This paper analyzes the changing balance of power between the Egyptian military, the business elite, the United States, and a range of activist groups during the year that President Morsi was in power. Empirically, I provide a micro-periodization of the mobilization leading up to June 30, which is based on interviews, protest data, and real-time ethnography of the events as I witnessed them in Cairo. I combine two contrasting approaches to revolutions: (1) the structural or state-centered approach that focuses on divisions within the regime, including external pressure on the state; and (2) a strategic or agency-based approach that focuses on the dynamic interaction between the state and the opposition. Theoretically the paper brings together the literature on bottom-up revolutionary movements and top-down military coups, which have usually been studied as discreet phenomena.