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An Islamist Caesar in Egypt’s Passive Revolution?

A Discourse Theoretical Analysis of Morsi’s Hegemonic Project

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ACADEMIEJAAR 2014 – 2015

An Islamist Caesar in Egypt’s Passive Revolution? A Discourse Theoretical Analysis of Morsi’s Hegemonic Project

SEPPE MALFAIT Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University, Belgium

ABSTRACT (ENG)

This paper draws on Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory to analyse the hegemonic struggle under Morsi’s presidency in Egypt. It uses the conceptual toolbox of Discourse Theory to render the discursive strategies of Morsi’s Renaissance project and the counter-hegemonic Tamarod campaign intelligible. Moreover, this article sets out to show the added analytical value of Discourse Theory for an empirical study of socio-political struggles that takes into account the contingent and constructed nature of the social. It complements Discourse Theory with the Gramscian notions of passive revolution, Caesarism and transformism to embed the research within the interlacing process of revolution/restoration. This paper contends that Morsi, who governed as a civil proxy for the Armed Forces, initially succeeded more or less to pacify the social field by convincing a wide range of people to inscribe their grievances in his project of gradual, orderly rebuilding. This rebuilding amounted to the restoration of the pre- revolutionary status quo with a strengthened position of the Armed Forces and the Muslim Brotherhood. It explores how Morsi’s increasingly antagonizing discourse pushed several disparate opponents into each other’s arms. Tamarod succeeded to destabilize Morsi’s discourse and unified the splintered opposition groups in an anti-Morsi bloc. This analysis, finally, clarifies the military intervention on 3 July 2013.

ABSTRACT (NL) Dit onderzoek analyseert de hegemonische strijd in Egypte onder het presidentschap van Morsi aan de hand van de discourstheorie van Laclau en Mouffe. Het wendt het discourstheoretische begrippenapparaat aan om de discursieve strategieën van Morsi’s Renaissance-project en de contra- hegemonische Tamarod-campagne bloot te leggen. Daarnaast wil dit artikel aantonen dat discourstheorie een toegevoegde analytische waarde heeft voor empirisch onderzoek naar sociaal- politieke conflicten dat rekening houdt met de contingente en geconstrueerde aard van het sociale. Het discourstheoretische begrippenapparaat wordt aangevuld met de Gramsciaanse concepten ‘Caesarisme’, ‘passieve revolutie’ en ‘transformisme’ om het onderzoek in te bedden in het vervlochten proces van revolutie/restoratie. Deze studie betoogt dat Morsi, die bestuurde als ‘proxy’ voor het leger, er aanvankelijk min of meer in slaagde het maatschappelijk veld te pacificeren doordat hij een groot aantal groepen kon overtuigen hun eisen in te schrijven in zijn project voor stapsgewijze, ordelijke heropbouw van de natie. Deze heropbouw kwam neer op het herstellen van het prerevolutionaire status quo met een versterkte machtspositie van het leger en de moslimbroederschap. Dit onderzoek gaat na hoe het toenemend antagonisme in Morsi’s discours de verdeelde oppositiegroepen in elkaars armen duwde. Tamarod slaagde erin Morsi’s discours te destabiliseren en de versplinterde oppositie te verenigen in een anti-Morsi blok. Dit onderzoekt verklaart ten slotte de militaire interventie op 3 juli 2013.

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Introduction

On 3 July 2013, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) deposed President Morsi after millions of Egyptians had taken to the streets for days against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). A wide societal and academic debate emerged about whether these events constituted a counter- revolutionary military coup against a democratically elected president or a popular revolution against a dictator under a democratic veneer. Such binary categorizations limit our understanding of the complex processes underlying these events. My aim is twofold. First, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory (DT), I will generate a new interpretation of the hegemonic struggle under Morsi that challenges mainstream accounts. I will deploy the DT interpretive instruments to explore the discursive strategy behind Morsi’s hegemonic ‘Renaissance’ project. Iwill to analyse both linguistic (speeches and interviews) and non-linguistic (policies, decrees, protests and places) data. I will explain how and why, after a period of relative socio-political peace, the Tamarod campaign successfully destabilized Morsi’s discourse by articulating a contesting popular identity. I will clarify how and why the SCAF reacted to the mass mobilizations of 30 June 2013. Discussions of DT have primarily concentrated within the theoretical realm of political philosophy. Empirical applications of DT have not grown abundantly. A second goal of this paper is to demonstrate the suitability and added analytical value of DT for empirical research on socio-political conflict. By employing DT we will avoid both empiricism ‘in which abstraction consists in the knowing subject isolating and extracting the essence from the real, and/or generalizing in an inductive fashion from a number of empirical observations’ and theoreticism ‘which either logically derives the explanations of concrete phenomena from the abstract concepts of a general theory, or subsumes particular events and processes under empirically verified laws’ (Howarth, 2005, pp. 321-322). Carpentier (2010, pp. 258-262) points out that Discourse Theoretical Analysis (DTA) uses the theoretical framework as a tool chest of ‘sensitizing’ concepts. ‘Whereas definitive concepts provide prescriptions of what to see, sensitizing concepts merely suggest directions along which to look ’ (Blumer, 1986, p. 148, my emphasis). I complement the DT toolbox with the Gramscian concepts of Caesarism, passive revolution and transformism. Using these ‘methodological searchlights’ (De Smet, 2014a) to analyse the events of 25 January and 30 June, De Smet (2014b) surpasses simplified explanations by untangling the intertwining processes of revolution and restoration with a focus on the role of the military. Embedding my analysis of Morsi’s presidency in these unfolding processes, I will discuss how and why Morsi failed to act as a Caesar to steer the SCAF-initiated passive revolution.

Theoretical Framework

Laclau and Mouffe draw on different intellectual currents to strip Marxist concepts of their economic determinist contents and revitalize them. They argue that the being of objects is socially constructed, contingent and historical. They refute the class reductionist idea that necessary laws determine the nature of social agents a priori . Moreover, they reject the objective character of interests of which agents are unaware. Rather, interests are ‘precarious historical products which are always subjected to processes of dissolution and redefinition’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 1987, p. 96). They see a movement of de- essentialization in Marxist thought from Plekhanov to Gramsci’s conception of hegemony as intellectual and moral leadership which articulates a ‘collective will’ unifying a ‘historical bloc’ through ideology. Gramsci differentiated this hegemonic, consensual relation of leadership between directive and directed groups from the coercive relation of ‘dictatorship’ between dominating and dominated groups. Laclau

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and Mouffe find Gramsci’s conception of hegemony very fruitful. However, they argue, the working class occupies an ambivalent position in Gramsci’s thought. Despite the transformation of the class identity by articulating to it a number of demands and struggles, its central role as articulator has a necessary character in the last instance because it is allocated to it by the economic infrastructure (cf. Laclau & Mouffe, 1987; 2001, pp. 7-47). I will now concisely clarify the key sensitizing concepts of DT. 1 According to Laclau and Mouffe, our understanding of reality, and therefore our reality itself, is discursively construed. Rather than possessing a foundational meaning, every element occupies a differential position in a discourse. These elements gain signification solely through their relation with other elements in the same discourse because ‘all identity is relational and all relations have a necessary character’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 106). Discourse comprises both (linguistic) concepts and (non- linguistic) signs, objects, actions, institutions, policies and events. Objects exist externally to thought, but it is only through their investment into discursive configurations that they obtain meaning in relation to other elements. The event of an earthquake occurs outside of one’s own will, but whether its specificity is construed as a natural incident or as a manifestation of God’s wrath, depends upon the configuration of a discursive field (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, pp. 105-114). A discourse is never a fully closed totality due to the ‘openness of the social’. Laclau (1988, p. 254) defines discourse as ‘a structure in which meaning is constantly negotiated and constructed.’ The dual impossibility of absolute fixation and non-fixation of meaning ‘implies that there have to be partial fixations’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 112). Partial fixation or temporary stabilization of meaning is the outcome of an articulatory practice, or ‘any practice establishing a relation among elements such that their identity is modified’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 105). The partiality of any fixation of meaning produces a ‘surplus of meaning’. The field of discursivity accounts for this field of ‘irreducible surplus’ (Torfing, 1999, p. 300). The field of discursivity enables partial fixations of meaning while simultaneously undermining its ultimate fixation. This results in a continuous tension between the undecidable field of discursivity and particular discourses which perpetually make decisions in this field (Sereni, 2006, p. 22). As Laclau (1988, p. 249) puts it, ‘Indeed, it is because no meaning is actually fixed that there is a space in which hegemonic struggle can take place.’ De Vos (2003, p. 163) regards the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe as ‘a model of discursive conflict: Political conflicts are understood as struggles between conflicting discourses that strive to impose their own system of meaning.’ The field of discursivity forms the battleground which several hegemonic projects unceasingly attempt to dominate. Torfing (1999, p. 302) elucidates the DT conception of hegemony:

The achievement of a moral, intellectual and political leadership through the expansion of a discourse that partially fixes meaning around nodal points. Hegemony involves more than a passive consensus and more than legitimate actions. It involves the expansion of a particular discourse of norms, values, views and perceptions through persuasive redescription of the world.

Nodal points are ‘privileged signifiers that fix the meaning of a signifying chain’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 112). A nodal point (the Lacanian point de capiton) ‘unifies a given field, constitutes its identity: it is, so to speak, the word to which “things” themselves refer to recognize themselves in their unity’ (Žižek, 1989, p. 105). According to Howarth (1998, p. 279), ‘hegemonic practices are an exemplary form of political articulation which involves linking together different identities into a common project.’ A collective identity is the result of an articulation of diverse identities which are modified through this articulation. In order for a discourse to become hegemonic, it has to be able to speak in the name of a community by presenting its particular interests as the embodiment of the universal interest of the

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community (Torfing, 1999, p. 193). Laclau (1996, p. 53) argues that ‘although the fullness and universality of society is unachievable, its need does not disappear: it will always show itself through the presence of its absence.’ Therefore, a hegemonic bloc needs to be able to present its interests as ‘the incarnation of the empty signifier which refers to the absent communitarian fullness’ (Torfing, 1999, p. 177). If the universal demand is for revolution because there is a radical lack of improvement, the project must convince it is able to bring about radical change. If the call is for order and unity in times of chaos, it must manifest itself as guarantor of stability. ‘Hegemony is always possible, but never total’ (Sayyid & Zac, 1998, p. 262). When a discourse proves unable to integrate new events, it is dislocated and its contingency is revealed. It no longer succeeds in upholding its universal claim. A dislocation paves the way for hegemonic struggles. Several projects vie to fix the meaning of the disarticulated floating signifiers—signifiers that acquire different meanings depending on the discourse that articulates them—with new nodal points and dominate the discursive arena. These political struggles will revolve around the explanations for the crisis and ways to suture the rift of the social order (Torfing, 2005, p. 16). A myth 2 is a response to a structural dislocation. ‘Myths construct new spaces of representation that attempt to suture the dislocated space in question. […] [M]yths can also function as a surface of inscription for a variety of social demands and dislocations’ (Torfing, 2005, p. 15). A myth provides new possibilities of identification for subjects whose identities have been shattered by a dislocation. It is in this moment that new political subjectivities can occur (De Vos, 2003, p. 168). If the myth successfully upholds its universalistic pretensions and expands into a social imaginary—a ‘universal framework for the interpretation of inexperience’ (Smith, 1994, p. 36)—a discourse attains hegemony. Laclau and Mouffe (2001, p. 136) distinguish two conditions for a hegemonic articulation: ‘[T]he presence of antagonistic forces and the instability of frontiers which separate them.’ Antagonistic relations emerge from the impossibility of social agents to have fully constituted identities. The ‘other’ is blamed for this impossibility. The presence of this constitutive outside is held responsible for the ‘blockage of identity’ experienced by the ‘self’ (Howarth, 2000, p. 105). A discourse is both constituted and destabilized by social antagonisms. On the one hand, the exclusion of ‘all radical otherness’ establishes the frontiers of discursive formations: the identity of ‘us’ is constituted by excluding ‘them’ and vice versa. On the other hand, the antagonistic forces simultaneously threaten each other’s identity (Howarth, 2000, p. 106; Torfing, 1999, p. 124). Howarth (1998, p. 276) illustrates this with an example of a clash between employees and management in a mining company over the sacking of workers to increase the company’s efficiency. The union calls the miners out on strike, but the management sticks to its guns which results in a period of struggle. The workers see the managers and a possible dismissal as threatening their identity. The employers feel their identity is endangered because the strikes could lead to the closing of the mine. This struggle is not between pre-existing class identities. Rather, social antagonism arises because both the workers and the managers attribute the impossibility of achieving their identity to the other. The strike action institutes a frontier between the two sides while at the same time constituting the identity of social agents as ‘workers’ and ‘managers’. Two logics operate in the construction of social antagonisms. The equivalential logic ‘functions by splitting a system of differences and instituting a political frontier between two opposed camps’ (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000, p. 11). Different positions (a, b and c) are articulated in an equivalential chain in opposition to the antithetical identity (d). The ‘sameness’ of these positions is stressed in the face of a threatening otherness [(a~b~c)=(-d)] (Howarth, 2000, pp. 106-107). The logic of difference ‘does exactly the opposite. It consists in the expansion of a given system of differences by dissolving existing chains of equivalence and incorporating those disarticulated elements into an expanding order’ (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000, p. 11). Both logics operate simultaneously because ‘neither the

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conditions of total equivalence nor those of total differential objectivity are ever fully achieved’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 129).

25 January, Passive Revolution and Military Caesarism

Mubarak’s reconfiguration of the political-economic system along neoliberal lines from 1991 on accelerated the ‘gradual unravelling of hegemony’ of the ruling bloc. His neoliberal turn aggravated the dire social consequences for broad layers of the population. Moreover, the regime increasingly relied on coercive means (cf. Roccu, 2012). Throughout the 2000s the frequency and intensity of political and social protests surged. Both forms of protest were increasingly interlaced (cf. Zemni, De Smet & Bogaert, 2013). The neoliberal reforms also eroded hegemony within the ruling bloc. They pitted the military against Nazif’s cabinet and its crony capitalist clique (Roccu, 2013, p. 436). Mubarak’s discourse of reform was less and less capable of domesticating the rising unrest. His discourse was dislocated by the 25 January uprising. Beke (2012, pp. 41-51) contends that the ‘Myth of Tahrir’ was the discursive response to the dislocation of Mubarak’s discourse. A variety of grievances was inscribed in the universal demand for the downfall of al-nizam, or ‘the regime/the system’. It articulated a wide array of groups into a common revolutionary project instituting a frontier between ‘the people’ and ‘the regime’. The diversity of identities integrated into the chain of ‘the people’ were rendered equivalent by reference to al-nizam . This discourse mobilized masses behind the call for revolution and emancipation. Mubarak mirrored the revolutionary discourse. He articulated the revolutionary actors as ‘instigators, a danger to the national security’ in diametrical opposition to ‘true Egyptians’. Consequently, a symmetric antagonism arose with both camps balancing each other. On 10 February 2011, the Armed Forces sealed the fate of Mubarak and assumed power the next day. The masses saw the military as a national-popular force and welcomed its actions. De Smet (2014b, pp. 28-30) interpreted this intervention as a reactionary and quantitative Caesarism aimed to take the sting out of the bottom-up revolutionary moment and initiate a process of passive revolution from above. The complex concept of ‘passive revolution’ has generated a lot of academic debate (cf. Callinicos, 2010; Morton, 2007; Thomas, 2009). Let it suffice here to give a simplified definition as a process in which the ruling bloc reconstitutes itself and restoratively transforms a mass insurrection into a limited reformism with popular support which partially fulfils some of the subordinates’ demands. This concept should be complemented with Caesarism which designates the intervention of an external ‘third force’ to solve a situation in which the conflicting camps ‘balance each other in such a way that the continuation of the conflict can only terminate in their reciprocal destruction’ (Gramsci, 1971, p. 219). The military was not identified with the regime of Mubarak because it had been forced to retreat from politics under Sadat and Mubarak. The SCAF saw itself forced to interfere because leaving the revolutionary events unhindered would have endangered its political and economic interests. The officers were in favour of neoliberalization, but they wanted to be among its main beneficiaries. Their Caesarist intervention was quantitative 3 and reactionary 4: they wanted to restore the pre-revolutionary status quo with some merely cosmetic changes while buttressing their political and economic position within the ruling bloc at the expense of the neoliberal capitalists, Mubarak’s NDP, and the Ministry of Interior (MOI) (De Smet, 2014b, pp. 28-30). According to Beke (2012, pp. 91-104), the differential logic predominated the SCAF’s discursive strategy to take the wind out of the revolutionary sails. It aimed to weaken the sharp antagonistic polarity and pacify the social field. The toppling of Mubarak dislocated the revolutionary discourse. Instead of being fulfilled, the common demand for the downfall of the regime/system was displaced by the divisive

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question of ‘transition’. The different subjects started voicing their demands separately. The SCAF capitalized on the crumbling revolutionary unity by articulating the dislocated elements in an expanding order in which the particular subjects whose demands were legitimate—i.e. not threatening to the SCAF’s interests—constituted ‘the nation’. The SCAF’s ‘The people and the army: one hand’-myth provided a surface of inscription for all these ‘legitimate’ demands which would be gradually fulfilled in an orderly and stable transition. The SCAF erected a political frontier between ‘the nation’ and a dangerous other: the fuloul , or ‘remnants’ of the old regime, and protesters and strikers—whose demands threatened the SCAF’s interests. Officials, the SCAF and other elites developed a dominant narrative which discredited these fi’awi, or ‘small-group’, protests for being selfish, a threat to Egypt’s economy and security, and reactionary. This operation deflects demands for deep-going reforms of the national economy that underpins these grievances (cf. Sallam, 2011). However, the SCAF’s superficial reforms and rising authoritarianism deepened societal polarization. It turned to the Ikhwan as a civil ally to govern while it returned to a ruling position behind the curtains.

Muslim Brothers in Arms? The officers were neither interested in nor capable of standing in front of the political curtain in post- uprising Egypt. They searched for a conservative, powerful civilian face for the regime to protect its core interests while they returned to the barracks. Cook (2007, pp. 14-31) distinguishes four core interests: (1) Control over its vast Military-Industrial-Business-Commercial Complex (MIBCC) (Hashim, 2011, p. 109), no civilian oversight over the defence budget, and free-market policies to expand its economic clout (cf. Marshall & Stacher, 2012). (2) The image of defenders of security which legitimates its use of military trials ‘to maintain domestic security’. (3) A civilian visage that governs allowing them to rule behind the curtains. (4) Its nationalist aura. The SCAF found a ‘civil proxy’ for its top-down passive revolution in the MB (De Smet, 2014b, pp. 30-33). Just like the officers, the largest opposition movement in Egypt wanted to demobilize the popular protest in order to benefit from the opportunities of Mubarak’s downfall to strengthen its position in the ruling bloc.

MB-SCAF relations during the SCAF-lead transition Reluctant to oppose the regime head-on out of fear for repression, the MB did not endorse the protests during the first days of the 2011 uprising, but it allowed its young rank-and-file to join as individuals. As the revolution gained traction, however, the MB realized its neutral stance could cost them the opportunity to end decades of marginalization and to play a key role in the country’s political future. From 28 January on, the MB officially joined the protests. The MB carefully asserted its intention not to hijack the revolution by not brandishing religious symbols or shouting Islamist slogans, and by promising it would not field a presidential candidate and contest no more than 35 per cent of the parliamentary seats. However, as early as 6 February, the MB entered into discussions with the regime. Under pressure of its youth members, it left the negotiations. (Pargeter, 2013, pp. 212-221; Wickham, 2013, pp. 160-170) In return for opportunities to legalize and enhance its political and economic clout, the MB allied with the SCAF in the process of passive revolution. The MB was among the first to withdraw from the streets after the SCAF assumed power. In the first months of the transition period, the MB leadership openly supported the officers’ regime and spoke out against strikes and anti-SCAF protests enhancing the fi’awi narrative. The SCAF, on its part, allowed the Ikhwan to establish the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and released notable Muslim Brothers from prison. Moreover, the officers granted the MB

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a leading position in the transition. Their wish to hold parliamentary elections before appointing a Constituent Assembly (CA) tasked with drafting a constitution was granted. The SCAF’s roadmap was favourable to the Ikhwan because of their comparative advantage in electoral politics. It passed with 77 per cent in a referendum (Wickham, 2013, pp. 170-172). The path of this mutually beneficial arrangement was not strewn with roses however. In April 2011 the Ikhwan announced they would run for half of the parliamentary seats. The SCAF tried to curtail the power of the Islamists out of fear for a full-scale domination. In July 2011, the officers issued an electoral law restricting the number of parliamentary seats reserved for party candidates. In October 2011, the MB decided to contest all seats. The Ikhwan threatened to boycott the elections if the electoral law was not withdrawn, yet refrained from joining demonstrations to avoid antagonizing the officers. The generals back-pedaled. In November 2011, the officers issued the Selmi document which shielded the military from civilian oversight, gave the military veto-rights over constitutional articles and the ability to appoint 80 per cent of the CA. This bold move drove the MB back on the streets side by side with revolutionaries in mass demonstrations. Unlike other protesters, the MB did not call for the end of military rule. Once the SCAF backed away from the Selmi document, the Ikhwan left Tahrir. The Ikhwan raked in 47 per cent of the parliamentary seats and the Salafists 24 per cent. The MB reiterated its support for the SCAF’s timetable for the transition and undermined mobilization efforts. Moreover, it defended the military rule when popular anger rose because of the Port Said Stadium Massacre (Eskandar, 2013; Pargeter, 2013, pp. 228-231). The MB and Salafist currents sought to capitalize on their electoral victories and took control of key parliamentary positions and the CA which would expand parliamentary powers. FJP members headed over twelve of the parliament’s nineteen committees and al-Katatni (FJP) was elected Speaker of the House. What is more, the MB nominated al-Shater as its presidential candidate backtracking another promise because the officers had upped the stakes in the presidential race by reserving the right to appoint a government until a new president took office (Wickham, 2013, pp. 248-257). These moves intensified suspicions of its intentions to monopolize the political field. 25 of the 100 members of the CA walked out because of the Islamist dominance. In early April, the CA was suspended by an administrative court. On 12 June a new CA was composed that faced similar criticisms. Days before the electoral runoff between Shafiq, the last prime minister under Mubarak, and Morsi, the MB- candidate who replaced al-Shater, the SCAF disbanded the parliament on the basis of a Supreme Constitutional Court ruling which challenged the election law. Next, the SCAF issued a constitutional amendment annex which restricted the future president’s power. Until a new constitution was in place, the SCAF assumed the power to appoint its leaders, its head acted as minister of defence and commander-in-chief of the military, and the president needed the SCAF’s approval to deploy the army (Pargeter, 2013, pp. 231-236; Pioppi, 2013, pp. 57-58). These interventions strengthened the officers’ bargaining position vis-à-vis the MB and the future president.

President Morsi as the officers’ proxy? In the first round of the elections, the vote of the revolutionary camp had been divided between several candidates. Many considered the second round as a standoff between a military autocrat and an Islamist zealot. On 24 June, Morsi was announced victor with a margin of three per cent. This narrow victory and the fact that Morsi only gained 25 per cent in the first round, indicated that achieving hegemony would prove difficult. After Morsi took office, the quarrel between the military and the MB was patched up. The SCAF, immunized from prosecution, went back to the barracks and entered into a bargain with Morsi leaving

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it to the MB to steer the top-down process of passive revolution. Rumour has it that Shafiq actually won the elections, but that the SCAF opted to declare Morsi winner out of fear for popular anger. There hasn’t been sound proof for allegations of vote-rigging, but after Morsi’s removal al-Sisi declared: ‘The military [was] very keen and predetermined on [Morsi’s] success. If we wanted to oppose or not allow [the Brotherhood] to come to rule Egypt, we would have done things with the elections, as elections used to be rigged in the past’ (WashingtonPost, 2013). In return for the SCAF’s support, Morsi catered to the military’s core interests and privileges. First, Morsi issued a game-changing constitutional declaration in August in collaboration with junior SCAF-members. He removed the despised head of SCAF Tantawi and his chief of staff in an honourable, safe exit. He appointed al-Sisi as Tantawi’s successor and carried out a thorough reshuffle of military cadres (Springborg, 2012). Moreover, Morsi reassumed powers by annulling the SCAF’s 18 June decree. Morsi could not have undertaken such bold moves without the support of officers. Second, the president repeatedly burnished the national-popular aura of the military. He paid extensive tribute to the Free Officers Revolution, visited the tomb of Sadat and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and awarded Sadat and his chief of staff the highest honours. Moreover, he repeatedly lauded the SCAF for its role in the 25 January revolution and the transition process. Lastly, the constitution 5 that was finalized by an Islamist dominated CA protected the generals’ core security and economic interests. The minister of defence should be ‘appointed from among its officers’. It shielded the defence budget and the MIBCC from civilian oversight, the military would dominate the newly created National Defence Council and the military’s stick of military trials was preserved. With the backing of the military, the Ikhwan could bolster their position in the ruling bloc. In order to do this successfully, the Ikhwan and Morsi had to achieve hegemony in society at large.

The Renaissance project

Acting as a Caesar in the SCAF’s passive revolution, Morsi’s discursive strategy bared great resemblance to that of the military in the preceding phase. He predominantly employed the differential logic to pacify the social field which had been polarized due to the military’s increasing authoritarianism and the displacement of social and civil-democratic aspirations. As Howarth and Stavrakakis (2000, p. 11) point out, ‘a project employing a logic of difference attempts to weaken and displace a sharp antagonistic polarity, endeavouring to relegate that division to the margins of society.’ In order to take the sting out of the antagonism between the ‘the military regime’ and ‘the people’, Morsi attempted to transform politics into a peaceful negotiation of distinct grievances in a liberal democratic framework. He weakened the equivalential ties between the different identities constituting ‘the people’ by disaggregating its universal demand for revolution into a multitude of particular demands. The aim was to differentially absorb these demands in a ‘transformist’ 6 way. The myth of al-Nahdah, or ‘Renaissance’, provided a surface of inscription for all legitimate demands—those that didn’t threaten the interests of the SCAF and the MB. As much identities as possible were incorporated in the common project of Renaissance on condition that they cooperated within the ‘democratic’ framework. During Morsi’s first months in office, several demands were partially granted. The demand for retribution for the martyrs and wounded of the revolution was addressed by issuing an investigation. He granted a pardon to all those arrested, except for murderers, supporting the uprising and 572 detainees were immediately released. The president also modestly addressed some socioeconomic grievances. He raised the wages of public sector workers by 15 per cent and their pensions from 200 to 300 Egyptian Pounds (EGP). Moreover, he announced that the government would pay 25 per cent more for rice and promised debt relief for farmers who owned less than 10.000 EGP.

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I will use the following diagram, designed by Laclau (2007, p. 130), to elucidate Morsi’s construction of a popular identity:

Morsi instituted a political frontier (horizontal line) between the counter-revolutionary forces (T) and the legitimate demands that did not obstruct a ‘democratic’ transition (D 1, D 2, …). These disparate ‘legitimate’ demands (e.g. higher wages, gender equality, freedom of speech, etc.) have no prior relation. The specificity of each demand is represented by the lower semicircle. The universality of being against the ‘counter-revolutionary’ forces is shown in the top semicircle. The inscription of these demands solidifies them and simultaneously limits their autonomy because they have to manoeuvre inside the established frame of the ballot box. Morsi equated ‘the people’ with the revolutionaries: ‘The Egyptian people, the entire people, took part in the 25 January revolution’ (AM, 2012) 7. His resignation from the MB and the FJP after winning elections served to present himself as a president for all ‘Egyptians’. In his first speech as a president on 24 June, Morsi said: ‘There is no room for the language of confrontation and there is no room to accuse each other’ (Guardian, 2012) . ‘Small-group’ protesters and fuloul were articulated as the constitutive outside hindering ‘the people’s’ unity and orderly progress. The essential role of ‘factional’ protesters during and before the revolution was erased because their demands posed a threat to the interests of the SCAF and the MB. Morsi reproduced the fi’awi narrative to marginalize socioeconomic protests and sit-ins:

Factional [ fi’awi ] strikes and protests, which I appreciate and respect—and I respect protests and the wishes of the participants—should not shut down production. We can never allow fi’awi protests to obstruct the roads—this is dangerous—or to disrupt the production process, or to shut down the commercial process, or to affect the image of our nation. (AM, 2012)

In his speech on 29 June, Morsi intimidated the ‘counter-revolutionary’ enemy: ‘I also warn anyone, whoever that may be, against trying to harm Egypt's dignity or pride, or even think of harming the dignity of its people, or the dignity of its president, irrespective of the person’ (Daragahi, 2012). This radical other served as discursive cement between the unrelated identities comprising ‘the people’: ‘We will meet the trials and schemes which are aimed at undermining our resolve and national unity as we did during the revolution’ (Guardian, 2012).

To attain hegemony means that one particular demand (D 1) represents the chain as a whole. The demand for ‘Renaissance’ played that role most successfully. Laclau (1996, p. 44) illuminates the role of empty signifiers:

In a situation of radical disorder ‘order’ is present as that which is absent; it becomes an empty signifier, as the signifier of this absence. In this sense, various political forces can compete in their efforts to present their particular objectives as those which carry out the [impossible] filling of that lack. To hegemonize something is exactly to carry out this filling function.

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The empty signifier ‘Renaissance’ presented Morsi’s particular objectives as those who would fill the lack of orderly development and progress the Egyptians witnessed. ‘I am determined with you to astound the world with the Egyptian revival [al-Nahdah ] that realises prosperity, dignity and stability’ (Guardian, 2012). ‘Renaissance’ functioned as a nodal point that rendered Morsi’s discourse coherent by temporarily fixing the meaning of floating signifiers such as ‘revolution’, ‘democracy’, ‘modern state’, ‘justice’, ‘Tahrir’ and ‘development’ in a signifying chain. These signifiers don’t have any necessary relation prior to their structuring in a unified field in reference to the nodal point Renaissance. ‘Tahrir’ becomes the square of a national rebirth: ‘[T]he square of revolution, the square of freedom, […] this square specifically witnessed a new birth for Egypt. Egypt, the freedom and dignity. Egypt, the will and change. Egypt, the renaissance and the rights that will not be wasted’ (Daragahi, 2012). ‘Revolution’ becomes a breaking point that toppled the evil other and initiated a ‘democratic’ process through which the revolutionary demands will be granted. ‘Democracy’ becomes a ‘true democracy’ as opposed to the corrupt dictatorship of Mubarak, ‘Egypt today is truly democratic. The elections […] were completely free, and reflected the people and their will’ (AM, 2012). ‘Modern state’, in contrast with Mubarak’s outdated regime, becomes ‘[o]ne that is in tune with the present, is based on the rule of law, democracy and respect for human rights […] A state that seeks justice, truth, freedom, dignity and social justice’ (Morsi, 2012). ‘Development’ and ‘social justice’ were articulated along neoliberal lines displacing demands for radical reform. Social justice would be gradually realized if all Egyptians worked together in a (neoliberal) development scheme. The resulting growth of the national economy would mechanically trickle down and benefit all Egyptians.

Restoration and its discontents Here we can uncover the restoration of the Mubarak-era political-economic system that Morsi’s Renaissance project aims to achieve under a revolutionary cloak. The revolutionary demands for freedom and inclusionary democracy were diverted into a depoliticized transition to a liberal conception of a modern, constitutional state with transparent elections. Morsi re-routed demands for social justice to a gradual, orderly re-establishment of free-market development which would benefit all. Morsi’s economic programme was imbued with neoliberal arguments and influenced by the ‘Brotherhood’s One Percent’, an extremely wealthy elite of the MB. It embraced neoliberal policies of privatization, trade liberalization, and attracting foreign investment (Gamal, 2012). According to Achcar (2013), the MB’s economic vision resembled neoliberal doctrine even closer than Mubarak’s capitalism. Morsi continued the reliance on loans from the Gulf and on a requested loan from the IMF in exchange for austerity measures. It became clear early on that Morsi would not succeed in pacifying the social field completely and that the Renaissance myth would never turn into ‘an unlimited horizon for the inscription of any social demand’ (Torfing, 1999, p. 305). An increasing number of social factions grew disenfranchised. First, many perceived Morsi’s way of governing as undemocratic because it excluded many groups from participation. They reproached him for not reshuffling the Islamist dominated CA and the lack of diversity in his cabinet. The identity of this course of action, however, is constituted as democratic in Morsi’s discourse, for ‘the people’ has elected him and if Egyptians disagree they can vote him out of office. The same goes for the CA which is ‘democratic’ because it was appointed by an elected parliament. Second, many saw little progress in the issue of freedoms. The Cairo Institute for Human Rights denounced the president’s track record during his first hundred days: ‘CIHRS fears that without a swift, radical reassessment of strategy, the current course will surely lead to an increased and grave assault on several fundamental rights of Egyptians’ (CIHRS, 2012). Morsi’s discourse presented this

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dire situation as a legacy of the former regime and emphasized that tackling this issue would be a long- winded work requiring patience, order and unity. Socioeconomic demands for social justice and dignity constituted a third and crucial gauntlet for the success of the Renaissance project’s hegemonic move. Morsi’s neoliberal conception of social justice disaffected many. A rising amount of societal segments were not convinced that the Renaissance project would grant their demands. A mounting number of grievances caused by the national political-economic groundwork were voiced outside of the electoral democratic frame. Teachers, doctors, transport workers, and doctors went on strike demanding improved living and working conditions. On 25 August, a few thousand demonstrators took to the streets against Morsi and the ‘brotherhoodization’ 8 of the state. The following week, 5.000 demonstrated and chanted that the revolution still continues. On 12 October, protestors demanded the president’s removal because he failed to achieve his 100-day programme. A pro-Morsi counter-protest was held to support the democratically elected president. This situation turned violent as opponents and supporters of the president came to grips. Initially, these protest were successfully marginalized as fi’awi and counter-revolutionary.

Morsi’s equivalential turn

With the date of the ruling on the constitutionality of the CA drawing near, Morsi unilaterally issued a decree on 22 November 2012 which guarded the CA from judicial oversight and suspension. Moreover, the president assumed legislative, executive and judicial power which enraged the judiciary. The final draft, which was hastily completed by 30 November, was criticized by many rights groups. Morsi swiftly pushed through a referendum and the constitution was approved by 64 per cent with a voter turnout of 33 per cent on 25 December. This move provoked a large wave of nationwide demonstrations by both supporters and opponents of Morsi’s decisions in the ensuing weeks. Moreover, in several governorates MB headquarters were set ablaze and deadly street clashes broke out. On the second anniversary of the 25 January revolution, Egypt saw a new series of massive demonstrations. The next days the unrest escalated further and scores died in clashes after death sentences were handed in the Port Said stadium massacre. In street battles in Port Said 42 people were killed. On 27 January, Morsi declared a state of emergency in Ismailia, Suez and Port Said. Demonstrations and battles continued as residents defied the curfew. Morsi’s constitutional declaration epitomized a discursive shift towards a predominance of the equivalential logic. Morsi was (over)confident that his move would prove successful because he assumed he had the support of the SCAF, the MOI, the Salafists and the Ikhwan . His rhetoric also took an equivalential turn. He articulated more and more opponents as constitutive outside until ‘the people’ equated his adherents: ‘I think you have seen the most recent opinion surveys. I think more than 80, around 90% of the people in Egypt are—according to these opinion measures—they are with what I have done. It’s not against the people, It’s with the people’ (TIME, 2012). Morsi separated ‘the people’ from his ‘undemocratic’ opponents:

I say that we all must accept the will of the people, and this interest cannot be achieved by violence, and this will cannot be expressed by angry gatherings, but by wisdom, prudence and calm, which all give the opportunity to sound thinking and correct decision in which the minority accepts the opinion of the majority. Is not this democracy? (SIS, 2012)

On 5 December, several MB leaders incited supporters to march to the Ettihadeya palace, where Morsi adversaries staged a sit-in, to protect the president’s legitimacy. Essam al-Erian, a leading FJP member,

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said on live television: ‘Everyone must go now to Ettihadiya and surround the thugs and separate the real revolutionaries out for one or two nights and then we can arrest them all’ (HRW, 2012). Due to the arrival of MB members, the protests escalated into deadly skirmishes. Morsi defended the violent acts of his supporters whom he referred to as ‘those who came to defend legitimacy and paid a high price for it’ (SIS, 2012). Towards his opponents, he increasingly adopted a conspiratorial tone. Morsi related the violence to the old regime and vague infiltrators, ‘evil hands’ and a ‘third party’ with ‘working links and contacts with a number of the affiliates or those who identify themselves as affiliates of political powers’ (SIS, 2012). The FJP’s newspaper pointed the finger at ‘thugs’ referring to fuloul and supporters of Sabbahi and El-Baradei (EgyptIndependent, 2012b). The Copts were imputed by MB officials for constituting a ‘fifth column’ and the Church for conspiring against the government (Sedra, 2012). All opponents were lumped together in the box of an evil, counter-revolutionary ‘chaos-instigating minority’, ‘a fifth column’, ‘evil hands’ and ‘infiltrators’. Egyptians were either with ‘legitimacy’ and ‘the people’ or against them:

I will never allow anyone to resort to murdering, sabotage, plotting, terrorizing citizens, destructing public facilities or to call for a coup against legitimacy that is based on the free choice of the great people of Egypt. […] Does peaceful protest mean assaulting public and private buildings, blocking roads, disrupting production or tarnishing the image of Egypt? This can never be an acceptable peaceful protest. It is smacked with violence of some people who infiltrated into those who were expressing their opinions. This will never go unpunished. (SIS, 2012)

In his 27 January speech which imposed a martial law in the Suez Canal cities, he repeated his threatening, antagonizing rhetoric: ‘These acts can only be described as violation of the law and the revolution or rather an anti-revolution with its ugly face. The Egyptian people reject these acts and reject those who defend them or even do not denounce them’ (SIS, 2013). The (in)actions of Morsi and the MB/FJP also reveal the increasing prevalence of the equivalential logic in their discourse through the exclusion of an ever widening array of demands. Morsi’s restorative governance in a top-dawn manner alienated more and more Egyptians. The president continued to block any reform of the military while the dreaded MOI underwent some skin-deep changes (Stacher, 2013). State violence continued unabated and unpunished. Instead of announcing investigations into the allegations of police brutality and torture, and the use of live ammunition, Morsi lauded the police forces for their crackdown on protests in his 27 January speech. What is more, the Islamist dominated Shura Council drafted controversial, conservative laws on NGO’s, protests and judicial reform (Paciello, 2013, p. 14). The president did nothing to diminish the fear of Ikhwanization of the state. Rather than radically changing the balance of power within institutions, the Ikhwan tried to take hold of as much positions as it could in addition to the former regime bureaucrats. The cabinet reshuffles of January and May 2013 buttressed the FJP’s hold of key government positions. The MB now headed ten out of 35 ministries. Furthermore, ten out 27 new governors appointed by Morsi were MB members. The same tactic was applied in institutions such as the state-controlled trade union and professional associations (Pioppi, 2013, pp. 63-64). Morsi deflected ‘illegitimate’ civil-democratic demands, opting to strengthen the MBs position inside institutions while protecting these institutions’ autonomy. His economic policy constituted a continuation of past (neo)liberalism. The status-quo in the economic elite was maintained with some adjustments in favour of the Brotherhood businessmen. The government reconciled with Mubarak-era capitalists as shown by Morsi’s China visit on which several Mubarakist businessmen joined. The economic liberalization reforms further aggravated the dire socioeconomic situation of the country. The living standards of scores of Egyptians deteriorated

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considerably and no serious steps were taken towards social justice. The government had no coherent plan to implement progressive fiscal policies, to tackle the pressing unemployment challenges, to ensure a just allocation of subsidies or far-reaching minimum and maximum wage concessions (Paciello, 2013, pp. 8-15). Instead of granting labour demands and including the unions in formal politics, the MB tried to neutralize the emerging independent trade unions and control the state-governed union. The choice to pursue similar economic policies as Mubarak instead of substantially restructuring political-economic relations resulted in a rising tide of socioeconomic unrest. More and more people were convinced that Morsi’s Renaissance would not fulfil their socio-economic grievances and new antagonisms were erected outside of Morsi’s framework (Beinin, 2013a, 2013b). The increasing sectarian strife propagated by Sunni Islamists under Morsi aggravated the grievances of minority groups. Morsi’s inaction towards the rising sectarianism betrays his preference to cater to the Salafists’ and Ikhwan ’s agenda. Morsi and the FJP did not censor hate speech by MB members and Salafists nor did they take any serious steps to investigate sectarian violence. Religious minorities were less and less convinced that their aspirations for equal citizenship would be realized under Morsi’s rule. The deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch attributed partial responsibility for the lynching of four Shiites to the Ikhwan : ‘The brutal sectarian lynching of four Shia comes after two years of hate speech against the minority religious group, which the Muslim Brotherhood condoned and at times participated in’ (HRW, 2013). In a reaction on ONtv to a deadly attack on a cathedral, Pope Tawadros II openly accused Morsi and his administration for neglecting their vows to protect the cathedral. Events during the Eastern mass on 4 May indicated that Copts and opponents were looking for alternatives to inscribe their demands. In contrast to the silent response to the papal greetings to Morsi and the Prime Minister, the mentioning of al-Sisi and opposition figures was loudly cheered by Copts and other regime opponents (Tadros, 2013).

The construction of a counter-hegemony Morsi’s declaration and the resulting turmoil constituted a turning point in the hegemonic struggle in Egypt. Up to this point the prevalence of the logic of difference in the Renaissance project had been more or less fruitful in presenting a surface of differential inscription for a plethora of demands and preventing rival hegemonic projects from developing. His one-sided decree, however, pushed the splintered opposition forces into each other’s arms. Remnants of the former regime and several revolutionary groups joined forces against the presidential decree. I shall use the following diagram, designed by Laclau (2007, p. 131), to elucidate the emerging hegemonic struggle:

The anti-Morsi protestors attempted to interrupt the equivalential chain of Morsi’s camp by articulating another equivalential chain in which some of the demands (D 1 in the diagram) were linked to different demands (b), (c) etc. This blurred the political frontier Morsi tried to institute (the horizontal

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dotted line). The opponents aimed to institute a new dichotomic frontier (the diagonal dotted line) between the Ikhwan and Morsi, who had betrayed the revolution, on the one hand and ‘the people’ on the other. This became evident from chants such as ‘Down with the rule of the Guide’ 9, ‘Leave!’, and placards portraying Morsi as a Pharaoh, or reading ‘Muhammad Morsi Mubarak’. A banner above Muhammad Mahmoud Street proclaimed: ‘Entrance for Ikhwan is prohibited’. Moreover, 35 political parties ranging from liberals and leftists to fuloul formed the National Salvation Front demanding the annulment of the decree and the formation of a more representative CA. A member of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party denounced criticisms of co-operation with fuloul : ‘Talks about feloul is meaningless […] The movement is being led by the democratic forces, and today thousands have chanted only revolutionary slogans. The battle now is between the oppressive Islamist alliance and the ascending democratic force.’ Yasir al-Hawary of the Constitution Party backed this idea up: ‘This isn’t the time to be caught up in and separated by ideologies and principles. We unite to protect the nation from dictatorship’ (in EgyptIndependent, 2012a). In such a situation, ‘the same democratic demands receive the structural pressure of rival hegemonic projects. It is no longer that the particularism of the demand becomes self-sufficient and independent of any equivalential articulation, but that its meaning is indeterminate between equivalential frontiers’

(Laclau, 2007, p. 130). If D1 represents ‘democracy’ , the diagonal frontier created an equivalential bond between D 1 and the demand for the removal of Morsi (b) and for the continuation of the revolution (c). The relation between the upper and lower semicircle was unfixed which destabilized Morsi’s discourse . The floating dimension of signifiers as democracy, revolution and Tahrir became visible again. The anti- Morsi camp tried to fix the floating signifier ‘democracy ’ as real, participatory and plural democracy as opposed to Morsi’s majoritarian, dictatorial rule. ‘Revolution’ was articulated as a process that continues against a new Mubarak-like autocrat and his faction. ‘Tahrir’ was reclaimed as the focal point of this continuing revolutionary process. Individual demands without prior relations with each other were partially transformed into a popular demand for the removal of Morsi through the construction of bonds of equivalence between the individual demands. During the constitutional turmoil and the bloody clashes in early 2013, this array of links did not crystallize in a popular identity yet. The development of unified anti-Morsi camp late 2012-early 2013 stagnated until the Tamarod , or ‘Rebel’, campaign kicked off in May 2013.

Rebel: The opposition crystallizes in a popular identity Tamarod , an unprecedented paper petition campaign demanding the president’s resignation, claimed to have gathered over 22 million signatures. Its second aim was to mobilize masses on 30 June, the anniversary of Morsi’s inauguration. Tamarod cleverly instituted a social antagonism through its performance. It took great pains to pursue its goals in a horizontal, bottom-up and transparent manner in juxtaposition to Morsi’s top-down, opaque way of governing. Tamarod ’s primary focus was on offline grassroots outreach. The peer-to-peer campaigning spread swiftly and widely. Once a vast and diversified support base was secured, they started to use Mobile phones 10 and a Facebook page as means of communication and co-ordination. Tamarod avoided alienating any demands that could be articulated as being anti-Morsi/Ikhwan . In order to successfully present its particular demand of rebellion as the universal demand, it had to stress its political impartiality. The spokespersons had no history of political affiliation or presence which immunized them from criticism of partisanship (Iskandar, 2013). This campaign succeeded in constructing a popular identity through ‘attributive-performative’ connections (Laclau, 2007, p. 97): by attributing the source of a bundle of social grievances to Morsi and the MB/FJP, Tamarod constituted the chain as ‘the people’. Millions literally and metaphorically inscribed their demands in the surface provided by Tamarod . Particular demands for freedom of speech, better

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living standards and equal citizenship rights expressed themselves through the universal demand for radical change and for rebellion against the constitutive outside. The empty signifier ‘Rebel’ equivalentially kept together the heterogeneous sectoral elements. It signified the absent fullness of an ideal society in which bread, freedom and social justice would be achieved if the common enemy who incarnated all evil would be removed. A symmetric antagonism came into being because both camps claimed to represent ‘the people’ and held the radical other responsible for blocking its identity. In such a situation ‘we have two antagonistic ways of constituting the “people” as a historical actor. The way in which the meaning of D 1 is going to be fixed will depend on the result of a hegemonic struggle’ (Laclau, 2007, p. 132).

The ‘deep state’ backs Tamarod Tamarod was supported by former regime remnants, the security services and the army to some extent. ‘Without its knowledge’, the campaign had been financed by Naguib Sawiris, a billionaire with ties to the ancien régime. Al-Gebali, a prominent judicial figure under Mubarak, gave the movement strategic advice (Gresh, 2013). Moreover, the mainstream media set up a ruthless anti-Morsi campaign demonizing the president and the MB (El Amrani, 2013). The security forces recurrently defied Morsi’s demands to contain protests. In March, policemen in more than a third of Egypt’s governorates went on strike. What is more, intelligence officials advised opponents of Morsi to demonstrate, and policemen and officials of the MOI helped gathering signatures. They also joined anti-Morsi protests (Al Sharif & Saleh, 2013). As the societal polarization deepened and Morsi increasingly failed to act as a Caesar maintaining political and economic stability, the SCAF put its eggs in two baskets. It would not sacrifice its civil Islamist proxy as long as the situation did not reach a complete impasse. At the same time the military inoculated itself from public criticism by taking a non-aligned stance and asserting its allegiance to the Egyptian people keeping the Caesarist option in reserve should a stalemate develop. This was evident from ambiguous statements about interference which were later retracted and reports that the SCAF had meetings without Morsi. The SCAF occasionally warned for the disastrous consequences should the crises not be solved. On 11 December, al-Sisi called for a dialogue between a wide array of political and public figures without consulting the president first. Morsi refused the invitation and al-Sisi annulled the meeting. Moreover, because he could not rely on the security forces to control the upheaval in Port Said, the president sent the military in which received a warm welcome by the protesters. Al-Sisi alleges that he warned Morsi as early as March 2013: ‘I expected if we didn’t intervene, it would have turned into a civil war. Four months before he left, I told Morsi the same thing’ (WashingtonPost, 2013). Morsi’s blockage of a military operation against militants who had kidnapped soldiers in the Sinai in May augmented the growing disgruntlement with his rule in the officers’ ranks (Abul-Magd, 2013, p. 4).

Symmetric antagonism and military Caesarism As Tamarod gathered broad based support and 30 June drew closer, the discursive battle line was etched deeper and deeper. Adherents of Morsi undertook a failed attempt to counter Tamarod with their own Tagarod , or ‘impartiality’, campaign. The petition 11 aimed to defend the president’s legitimacy on religious grounds. As tensions ran higher, both camps adopted an increasingly dehumanizing rhetoric. This extreme language was not heard during 25 January and led to much of the violence after Morsi’s fall. Many Morsi opponents called Morsi supporters ‘sheep’ while the other way around ‘infidels’ circulated widely (cf. Carr, 2013). Morsi obstinately rejected the call for his resignation: ‘We now have

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constitutional legitimacy. The president was elected democratically with full freedom for everybody. […] There is no room for any talk against this constitutional legitimacy’ (Guardian, 2013). In his 26 June speech, Morsi lashed out at the opposition, the media and the fuloul . He blamed ‘Egypt’s enemies’, ‘invisible fingers’, ‘criminals’, ‘remnants’, and ‘some abroad who are overly hostile to this revolution’ for ‘attempting to sabotage the democratic experiment.’ Morsi asserted that ‘the presidency of Egypt’s revolution will adhere to the law and constitution, and will cut off the hand of anyone who tries to take an inch of its water or sand’ (AtlanticCouncil, 2013). You were either supportive of his legitimacy or an enemy of democracy and the people:

At the first sign of disagreement with the presidency, some factions have chosen to give up the rules of the democratic process such as commitment to the ballot box and legitimacy, ignoring the extended hand offering dialogue. Instead, they rushed to question the legitimacy of the entire regime and the absurd scene now is of them standing with the youth of the revolution saying that they are revolutionaries. They want to attack the democratic experiment; it is a documented reality that they are pushing the country to make a blind leap, those criminals that have no place among us. (AtlanticCouncil, 2013)

Caesar al-Sisi On 30 June, mass mobilizations spread throughout the country. The military estimated that the total number of protesters exceeded 30 million. The military stepped in the next day to cut the Gordian knot. It issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the administration to ‘meet the demands of the people’ or the military would intervene in the interest of the nation. Morsi clung to power during his speech on 2 July: ‘[T]he people have empowered me.’ ‘I neither allow nor accept that anybody emerges to say words that violate the legitimacy or to take steps or measures that shake this legitimacy,’ continued Morsi. ‘Let us deny the counter-revolution any chance of success’ (BBC, 2013). However, it was evident that Morsi was not able to speak in the name of ‘the people’. The Tamarod project managed to temporarily dominate the discursive field and constitute the hegemonic popular identity. It succeeded in partially fixing the meaning of important floating signifiers as ‘revolution’, ‘democracy’ and so on. Morsi’s attempt to act as an Islamist Caesar in the SCAF’s passive revolution had failed. He did not succeed to push through a restoration with transformist strategies to maintain political and economic stability. A military intervention was possible because once again its retreat behind the scenes had sheltered the military from criticism. This allowed the Armed Forces to recover its national-popular aura which had been simmering a year before. 12 On 3 July, not unlike its intervention during the 25 January uprising, the SCAF acted as a Caesar to resolve the stalemate. The SCAF removed Morsi, installed the head of the Constitutional Court as interim-president and implemented a road map. The decision was welcomed by jubilant protesters who chanted: ‘The army, people and police are one hand’ while jets and helicopters carrying Egyptian flags flew over Tahrir in a display of unity between the people and the military. In De Smet’s (2014b, p. 37) words, ‘the generals’ Caesarist maneuver temporarily succeeded in re- imposing military hegemony upon the process of passive revolution.’

Conclusion This paper has used the DT conceptual chest complemented by Gramscian concepts to elucidate the hegemonic struggle under Morsi’s presidency. These sensitizing concepts have supported me to elaborate an alternative reading of the events under Morsi’s presidency. I have contended that Morsi and the Ikhwan acted as a civil proxy for the military. In return for a historical opportunity to strengthen

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their position, the MB gave the SCAF a safe exit and protected its interests. I have argued how Morsi, acting as a Caesar in the unfolding passive revolution, attempted to suture the dislocated space that emerged during the 25 January uprising in a transformist way. The differential logic prevailed in his transformist discursive strategy by providing a surface for the separate inscription of as many ‘legitimate’ demands as possible. His hegemonic project constructed a popular identity by presenting its particular demand for Renaissance as the universal demand of ‘the people’. I have explored how the empty signifier ‘Renaissance’ functioned as a nodal point that rendered Morsi’s discourse coherent and filled the radical lack of progress felt by Egyptians. To establish equivalential links between the different identities comprising the people, Morsi instituted a political frontier between ‘the people’ and a ‘counter- revolutionary’ constitutive outside. I have argued how the people were articulated as the participants in the revolution and how the meaning of the ‘revolution’ was fixed as an overthrow of a dictator and a call for liberal democracy, effectively deflecting radical demands for radical political and economic restructuration. Initially, Morsi articulated the fuloul and fi’awi protests and strikes as working against the interest and the image of the ‘nation’. According to Sayyid and Zac (1998, p. 262), a project achieves hegemony if it realizes two things. First, it creates a ‘certain stability of meaning’ and makes its ‘proposed logics and rules the “natural” rules of the community, and its proposed limits define the “natural” limits of the community.’ Second, it is able to deactivate other hegemonic projects by creating procedures to deal with and contain resistance. Initially, Morsi’s project of gradual, orderly transition was successful in convincing social agents that their demands would be granted in the long term. Those who tried to subvert the rules and limits of Morsi’s discourse were effectively marginalized. Morsi’s 22 November declaration marked a shift in his discursive strategy towards a prevalence of the logic of equivalence. Assuming he was supported by the military, the MOI and Islamists, he antagonized an ever greater section of society. In reaction, massive waves of demonstrations and street clashes erupted. Tamarod was the first serious counter-hegemonic project that constructed an antithetical popular identity by creating equivalentual links between a wide variety of demands whose commonality was constituted as being against Morsi and the Ikhwan . The Tamarod discourse succeeded in unfixing the floating signifiers from Morsi’s chain and rearticulating them in an anti-Morsi chain of equivalence. The polarization developed into a stalemate with both camps balancing each other. On 3 July, the SCAF intervened in Caesarist fashion to depose Morsi because its core interests were threatened by the political and economic turmoil. It was able to do so because it had successfully distanced itself from Morsi and the Ikhwan by taking up a role behind the scenes. This article has, moreover, shown the analytical merits of DTA to support the production of knowledge about complex political and social processes. I also demonstrated the compatibility of Gramscian ‘sensitizing concepts’ with DT. There are, however, some methodological and theoretical challenges that require further investigation. First, DT’s well-grounded anti-epistemological standpoint has often been used to defend a methodological ‘anything goes’ attitude. As Torfing (2005, pp. 26-28) argues, there is a need for methodological guidelines and a more comprehensive discussion of the operational aspects of DT. Second, despite their theoretical breakdown of a distinction between discursive and non-discursive practices, Laclau and Mouffe’s analyses and theoretical elaboration predominantly focus on the linguistic aspect of discourse. The underdevelopment of the material aspect and the tension between idealism and materialism need to be addressed in order to enhance their analytical applicability. Finally, as Carpentier and De Cleen (2007, p. 272) contend, certain central concepts such as identity, ideology and power require more elaborate theorization.

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Notes

1 For more comprehensive accounts of DT, see (Howarth, 2000; Laclau, 2007; Laclau & Mouffe, 2001; Torfing, 1999). 2 For the ‘classical’ use of this concept, see: (Augelli & Murphy, 1997). 3 According to Gramsci (1971, p. 222), Napoleon III’s Caesarism was quantitative because ‘there was no passage from one type of State to another, but only “evolution” of the same type along unbroken lines.’ 4 ‘[Caesarism] is reactionary when its intervention helps the reactionary force to triumph — in this case too with certain compromises and limitations, which have, however, a different value, extent, and significance than in [its progressive form]’ (Gramsci, 1971, p. 219). 5 Retrieved from http://www.sis.gov.eg/newvr/theconistitution.pdf on 5 December 2014. 6 Transformismo denotes a process of incorporation of opposition figures or groups into the conservative-moderate ‘political class’ (cf. Gramsci, 1971, p. 58). 7 This transcript of Morsi’s interview on 22 September 2012 with Nile TV is an exact copy of the one provided by the State Intelligence Service that was deleted after Morsi’s downfall. 8 This term was widely used to denounce the perceived monopolization of power and positions in the hands of the Ikhwan . 9 This reflected the widespread belief that Morsi was no more than a puppet of the General Guide, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. 10 Local representatives could be reached on their widely publicized phone numbers for questions and criticisms. 11 The petition read: ‘We, the signatories, agreeing or disagreeing, with Dr Mohamed Morsi, the elected president, insist that he should complete his term as long as we do not see from him outright blasphemy; we have in him a sign from God, may God bless him and guide his footsteps’ (DNE, 2013). 12 According to a nationwide Zogby poll, conducted from 4 April to 12 May, ‘Among Egyptians, there is near universal confidence in the army (94%)’ (Zogby, 2013, p. 12). Meanwhile, the percentage of respondents that respected or welcomed Morsi’s electoral victory declined from 57 a year earlier to 28.

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Appendix

As requested by my supervisor dr. Brecht De Smet, I will briefly shed light on the advancements of my research since my first master's thesis in which I deployed DT to explore Morsi’s hegemonic project during his first six months in office. My previous dissertation focused primarily on the discursive strategy of Morsi and only minimally explored the anti-Morsi demonstrations in November-December 2012. Due to its time frame, it did not analyse the crystallization of the opposition movement in the Tamarod -campaign. The present article does analyse in depth the emergence of this counter-hegemonic project and interprets the discursive battle between both discourses. Moreover, by deploying the concepts of Caesarism, transformism and passive revolution, I embed the DTA of this hegemonic in the unfolding process of restoration/revolution which filled a lack of important background processes in my previous thesis. Furthermore, I enlarged my knowledge of the philosophical roots and the concepts of DT and its application by re-reading important works such as Laclau and Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy , Torfin g’s New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Žižek , and Howarth’s Discourse and reading articles and books such as Laclau’s On Populist Reason and New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time . This allowed me to apply DT with more profundity compared to my first thesis. The application of Laclau’s diagrams, for example, renders the articulation of an equivalential chain, the construction of a popular identity and the discursive understanding of hegemonic struggle more comprehensible. I have also analysed more secondary literature on the MB-SCAF relations and the MB strategy during the revolution and under the SCAF-lead transition. Dr. De Smet rightfully commented on my last thesis that I relied too much on Pargeter’s The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition To Power in this section. Finally, whereas my previous thesis analysed three speeches and two interviews, the present article has analysed 11 speeches and 6 interviews. Despite the fact that it is not possible to cite from every speech and interview due to the 10.000 word-limit, the more representative amount of textual data allowed me to use the DT sensitizing concepts to uncover logics operating in Morsi’s discourse. I have also translated an additional interview conducted by the al-Ahram newspaper with Morsi from Arabic which was about 7500 words long in English.

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