Of Uprisings and Regressions: The Strange Fruit of Egypt’s Arab Spring

Abstract

The events that swept Egypt six years ago gripped us all and they also raised high expectations of substantive political change. Yet, it may have been better to exercise reservation about Egypt’s postuprising direction. As we have witnessed, there are no guarantees during a transition phase of regime change. The following article investigates why and how Egypt’s “Arab Spring” turned out the way it did. It argues that the current outcome, while disappointing to normative aspirations, was not wholly unexpected. The product of a polity in the capricious embrace of reactionary forces and past legacies.