Handling the wave: authoritarian survival in Egypt after the Arab uprisings

At the beginning of 2011, after two weeks of contentious protests setting off from Cairo and spreading to numerous cities in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who was ruling the country with an iron fist for 25 years, left his seat. Albeit his departure and the characteristic of the social movement that presented a capacity for a change towards democratization, the direction of the progression turned into the reconstitution of the authoritarian regime which was strengthened with the military coup in 2013, creating a more repressive mode of governance before the uprising. The research setting off from this repercussion, discloses the strategies deployed by the regime to reconstruct authoritarianism in Egypt at the aftermath of the popular uprising that took place in 2011, as a single case study. To deduct the path that led to authoritarian reconstruction in Egypt, the first section encompassing the methodology provides a theoretical framework that covers the literature on authoritarian survival and social movements theory. The second part of the study presents the historical background of protest activity in Egypt with a focus on the process between 2011 to 2013 by parting it to three waves; the 18 days that led to Mubarak’s fall, the reign of the military and the Morsi era. The third section gathers and decodes the process and reveals the strategies that were used to re-establish authoritarianism at the aftermath of the historical case of the popular uprising in Egypt