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ABSTRACT
What accounts for the failed transition and restructuring of authoritarianism in Egypt after a fleeting rupture in 2011? How did the dominant statist party lose its iron grip on power? Why did the collapse of the dominant party not bring about significant democratic transformation and generate power-sharing pacts? The article aims to go beyond the question of the importance of either authoritarian resilience or the transition paradigm to offer a two-layered analytical framework based on leverage level and the coherence of pro-democracy forces’ demands to account both for the timing of one-party collapse and the consequent dynamics of authoritarian revival. I allow room for complex and strategic interactions between different components of pro-democracy forces and the old ruling class to elucidate the contingent political trajectory after the time of disintegration. When pro-democracy forces maintained their leveraged position and kept a demand-claiming framework unified, they secured a ‘cooperative differentiation’ position and were able to apply consistent democratization pressure that led to regime breakdown. When they adopted a conformist stance and accommodated their demands to the incumbent regime, they became captive to the interests of old regime holdovers and asserted an ‘antagonistic identification’ position that hobbled efforts to move towards democratization.
Acknowledgements
I am thankful for the anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments, all of which improved this article. I am also grateful to Nathan Brown, Kenneth Roberts, Sarah Birch, Noora Lori, Evelyne Huber, and Charles Kurzman for their insightful comments on earlier drafts. Earlier drafts were presented at the Middle East Studies Association—MESA (November 2016) and the APSA-MENA Workshop (May 2016).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratisation”; Magaloni, “Credible Power-sharing.”
2 Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization, 37.
3 Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy; Magaloni and Kricheli, “Political Order and One-Party Rule”; Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds, “Tracking the Arab Spring.”
4 Valbjørn, “Upgrading Post-democratization Studies”; Liela, “Limaza qamat al-thawra,” 25–9; Al-Agati, “Al-haraqat al-ihtigagiyya fi masr,” 209–17.
5 Pepinsky, “The Institutional Turn in Comparative Authoritarianism,” 636.
6 Huber, Rueschemeyer, and Stephens, “The Impact of Economic Development on Democracy.”
7 Although the deep state is a widely-contested concept, one of its comprehensive definitions refers to it as parallel state operations and a hidden power network outside established state hierarchies see in general, Soyler, “Informal Institutions.”
8 Albrecht, Aurel, and Fred, Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring.
9 Heydemann and Leenders, “Authoritarian Learning and Counterrevolution.”
10 Springborg, “The Precarious Economics of Arab Springs.”
11 Yom, From Resilience to Revolution.
12 Brownlee, Democracy Prevention; Ritter, The Iron Cage of Liberalism.
13 Bellin, “The Robustness of Authoritarianism”; Heydemann, “Upgrading Authoritarianism in the Arab World”; Schlumberger, Debating Arab Authoritarianism.
14 Huber, Rueschemeyer, and Stephens, “The Impact of Economic Development on Democracy,” 74, 75.
15 Fish, “Islam and Authoritarianism.”
16 Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile; Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism.
17 Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution, 48; Bishara, “Thawret Masr,” 113–15.
18 Tusa, The Army and Egypt, 119.
19 Owen, State, Power and Politics, 134–36.
20 Lust, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World, 60, 147–49.
21 Kienle, A Grand Delusion Democracy, 132–36.
22 Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat; Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State, 382–89; Richards, “Economic Imperatives and Political Systems.”
23 Hinnebusch, “The Formation of the Contemporary Egyptian States”; Abd Al-Fadeel, Ta’amulate fei al-mas’ala al-eqtesadiya al-misriya; Saleh, “Usul al-nukhba al-siyasiya al-misriya”; Soliman, The Autumn of Dictatorship.
24 Abul-Magd, Militarizing the Nation, 113.
25 Stacher, Egypt Running on Empty.
26 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution Protests.
27 Soliman, The Autumn of Dictatorship, 3.
28 Soliman, Al-Nizam al-qawi wa al-dawla al-da’ifa, 218; Helal, “Drama al-intiqal.”
29 El-Mahdi, “Enough! Egypt’s Quest for Democracy,” 1013.
30 Bradely, Inside Egypt, 211–13.
31 Cook, The Struggle for Egypt.
32 Bandy and Smith, “Introduction: Cooperation and Conflict,” 10.
33 Human Rights Watch, Egypt: Revoke Ban on Strikes, Demonstrations. https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/03/25/egypt-revoke-ban-strikes-demonstrations. Accessed 12 September 2016.
34 Valbjørn, “Upgrading Post-democratisation Studies.”
35 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution Protests, 102–7.
36 Korany, “Al-rabie’ al-arabi fei Masr.”
37 Maszlee and Al-Anani, “Pious Way to Politics.”
38 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution Protests, 108.
39 Ibid, Egypt’s Long Revolution Protests, 113–6.
40 Bishara, “Thawret Masr,” 49–110.
41 Falk, and Falk, “Authoritarian ‘Geopolitics’ of Survival.”
42 Presidential Decree, “The Arab Republic of Egypt Law No.107 for 2013 For Organizing the Right to Peaceful Public Meetings, Processions and Protests.” www.constitutionnet.org/files/protest_law_issued_nov_24.pdf.
43 Parliament approves secretly drafted NGO law; Mohamed Hamama November 16, 2016; http://www.madamasr.com/en/2016/11/16/feature/politics/parliament-approves-secretly-drafted-ngo-law/.
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Shimaa Hatab
Shimaa Hatab is assistant professor of political science. Her research ranges across different perspectives of critical political economy, political sociology and comparative politics. She investigates the position of different players in regime transitions and dynamics of socio-political transformations within the context of the Middle East and Latin America.