Many analysts of Egyptian politics assert that Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi has simply reconstituted the authoritarian order of the Mubarak era. This paper will argue that, while there are important areas of continuity, there are also important differences between the two regimes. It will focus on the following areas: the military’s political and economic role; the strategy for building a durable elite coalition that supports the regime; and the public attitude toward state authority cultivated in speeches by the President and in official propaganda. The paper will draw on economic data, patterns of military appointments at the national and provincial level, published interviews with prominent members of the elite, voting data from the 2015 parliamentary elections, data on the awarding of government contracts for major infrastructure projects, and speeches and statements by al-Sisi and other senior officials. The paper finds that post-2011 authoritarianism in Egypt differs from the Mubarak era in several respects. It grants a more central political and economic role to the military, draws on a relative narrow base of support within the elite, and relies heavily on constructing a public climate of fear toward both external and internal threats to justify public support for the regime.

Post-mortems on Egyptian politics since 2011 often trace an arc in which early prospects for democratic political rule, expanding media freedoms, and proliferating civil society activism were all quashed after Muhammad Mursi’s ouster (Brown, Journal of Democracy, October 2013, Lynch, Journal of Democracy, October 2015). This paper complicates this narrative by employing interviews with activists against public sexual violence (PSV), and analysis of 40 hours of Arabic-language TV shows, to demonstrate that not only have unprecedented levels of street and media activism against PSV occurred since 2011, but also that such activism has survived Sisi-era crackdowns and continues to make tangible gains. PSV has long plagued Egypt, with a 2013 UN Women study finding that 99% of women surveyed had been harassed in public. Mass assaults in crowded public spaces occurred in the 2006 ‘Eid and during Tahrir protests after 2011. After Mubarak’s overthrow several anti-PSV youth initiatives emerged. Activists patrolled public spaces to prevent and rescue women from attacks. Anti-harassment initiatives in the subway and in shopping areas during ‘eids in some cases enjoyed the permission of - and even cooperation with - the police. Newly-freer media broke longstanding taboos, featuring survivors graphically detailing their attacks and portraying anti-harassment activists positively. After Sisi’s rise to power, space for anti-sexual violence activists to function in the streets and public transportation decreased significantly. Protests were outlawed and police no longer cooperated with anti-harassment initiatives. But projects to end harassment in semi-public spaces expanded, with the creation of anti-harassment offices led by women faculty at Cairo University and an initiative between the NGO HarassMap and Uber to make cabs safer. While the broadcast media largely ceased to criticize political developments after Mursi’s overthrow, taboos continue to be broken in TV coverage of sexual violence. When women were assaulted at celebrations of Sisi’s election in June 2014, pro-Sisi talk show host Lamis Hadidi excoriated the Minister of Health for hospitals’ lackadaisical response (Langohr, Middle East Report Online, July 2014). In a clear sign of changing social narratives about harassment, host Riham Sa’id was suspended in October 2015 after her broadcast of photos of a survivor of assault, and her suggestion that conservative dress could prevent harassment, prompted an advertiser boycott. The case of anti-sexual violence initiatives shows that while spaces for political opposition have indeed diminished since 2013, the Egyptian “revolution” unleashed space for social change in critical areas that continues to develop.

Environmental movements emerged across much of the developing world as part of broader oppositional challenges to authoritarian regimes and statist developmental models that excluded local communities, part of what some scholars termed an ‘environmentalism of the poor.’ In much of the Middle East and North Africa, however, environmental campaigns are generally conducted by coalitions of environmental experts, young activists, and journalists who can navigate the state apparatus, international aid institutions, and media outlets. Campaigns often focus on the inadequate provision of water, sanitation and other public services, threats to public health, pollution, and other areas where expected governmental performance is inadequate. The spread of environmental activism —through network activity involving direct protest, media outreach, and lobbying—can thus be understood as part of the broader generational and political shifts that so distinctly marked in the 2011 Arab uprisings, but were not confined to these. This paper provides a regional analysis of the continuities and changes in collective action around environment and public health issues. Expanding upon the author’s previous work on Egypt, the paper provides a comparative analysis of environmental social mobilization in the region, using primarily information collected on Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia. The analysis draws upon media sources, ‘grey’ literature from NGO’s and international institutions, government documents, and other primary sources in Arabic, Farsi, and English. The paper seeks to provide a preliminary mapping of environmental issues and mobilization in the region, analyzes repertoires of collective action, and assesses governmental and popular responses.

At first glance, it appears that residents across the Middle East and North Africa have increasingly mobilized along ethnic, religious, and sectarian lines in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring. Kurds, for example, have mobilized in and across Syria, Turkey, and Iraq; Shia protested in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and are fighting for control of the state in Yemen. Ethno-sectarianism appears pervasive in the MENA, arguably replacing ideological fault-lines. But, such a perspective ignores the many ethnic and religious “groups” that have not mobilized in new ways in recent years, such as Shia in Kuwait, Egypt, and the UAE; Berbers in much of North Africa; and Druze in Syria. In much of the region, ethnic and sectarian identities do not translate into mobilization. This paper evaluates patterns of and changes in ethno-sectarian mobilization throughout the MENA by focusing not just on groups that have mobilized but by also considering those that have not. An original dataset of ethnic and religious groups in the region is presented and analyzed to see where and when those latent identities became mobilized. It finds that the vast majority of currently mobilized ethno-sectarian groups were mobilized prior to 2011. Relatively few previously un-mobilized groups became mobilized. The paper then turns to a series of paired case studies, examining groups that mobilized alongside those that did not, to determine what factors may explain the difference. Key cases examined include Kurds in Iran, Shia in Kuwait, and Berbers in Libya. The findings have important implications for how we conceptualize and analyze ethnic politics and sectarianism, transnational diffusion, and the misleading idea of a “Shia revival” or crescent. The paper concludes with a brief methodological discussion of different ways in which collective mobilization is often studied and the inferential risks various approaches pose.