Contested Legitimacies

Repression and Revolt in Post-Revolutionary Egypt
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-94-6372-265-0
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 23, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Protest and Social Movements

Since the overthrow of President Mursi in mid-2013, Egypt has witnessed an authoritarian rollback and shrinking spaces for civil society. Nationalist discourses have villified popular protest and channelled pressure for reform into a state-centric model of governance. Despite this hostile environment for social mobilization, protest has persisted. Contested Legitimacies explores this resilience of contentious politics through a multimethod approach that is attuned to the physical and discursive interactions among key players in Egypt’s protest arena. Drawing from a unique archive of sources, it investigates the rise and fall of different coalitions of contenders, from the Tamarod uprising against Mursi, to the Anti-Coup resistance against the military coup, to the challenges posed by the Tiran and Sanafir island campaign to Al-Sisi's regime. It highlights the decisive impact of battles fought in a discursive arena on the conditions of possibility for street politics: In postrevolutionary Egypt, a contest over the meaning of political legitimacy cemented political polarization, limited social movements’ coalition choices, and ultimately paved the way for a restoration of autocracy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grimm, Jannis Julien

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Revolutionen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Gewalt Revolutionäre Gruppen und Bewegungen, Bewaffnete Konflikte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Preface

1 Introduction

History in the Making

Interactionist Approaches and the Arab Uprisings

The Egyptian Revolution as the Result of a Hegemonic Crisis

Political Subjectivation and the Emergence of New Contentious Alliances

Situating this Project

2 Conceptual Choices and Theoretical Framework

Players and Arenas

Contentious Interaction at Critical Junctures

Making Events Transformative

A Discourse Theoretical Perspective on Contentious Politics

3 Brothers and Rebels

The Polarization of Egyptian Society

Rebellion against Mursi

The June 30 Uprising

A Crisis of Legitimacy

4 Coup and Anti-Coup

From Government to Opposition

The Constitution of the Anti-Coup Alliance as a Political Player

Constructing the Antagonist Other

The Republican Guard Massacre

A Popular Mandate for Repression

Setting Course for Violence

5 Myths and Martyrs

The Making of a Massacre

The Rabaa Salute

The Rabaa Martyrs

Backlash to the Rabaa Massacre

Tactical Adaptation

Discursive Path Dependencies

6 New Sheriff in Town

Anti-Coup Resistance from Abroad

Victors’ Justice

The Rehabilitation of the Armed Forces

Shrinking Spaces

A Winning Formula for Popular Support

7 A Tale of Two Islands

Reshaping the Protest Arena

The Limits of Securitization

The Popular Campaign to Protect the Land

Sinai Liberation Day

Turning the Nationalist Discourse Inside Out

Harnessing the Memory of January 25 for Coalition Building

8 Conclusion and Implications

Autocratic Restoration through the Lenses of Contentious Politics

From a Relational to an Interactionist Perspective on Protest and Repression

Conceptualizing the Discursive Arena of Contentious Politics

Prospects for Resistance in Egypt

Appendix: A Mixed-Method Approach to the Study of Contentious Interaction

Combining Protest Event and Discourse Analyses in a Nested Research Design

Event Data and their Limitations

Political Discourse Analysis

Source Selection

Data Collection and Ethical Dilemmas

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Grimm, Jannis Julien
Dr. Jannis Julien Grimm heads the research group "Radical Spaces" at the Center for Interdisciplinary Peace Conflict Research at Freie Universität Berlin. For his research on protest-repression dynamics in Egypt, which is at the heart of this book, he received the German Middle East Studies Association’s dissertation award in 2020 and the German Political Science Association’s research award in 2021.