This paper will examine how the various opposition groups in Egypt have adjusted or modified their modes of resistance given increased government repression and growing popular opposition to contentions politics under the Sisi regime. The paper will focus on four distinct groups and how they have modified their patterns of resistance and mobilization since July 2013 and these are: a. The Muslim Brothers who have borne the brunt of state repression and have been forced, as a result, to abandon all formal and legitimate channels of mobilization and to engage in more radical forms of resistance, including violence. The paper will briefly examine the internal debates and divisions that have ensued within the Brotherhood as a result of these choices and how they are likely to affect the future of the group. b. Revolutionary youth groups which have also been subject to increased state repression and have had to abandon forms of direct political action and to focus their efforts instead on supporting their political prisoners and on raising awareness about their plight while refusing to engage in the formal political process instituted by the Sisi regime. c. Secular political parties most of which have allied themselves with the Sisi regime and have opted to engage in the formal political process instituted by the regime. Yet, In spite of their allegiance these parties have suffered from isolation and marginalization at the hands of the Sisi regime which has led to their growing political irrelevance. d. Labor and professional associations which have lost many of the successes achieved during the last years of the Mubarak regime and the first years of the revolution and have had as a result to retrench and to adopt much more limited demands in spite of growing economic retrenchment and hardship. This paper will also examine how in a manner reminiscent of the late eighties and nineties labor activism has declined but that of professional associations and civil servants is assuming greater importance. Finally, the paper will briefly examine patterns of cooperation, conflict and alliance building between these various groups since 2013, how these have strengthened or weakened these groups vis-à-vis the regime and how they compare with earlier periods. To conclude the paper will reflect on how these modes of resistance and mobilization are likely to affect power relations in Egypt in the coming period.

Whether visibly or mostly invisibly, the Egyptian military institution was an integral part of Mubarak’s authoritarian regime and its neoliberal economy from 1981 until 2011. Mubarak appointed numerous ex-officers in top administrative positions in the state’s bureaucratic apparatus across the country, and allowed different military corps to expand business enterprises in almost every economic sector in his liberalized economy. Arguably, Mubarak—an ex-officer himself— granted the army such privileged status in order to coup-proof his regime, and appease the generals to secure his civilian son’s succession scheme. Upon the collapse of Mubarak in 2011, such system of military privileges almost fell apart when a massive, under-documented wave of labor protests erupted outside Tahrir Square to target ex-officers and officers in government and business premises. But the military quickly adapted to this crucial moment of change and succeeded in restoring back its supremacy by using repressive means, including anti-strike laws and military police to disperse sit-ins. The Muslim Brotherhood’s regime in 2012-2013 granted the military the exact superior privileges they enjoyed under Mubarak, hoping to co-opt the institution into the MBs' emerging authoritarianism. Although being an essential contributor to both Mubarak and Morsi's regimes, the military posed as the savior and guardian of the nation in deposing them both— with indispensable deployment of nationalistic rhetoric and public propaganda campaigns. Eventually, since retaining the presidential seat to the army in 2014, al-Sisi has launched a new era of unprecedentedly visible military domination over the state and the economy. From a historical perspective and applying a political economy approach, this paper investigates the entrenched role of the Egyptian officers in the bureaucratic apparatus and civilian production and services before and after the fall of Mubarak. It argues that the military institution took advantage of the last five years’ political turmoil to transform its previously mostly covert political and economic privileges into conspicuous monopolies over government posts, projects of public works, and commercial activities. This comes with severe market distortions, clientelism, corruption, decline of public services, and widespread social disparities. Such noticeable militarization impacts various social classes and generates simmering discontent in the localities of Cairo and provincial Egypt. The paper relies on a variety of primary sources, such as Arabic newspapers archives, laws, court records, company profiles, official budget documents, U.S. congressional records, interviews, Facebook pages, etc. It finally addresses the prospects of “demilitarizing” the state and economy under al-Sisi.

Under Mubarak the Egyptian state has degenerated gradually from a modern authoritarian state into a 'taifas Neo-Mamluk state' whereby the public policies result from the pull and push factors of a coalition of different self-centered state fiefdoms and oligarchic institutions (military, intelligence , police, judiciary , bureaucracy , etc..) struggling for securing their own shares of the public resources in a form reminiscent of the pre-modern Mamluk state model in Egypt and the taifas Kings' wars in Andalusia after the collapse of the unified Ummayad state in the 11th century..Public policy result from random interactions among these state fiefdoms only influenced by balance of power, self-interested bargains and functional needs...This pattern has been magnified and pushed to unprecedented extremes in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, partly in a vain attempt to contain its disruptive pro-democratic impact and partly to re-assert their interest-maximizing politics. Abdel Fattah al- Sisi's regime taking over in 2013 insisted on killing politics and creating a system whereby the state institutions rule the country directly with no political intermediaries ...But, and detrimental to its cause. Al-Sisi regime has failed -so far- to build a cohesive centralized authoritarian state structure in Egypt both politically and institutionally. Mamluk politics is unleashed particularly regarding the questions of economic interests, financial privileges , security and mechanisms of control and order..This pattern of politics is unsustainable given its in-congruence with the regime's official ideological discourse of 'strong statism' and also given the type of political economy crisis and state-society crisis in Egypt....State developentalism can't go hand in hand with this type of decentralized Mafiosi-style oligarchic state institutions politics ..The other option of a free-market developmental is requires more transparency and accountability , and more importantly it requires costly economic restructuring and austerity measures ..None of these state taifas is willing to shoulder the burden of these costs alone...The only possible way out is creating a broad social coalition in alliance behind such structuring..But this requires opening up the political sphere to articulate difference in interests in political forms of representation ..This is exactly the very thing the Current regime of taifas state adamantly rejects...This paper will use a historical and cultural institutionalist approach employing tools of content analysis of information provided by various sources including newspapers archives, official statements and data, interviews, social media pages and others