Current Analysis

Ellis Goldberg, Egypt and a Reverence for Life

Mona El-Ghobashy pays tribute to the scholar Ellis Goldberg and his pathbreaking work on Egypt. Living in Egypt at the time of the revolution in 2011, Goldberg provided in-depth commentary on events in his blog, Nisr al-Nasr. El-Ghobashy's appreciation of Goldberg explains why his insights were so u

Mona El-Ghobashy • 8 min read

Trauma as a Counterrevolutionary Strategy

Recent research in Egypt demonstrates how trauma can be (and has been) weaponized as a counterrevolutionary strategy by military and political elites who seek to maintain and strengthen their economic and political power.

Vivienne Matthies-Boon • 12 min read

Egypt’s Post-2011 Embrace of Russian-Style Misinformation Campaigns

Since the 2013 coup, Egypt’s posture vis à vis information and cyber warfare has evolved from a defensive one—geared toward domestic surveillance and blocking—to an offensive one also focused on influence operations abroad. This shift has pulled Egypt further into an open embrace of Russia.

Nathaniel Greenberg • 14 min read

Trump’s Enabling Role in Rising Regional Repression

US President Donald Trump’s public embrace of autocrats and his virtual silence on their repressive behavior appears to have made autocrats, particularly those allied to the United States, less constrained than they were in the past.

Adria Lawrence • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Remaking AUC in the Corporate Image of US Foreign Policy

Over the past few years, students and staff at the American University in Cairo have joined forces with faculty against the increasingly draconian measures taken by the AUC administration.

A Special Correspondent • 8 min read

MER Article

The Egyptian Revolution’s Fatal Mistake

Early in the 2011 Egyptian revolution, activists and protesters battled their way into state security archives around the country. But the revolutionaries handed over the documents to the army, who later took power. Inside the state security archives were the blueprints for uprooting the police stat

Aly El Raggal • 16 min read

Current Analysis

Egypt’s Arrested Digital Spaces

Egypt's President Sisi has acquired sophisticated technological capabilities to block internet activity, passed restrictive internet legislation and now surveils users and censors content on a scale never seen before. Much of this has been facilitated by Western allies who have been more than happy

Samuel Woodhams • 9 min read

Current Analysis

Egypt’s Arrested Battlegrounds

While mass arrests and arbitrary detentions are nothing new to Egypt, the escalation and widening pattern of arrests over the past year indicate that the authoritarian mindset of the Egyptian regime has significantly changed. Egypt under President Sisi has succeeded in reestablishing authoritarianis

Wael Eskandar • 12 min read

Egypt's Left Opposition Party Holds Second Congress

Cairo, July 2. The National Progressive Unionist Party (Tagammu‘) held its second national congress in Cairo on June 27-28, 1985. The Tagammu‘, Egypt’s principal left opposition party, is a united front formation including members of illegal communist organizations, independent Marxists, Nasserists,

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Alexandria, City of Dispossession

“In Egypt, provincial cities do not exist.” This statement by French geographer Eric Denis eloquently summarizes the relationship between Cairo—the capital city—and the rest of the country. Little seems to exist beyond Cairo, except perhaps Alexandria. In the late 1990s and during the 2000s, Egypt’s second largest

Youssef El Chazli • 9 min read

Current Analysis

Overstating Climate Change in Egypt’s Uprising

Although climate change is a major issue of global consequence, blaming climate change for the 2011 uprising in Egypt fails to account for the political and economic issues that were behind the uprisings across the region and distracts from the factors that produced bread shortages in Egypt.

Jessica Barnes • 7 min read

Current Analysis

Sisi’s Plebiscitary Election

From day one of his July 3 coup, al-Sisi has directed a relentless campaign to depoliticize and incapacitate the population, riveting the old relations of deference and subordination between those who rule and those coerced to obey. But plebiscitary elections are part of a different type of autocrat

Mona El-Ghobashy • 15 min read