How do different types of protest tactics affect future dynamics of contention in authoritarian regimes? A growing literature on contentious politics in authoritarian regimes has explored how citizens express their discontent against authoritarian rule. Although these questions are crucial to understanding protest politics, they obscure important protest processes and variation between different forms of protest. Utilizing a systematic, in-depth analysis of protest repertoires in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco (all of which have a long history of protest under authoritarian rule), I hypothesize that demonstrations, extended sit-ins and marches have different logics and different implications for future dynamics of contention. Marches, for instance, disrupt traffic and involve collective movement across large urban areas, while extended sit-ins involve capturing symbolic public spaces for extended periods of time. The extended nature of sit-ins, for instance, deepens ties between movement participants and allows for the creation of strong collective identities, while marches serve to extend protest networks by drawing in new participants. Finally, regular demonstrations, such as those organized by the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, are more likely to draw on an already existing network of supporters, thereby serve as occasions for highlighting mobilization capacities. The paper is based on an ethnographic analysis of protest processes, including participant observation of different forms of protest. The paper draws on a variety of sources, including in-depth interviews with protest participants, memoirs, and protest chants. Finally, the paper analyzes protest dynamics both before after the Arab uprisings of 2010/2011.

Under what conditions do successful revolutions come to be overthrown by counterrevolutions? This paper develops and tests a theory to explain the emergence and success of counterrevolution, which I define as an effort in the aftermath of revolution to restore a version of the pre-revolutionary regime. Contrary to existing explanations, which focus exclusively on the actions of old regime elites, I argue that counterrevolutions often have a popular base. Specifically, I propose that counterrevolutions are made possible by the support of a minority player in the revolutionary coalition itself. In the aftermath of revolution, as new governing arrangements are negotiated and nascent institutions erected, some coalition members may come to believe that their interests were, in fact, better served under the old regime. They turn against their former revolutionary allies, returning to the streets to protest their perceived marginalization. They then form an alliance with remnants of the old regime and foment a counterrevolution through a combination of elite intervention (often a coup) and popular mobilization. The research is anchored by the case of Egypt, which experienced a revolution in 2011 and, after a tentative two-year experiment with democracy, succumbed to a counterrevolution that restored an autocratic military ruler to power. To analyze the sub-national events that brought about this counterrevolution I draw on two methods of analysis: process tracing and event analysis. Using process tracing in the case of Egypt, I identify the key decisions, events, and conjunctures that prompted secularists to defect from Egypt’s revolutionary coalition and embrace a counterrevolutionary alternative. I draw on interviews with members of the primary political and activist groups that participated in the revolution and the subsequent transition period, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the secular opposition, and the old regime. I combine process tracing with quantitative event analysis, which entails the systematic tracking of different forms of contentious collective action over time. Using a dataset of contentious events collected from the year preceding the counterrevolution, I analyze the patterns of counterrevolutionary mobilization that created the conditions for military intervention on July 3, 2013. Finally, to demonstrate the generalizability of the theory I compare Egypt’s experience to post-revolutionary trajectories in four shadow cases: two Middle Eastern revolutions that bred durable regimes (Iran 1979 and Tunisia 2011), and two non-Middle Eastern cases that succumbed to counterrevolution (Guatemala 1944 and Thailand 1973).

The organizational strength of democratic challengers is cited as a key predictor of transitional success. Labor movements constitute a central component of these contentious challengers. In this paper, I utilize event data from both the Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions (n>8,900) in order to shed light on the divergent mobilization patterns seen in both countries in the aftermath of the uprisings. I combine this analysis with survey data, as well as qualitative evidence derived from newspaper reports and interviews in order to demonstrate the contrasting roles taken up by labor in the post-uprising periods of each country. While labor protest in Egypt remained parochial and epiphenomenal of the the unfolding political process, the Tunisian labor movement constituted a key actor in the transitional process, with mobilization patterns corresponding to their level of influence. This analysis underlines the importance of institutional settings and organizational strength when probing the relationship between protest and regime outcomes.

Despite all initial enthusiasm and exuberance about the democratic potential of recent wave of protest in Arab spring, the resurgence of authoritarianism in countries such as Egypt reminded many of us that democratization is a volatile process and democratic regimes may easily collapse in the face of serious authoritarian challenges. In Egypt, the uprising that initially brought down the long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011 later set the stage for a popular coup and crackdown on different factions that had organized the 2011 revolt. How should we explain the eventual breakdown of democracy in Egypt in 2013? This paper explains the failure of democratization in Egypt by highlight the short duration of mobilization that led to the fall of Mubarak. Democracies that result from shorter period of contention have a lower chance of survival than democracies that emerge from longer period of mass mobilization. Longer mobilization means that the oppositional movement is required to build a vast organizational structure. When the transition happens such organization would be able to marginalize the authoritarian elite and take the position of leadership in the new democratic regime, and build new democratic institutions. I argue that the Egyptian revolution failed in sustaining its democratic achievement because it was a short campaign, and shorter campaigns in general have a lower chance of keeping their democratic achievements. The uprising in Egypt succeeded in bringing down Hosni Mubarak in about three weeks. The organizers of this initial wave of mobilization did not have to build a vast organizational infrastructure for such short-term mobilization. The revolutionaries then entered the post-Mubarak era with considerable organizational weakness. By departure of Mubarak it was time to elect new leaders for the country and set the agenda through elections and referendum. However, revolutionaries that mostly belonged to secular factions of the Egyptian politics did not have the required organizational strength to translate their initial success into votes. On the other hand, Muslim Brotherhood emerged as the most potent organization in the post- Mubarak era with considerable capacity in electoral performance. The revolutionaries and seculars lost almost all the electoral battles in the post-Mubarak era to Islamists and specifically Muslim Brothers. Their anxiety about their inability to curtail Brother powers through institutional politics pushed toward resorting to protest tactics and hoping for military’s intervention in their favor, which led to 2013 coup and the end of the democratic period in Egypt.