The modularity of the ‘revolutionary’ repertoire of action in Egypt: origins and appropriation by different players

Abstract

The Egyptian 'revolutionary' repertoire of action, that is to say the repertoire used by the protesters of January 2011, was characterized by a combination of several features: occupation of a symbolic place; 'horizontal' forms of organization; recourse to new electronic information and communication technologies (especially social networks); and rhetoric centered around universal values such as dignity, social justice, human rights and democracy. This repertoire was born as a result of the merging of two parallel cycles of mobilization, which had actually started during the previous decades, one animated by activists from the educated middle class, and the other by workers struggling for economic and social reforms. After the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, it demonstrated its extreme modularity, being appropriated by different players from all sections of the political spectrum, from the Salafist hāzimūn to proponents of the military power.

Representing the people in the street or in the ballot box? The revolutionary coalition campaign during the 2011 Egyptian elections

“…If the proximity of "the Revolution Continues" coalition with the actual demonstrators served to reinforce its claim to embody the people, it also constituted a handicap in the electoral competition because it deprived the coalition of available supporters and time, and also because it placed it in a contradictory position. Besides this, its pretensions to be the representative of the revolution and the people was contested by their competitors, not only through their rhetoric and their own claims to represent national unity, but also through their attempts to appropriate the revolutionary repertoire of action (Steuer, 2018) 11 . Islamist and old regime forces sought to appropriate this revolutionary repertoire in order to claim some of the revolutionary legitimacy associated with it, and to compete with the revolutionary forces on their own ground, namely the representation of the people in the street.…”