Understanding Protest Diffusion The Case of the Egyptian Uprising of 2011 Arne F. Wackenhut Understanding Protest Diffusion Arne F. Wackenhut Understanding Protest Diffusion The Case of the Egyptian Uprising of 2011 Arne F. Wackenhut School of Global Studies University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden ISBN 978-3-030-39349-6 ISBN 978-3-030-39350-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39350-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Cover illustration: © Harvey Loake This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For Edith and Sabrina Acknowledgements This book is the result of a multi-year project that evolved out of my Ph.D. thesis in Peace and Development Research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. One might argue that the process of writing is in some ways a rather lonely one. Countless hours were spent in front of an ever-changing body of text with little company but Microsoft Word and Endnote. However, at closer inspection, this book is just as much the result of numerous social interactions through a period spanning more than seven years. It would have been impossible to complete this monograph without the countless interactions with research participants, colleagues and friends, in Sweden, Egypt and Germany. While the text and all of its mistakes are my own, I would like to briefly acknowledge the contribution of a few key individuals who made this book possible. I am deeply grateful for the continuous support, encouragement and constructive feedback from my supervisors Michael Schulz and Isabell Schierenbeck who witnessed the genesis of this book through its various and occasionally messy stages of construction. At the same time, I ac- knowledge the invaluable contribution of my thesis committee consisting of Eva Bellin, Ellen Lust, Henner Fürtig and Camilla Orjuela. Thank you very much for engaging with my work and encouraging me to sharpen both my theoretical argument and analysis. Likewise, I acknowledge the vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS helpful feedback of the two anonymous reviewers who greatly aided me in sharpening my argument and fleshing out my contribution. Furthermore, I am deeply indebted to Professor Bahgat Korany who invited me to the AUC as a research fellow. You, Kevin Köhler and Hol- ger Albrecht helped make the AUC both a welcoming and productive research environment, which is greatly missed (especially during the some- what depressing winters on the Swedish West Coast). To my Cairo friends—you know who you are—thank you for your friendship and company. You made Cairo my home away from home. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to all of my research participants who agreed to share both their happiest and saddest memo- ries of 2011 and what came afterwards. Talking to you over a cup of tea (occasionally there might have been a Stella involved) was by far the most interesting and inspiring part of this journey. At this point, I would also like to thank the Swedish Research Coun- cil, the Nordic Africa Institute, the Grants Committee of the University of Gothenburg, the Adlerbertska Foreign Student Hospitality Fund and Lars Hiertas Minnesfond for their generous financial support, which al- lowed me to fund my field research in Egypt and to present my research at various conferences in Canada, the United States and the United King- dom. At Palgrave, I am deeply indebted to Sarah Roughly and Oliver Foster for believing in this project and solving various problems along the way in the most professional and kind manner possible. Last but not least, I would like to thank my entire family for being the best support system one can imagine. You are simply the best. Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 It Did Not Start on National Police Day 13 3 Planning and Coordinating a Protest, Not a Revolution 51 4 From Protest to Revolution 81 5 The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 113 Index 127 ix CHAPTER 1 Introduction Abstract This chapter introduces the January 25 Uprising and lays out the book’s central aim, research problem and argument. Taking its point of departure in the consistent and repeated failures of the Egyptian prodemocracy movement to mobilize significant popular support for their struggle against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak during the first decade of the new Millennium, it is argued that, to understand the rapid and large-scale diffusion of protest during the Egyptian Uprising of 2011, one not only needs to account for the underlying objective structure of political opportunities, but also for the ways in which different actors at different times perceived, navigated and affected these structures. Keywords January 25 Uprising · Egyptian prodemocracy movement · President Hosni Mubarak · Egyptian Uprising of 2011 · Political opportunities On January 25, 2011 thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Ismaïlia, and other cities throughout the country. However, rather than commemorating the deaths of fifty policemen by the hands of the British Armed Forces in 1952 on this National Police Day,the protesters soon demanded ‘the fall of the regime.’ These protests were organized by a coalition of social movement orga- nizations and other groups within the broader Cairo-based political oppo- sition,1 and marked the visible beginning of a large-scale protest episode. © The Author(s) 2020 1 A. F. Wackenhut, Understanding Protest Diffusion, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39350-2_1 2 A. F. WACKENHUT Within a period of eighteen days, they resulted in the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak who had, at the time, been in power for nearly thirty years. Not unlike the uprising in Tunisia, which had led to the removal of President Ben Ali from power only eleven days before the first protests in Egypt, the scale and outcome of this episode of contention came as a surprise to many observers. In fact, the size and scope of the Egyptian protests surprised even most of the very activists who were responsible for the initial planning and coordination of the event. For instance, a mem- ber of the Revolutionary Socialists, a relatively small Trotskyist movement belonging to the broader prodemocracy movement, put these protests on January 25 into historical perspective. He recalled that: It was unbelievable. It was really a surprise. We were not expecting it. I mean, we expected it to be one big demonstration, but according to our standards, that would have been, maybe a few thousand; that would have been the maximum. (Ahmed H., interview, Cairo, November 1, 2014) Here, Ahmed H. echoed one of the constant dilemmas of the Cairo-based political opposition, which is best described as an ideologically diverse conglomerate of different social and protest movement organizations with a—at the time—predominantly educated and (upper) middle-class mem- bership. These groups had, for more than a decade, tried to rally popular support for the purpose of effecting socio-political change. However, they had largely failed to mobilize other societal actors and sectors. Even rel- atively successful campaigns, like the so-called Kefaya (enough) protest episode that started in late 2004, rarely attracted more than a few hun- dred protesters (El-Mahdi, 2009).2 While the January 25 uprising—now with the benefit of hindsight—did not result in the somewhat cautiously anticipated democratic transition in the country that we have seen, for instance, in the case of Tunisia, the case remains highly relevant and instructive. It remains relevant and instructive insofar as it allows us to garner important new insights into the ways in which visible grassroots resistance in less- and non-democratic settings materializes. Thereby, it not only contributes to a rapidly growing body of literature on this ‘Egyptian Revolution of 2011’ (see e.g. Abdelrahman, 2011, 2015;Beinin,2012;Clarke,2014;Jumet,2018) and the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ more generally, but it also helps us to better understand the complexities of mobilization and large-scale protest diffusion processes more generally. 1 INTRODUCTION 3 The Puzzle and Central Argument Bearing in mind the aforementioned stark differences in terms of protest participation rates between, on the one hand, the 18 days-long upris- ing that commenced in the wake of the initial protests on January 25, 2011, and previous protest episodes on the other, this book contextu- alizes and traces the mobilization process leading up to the large-scale diffusion of protest during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.3 Drawing on social movement theory and the broader contentious politics frame- work (McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001; Tilly & Tarrow, 2007), this book endeavors to more fully understand the complexities of mobilization and protest diffusion processes during this protest episode.