On this week’s episode of the podcast, Killian Clarke of Georgetown University joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed.
Clarke points out that counterrevolution is understudied relative to revolution, not just in the Middle East but across the discipline. Based on a unique dataset of counterrevolutions globally – successful and failed – he identifies some fascinating trends and then develops a theory based on choices made by successful revolutionary movements. He then gives a detailed account of the Egyptian counterrevolution, arguing that it succeeded not only because of UAE assistance but because Morsi prioritized keeping the military happy over maintaining the revolutionary coalition and badly overestimated his support from the Obama administration. Clarke shows how the military was able to take advantage of real polarization and the defection of key revolutionaries, as well as US reservations about Morsi, shifting the balance of power such that the military no longer feared either the street or a cut off of American aid.
Marc Lynch discussed it in his 2016 book The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East, and journalists such as David Kirkpatrick have explored it.
We’ve covered a lot of great books about Egypt either on the POMEPS Podcast or on Marc Lynch’s blog over the last few years. Here are some of the essentials:
Mona el-Ghobashy, Bread and Freedom – probably the best book on the turbulent, unpredictable course of the revolution and the tragedies which followed.
Neil Ketchley, Egypt in a Time of Revolution — the first book to really systematically study the emergence of protest ahead of the coup and the mobilization which followed it
Amy Austin Holmes, Coups and Revolutions — delved into the contradictions and complexities of the intersection of popular uprisings and coups
Maged Mandour, Egypt Under Sisi – shows just how badly Sisi’s autocratic restoration has been
Elizabeth Nugent, After Repression– focuses on how legacies of authoritarianism contributed to the polarization which facilitated the coup
Zeineb Abu el-Majd, Militarizing the Nation – a deep study of the culture, politics and economy of Egypt’s military. For more, I’d also recommend recent writings by Yezid Sayigh and also Sharan Grewal, Soldiers of Democracy, and Hicham Bou Nassif’s Endgame: Military Response to Protest in Arab Autocracies.
Finally, for the broad sweep of Egyptian politics, Nathan Brown, Amr el-Adly and Shimaa Hatab, Egypt: Lumbering State, Restless Society.
You can listen to this week’s podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or SoundCloud:
Music for this season’s podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his website Music and Sound at www.ferasarrabi.com.
POMEPS, directed by Marc Lynch, is based at the Institute for Middle East Studies at the George Washington University and is supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York.