, p. 84.

101 Gervasio & Teti, Prelude to the Revolution, p. 10.

102 Armbrust, Martyrs and Tricksters, p. 30.

103 De Smet, Gramsci on Tahrir, p. 210.

104 Ketchley, Egypt: In a Time of Revolution, p, 97; Lucie Ryzova (2020) The Battle of Muhammad Mahmoud Street in Cairo: The Politics and Poetics of Urban Violence in Revolutionary Times, in Past and Present, 247(1), pp. 273–317.

105 Alexander & Bassiouny, Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, p. 217.