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Counter-revolution as international phenomenon: the case of Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2019

Jamie Allinson
Jamie Allinson*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
*
*Corresponding author. Email: j.allinson@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article argues that the case of the Egyptian 2011 revolution forces us to rethink accounts of counter-revolution in International Relations. The debate over whether the events of 2011–13 in Egypt should be considered a ‘revolution’ or merely a ‘revolt’ or ‘uprising’ reflects an understanding of revolutions as closed and discrete events, and therefore of international counter-revolution as significant only after revolutionary movements have seized sovereign power. Against this account, which maintains the idea of sovereignty as the boundary between domestic/social and international/ geopolitical phenomena, I argue that counter-revolutions can operate across boundaries during revolutionary situations before and to prevent revolutionary transformation and therefore affect whether a revolutionary sovereign power is established at all. Such counter-revolutions draw upon both the ideological inheritance of historical strategies of international ‘catch-up’, and the cross-border class relations that these different strategies bring into being. In the Egyptian case, the counter-revolution thus relied upon two factors deriving from this strategy: the ideological inheritance of Nasserism as a response to international hierarchy, and the integration of the post-Nasser Egyptian ruling elite with Gulf financial, and US security, networks.

Keywords

RevolutionCounter-revolutionHistorical SociologyArab Spring, Egypt
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 320 - 344
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2019 

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123 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution, pp. 110.

124 Ketchley, Egypt in a Time of Revolution, pp. 112–3.

125 Ibid., p. 112.

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127 Giglio, ‘Mahmoud Badr is the young face of the Anti-Morsi movement’; Ketchley, Egypt in a Time of Revolution, p. 113.

128 Ketchley, Egypt in a Time of Revolution, pp. 113–27.

129 Ibid., pp. 113–16.

130 Ibid., pp. 120–1.

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132 Aspden, ‘Generation revolution’.

133 Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution, p. 115.

134 De Smet, Gramsci on Tahrir, p. 215.

135 Marfleet, Egypt, pp. 160–1.

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140 Abul-Magd, ‘Egypt’s adaptable officers’, p. 34.

141 This sentiment found expression in an effusion of Sisiana, from cakes baked in the form of the general’s face, to the pop song Tislam el-Ayadi, explicitly invoking the spirit of the 1973 war to praise Sisi. Abul-Magd, ‘Egypt’s adaptable officers’, p. 34.

142 Alexander and Bassiouny, Bread, Freedom and Social Justice, p. 246.

143 Patrick Kingsley, ‘Alaa al-Aswany on why he had to support Egypt’s military crackdown’, The Guardian (2013), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/29/alaa-al-aswany-egypt-muslim-brotherhood} accessed 20 January 2018.

144 Lin Noueihed and Tom Perry, ‘With Brotherhood out, old order shapes Egypt’s future’, available at: {http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-protests-oldorder-analysis-idUKBRE97S0LF20130829} accessed 9 June 2017.

145 Marfleet, Egypt, pp. 200–2.

146 Jeremy M. Sharp, Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2017).

147 Ibid., p. 24. The alumni of this programme included the author of a – somewhat perfunctory – essay on ‘Democracy in the Middle East’, one Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

148 Michael Schuer, cited in Mohamed Elmenshawy, ‘Is Egypt still part of America’s extraordinary rendition programme?’, Ahram Online (2013).

149 Brownlee, Democracy Prevention, pp. 114–15.

150 Hilary Rodham Clinton, ‘Question and Answer at the Munich Security Conference’, US Department of State, Former Secretary Clinton’s Remarks (5 February 2011), available at: {https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2011/02/156045.htm} accessed 21 January 2018; Jake Sullivan, ‘Conference Call to Discuss Egypt’, US Department of State, Press Releases 2011 (9 February 2011), available at: {https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/02/156284.htm} accessed 21 January 2018.

151 Sharp, Egypt, p. 24.

152 ‘Obama: Egypt is not US ally nor an enemy’, BBC News (13 September 2012), available at: {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19584265} accessed 21 January 2018.

153 Adam Hanieh, ‘Rescaling Egypt’s political economy: Neoliberalism and the transformation of regional space’, in Abou-El-Fadl (ed.), Revolutionary Egypt.

154 Hanieh, ‘Rescaling Egypt’s political economy’, p. 164.

155 Ibid., p. 166.

156 Ibid., pp. 167–8.

157 Heba Saleh, ‘Saudi Arabia closes Cairo embassy’, Financial Times (29 April 2012).

158 Quotation from MB newspaper: ‘Justice and Freedom’, in Ketchley, Egypt in a Time of Revolution, p. 93.

159 Khatib, Lina, ‘Qatar’s foreign policy: the limits of pragmatism’, International Affairs, 89:2 (2013), pp. 417–431 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

160 Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, ‘Morsi’s win is Al-Jazeera’s loss’, Al-Jazeera (2 July 2012), available at: {https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/morsys-win-is-al-jazeeras-loss.html} accessed 24 January 2018.

161 Khatib, ‘Qatar’s foreign policy’, p. 423.

162 Roberts, David B., ‘Qatar and the Brotherhood’, Survival, 56:4 (2014), pp. 23–32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

163 ‘Egypt returns $2bln to Qatar’, Associated Press (19 September 2013).

164 Al-Rasheed, Madawi, ‘Saudi internal dilemmas and regional responses to the Arab uprisings’, in Fawaz Gerges (ed.), The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 353–379 Google Scholar .

165 Al-Rasheed, ‘Saudi internal dilemmas and regional responses to the Arab uprisings’, p. 370.

166 Hanau Santini, Ruth, ‘Bankrolling containment: Saudi linkages with Egypt and Tunisia’, in Thomas Richter and André Bank (eds), Transnational Diffusion and Co-operation in the Middle East (Washington, DC: George Washington University, 2016), pp. 65–69 Google Scholar .

167 Kamrava, Mehran, ‘The Arab Spring and the Saudi-led counterrevolution’, Orbis, 56:1 (2012), pp. 96–104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

168 Kingsley, ‘Will #SisiLeaks be Egypt’s Watergate’.

169 David P. Kirkpatrick, ‘Leaks gain credibility and potential to embarrass Egypt’s leaders’, New York Times (12 May 2015), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/world/middleeast/leaks-gain-credibility-and-potential-to-embarrass-egypts-leaders.html} accessed 21 January 2018.

170 Ibid.

171 Michael Peel, Camilla Hall, and Heba Saleh, ‘Saudi Arabia and UAE prop up Egypt regime with offer of $8bn’, Financial Times (10 July 2013).

172 ‘Egypt got $23 billion in aid from Gulf in 18 months – minister’, Reuters (2 March 2015), available at: {https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-egypt-investment-gulf/egypt-got-23-billion-in-aid-from-gulf-in-18-months-minister-idUKKBN0LY0UT20150302} accessed 25 January 2018.

173 ‘UAE covers cost of Egyptian lobbying in DC’, Mada Masr (5 October 2017), available at: {https://www.madamasr.com/en/2017/10/05/news/u/uae-covers-cost-of-egyptian-lobbying-in-dc/} accessed 24 January 2018.

174 Sharp, Egypt, pp. 6–7.

175 ‘Statement by President Barack Obama on Egypt’, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary (3 July 2013), available at: {https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/03/statement-president-barack-obama-egypt} accessed 25 January 2018.

176 Sharp, Egypt, pp. 20–1.

177 Ibid., p. 7.

178 Nael Shama, ‘Egypt’s power game: Why Cairo is boosting its military power’, Jadaliyya, available at: {http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/34539/Egypt%E2%80%99s-Power-Game-Why-Cairo-is-Boosting-its-Military-Power} accessed 17 August 2018.

179 Ibid.