Repression’s Diminishing Returns: The Future of Politics in Egypt

Many analysts have rushed to declare a political outcome for Egypt's transition. Some noted the emergence of democracy by detailing the rise of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Others record the failure of the revolutionaries to compete successfully in elections. More pessimistically, scholars focus on the military and the unreformed Mubarak state apparatus as producing reconstituted authoritarianism. Stacher argues that we must understand Egypt’s transition as a process of change rather than a finalized outcome. In doing so, he details the structural limits of governing Egypt as well as the receding capacity of state elites to deploy repression as a means of political control.