Unpopular protest: mass mobilization and attitudes to democracy in post-Mubarak Egypt

Ketchley, Neil and El-Rayyes, Thoraya (2021) Unpopular protest: mass mobilization and attitudes to democracy in post-Mubarak Egypt. Journal of Politics, 83 (1). 291 - 305. ISSN 0022-3816

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Abstract

Political science has long debated the significance of protest during a democratic transition, but attention has been largely confined to its impact on elite support for democracy. Contributing to scholarship on the attitudinal consequences of mobilization, we examine how protest shaped popular perceptions of democracy during the post-Mubarak transition in Egypt. We do this by matching wave 2 of the Arab Barometer survey with georeferenced protest events reported in Arabiclanguage newspapers. Our results show that Egyptians came to hold less favorable attitudes to democracy following sustained protest in their district. We find that this relationship was principally driven by longer-lasting, static street protests that targeted public space. Qualitative case details illustrate how such tactics could disrupt everyday life and affect livelihoods. These findings highlight one way in which popular support for democracy can be eroded during a transition.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jop/current
Additional Information:	© 2021 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia
Date Deposited:	10 May 2022 10:51
Last Modified:	17 Apr 2024 22:18
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/115076

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