Title: Saying "Enough": Authoritarianism and Egypt's Kefaya Movement
Abstract: How do reform-oriented social movements in authoritarian states get off the ground? I argue that authoritarian regimes can actually facilitate social movement mobilization by making it easier for movement leaders to form opposition coalitions. When authoritarian states experience a political opening, certain structural aspects of these regimes will ease the process of coalition formation. I describe three ways in which these states facilitate mobilization: (1) they offer a straightforward set of least-common-denominator goals; (2) they establish incentives for existing organizations to get involved; and (3) they enhance the role of protest events in building cohesion. To make my case, I analyze the Egyptian Kefaya movement, a social movement whose diverse members had never meaningfully worked together before and whose nine months of sustained street protests defied expectations that it would collapse under regime repression.
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 50
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