MESA Banner
Sisi and the Youth of the Counter-Revolution: The Limits of Regime Cooptation Strategies in Egypt
Abstract
This paper analyzes the Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi regime’s strategies of youth cooptation and management since the onset of the Sisi presidency in 2014. The efforts of the regime to advance a discourse around youth empowerment was largely shaped by dominant narratives privileging the role of youths in advancing the January 25 Revolution and subsequent waves of popular mobilization. These narratives evidently informed the regime’s approach to youth management and to containing the threats that demographic group allegedly poses to the stability of the political order. The advancement of the Sisi regime’s youth empowerment initiatives coincided with the military’s efforts to promote military-centric nationalism and pro-military sensibilities among newer generations of political leaders through various courses and certificate programs offered by the Nasser Higher Military Academy. The emphasis on youth political participation in the regime’s discourse was also accompanied by a variety of initiatives aimed at training and promoting young political leaders, including the Presidential Youth Leadership Program, as well as the Coordination of Youth Parties and Politicians. These initiatives served in part to undermine the dominance of traditional political elites inside established political parties and inject these organization with Sisi loyalists. However, traditional political elites and families with longstanding involvement in politics under the rule of Hosni Mubarak succeeded in using youth empowerment initiatives as a vehicle to advance the political careers and stature of their own associates and family members. Thus, these initiatives were in part coopted and exploited by the very traditional political classes the Sisi regime once sought to sideline at the onset of his rule. The paper contributes to our understanding of the limits and the shortcomings of the youth cooptation strategy the Sisi regime has followed.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
None