“…In both cases, aggrieved people took to civil society, street politics, and workplaces over the prior decade. Civil associations of journalists, lawyers, and other groups advocated for and incubated political life (El-Sayyid, 1996;Ritter, 2015), street and cyber activism forged social networks (Bayat, 2017: 166), and Islamist groups were repressed but tolerated (Gelvin, 2015: 5). Amid "the severe undermining of labor throughout most of the region," both cases stood out for "combative workers' movements" (Achcar, 2013: 123) that had built solidarities for class struggles (Matta, 2021) and at times co-mingled with democracy movements, as in Egypt's 6 April Movement or Tunisia's Gafsa Revolt (Beinin and Variel, 2013: 187, 220).…”