The Egyptian revolution that started on January 25 engaged many people who theretofore had not been considered political actors. Among them were the Ultras, a particular group of football fans who are widely credited to have played a part in the more physical aspects of the uprising. In this article the Ultras are studied by means of an analysis of their own written material, their internet presence, and fieldwork conducted in Cairo. It is argued that the Ultras have quite naturally developed into a revolutionary social movement.
Necessity has long been used in investment arbitration as a defence to preclude the wrongfulness of a State’s conduct in times of crisis. However, tribunals have often taken a strict view of this defence, ruling that for the defence to be available, the contested act must have been the only way for the State to protect an essential interest. The award in Unión Fenosa v. Egypt continues this trend. The tribunal therein refused the application of the defence of necessity, as against the backdrop of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. This Case Note analyses the tribunal’s ruling in terms of the necessity defence, and its potential implications for similar arbitrations where States have had to act in a swift, decisive manner in times of crisis.
Egyptian women have played an unprecedented role in the Arab Spring democratic movement, possibly changing women’s perception about their own rights and role. We question whether these events have translated into better outcomes within Egyptian households. We conjecture that potential changes must have been heterogeneous and depended on the local intensity of protests and women’s participation over 2011-13. We exploit the geographical heterogeneity along these two margins to conduct a double difference analysis using data surrounding the period.We find a significant improvement in women’s final say regarding decisions on health, socialization and household expenditure, as well as a decline in the acceptation of domestic violence and girls’ circumcision, in the regions most affected by the protests. This effect is not due to particular regional patterns or pre-existing trends in empowerment. It is also robust to alternative treatment definitions and confirmed by triple difference estimations. We confront our main interpretation to alternative mechanisms that could have explained this effect.
This paper examines the two Egyptian revolutionary waves of 25th of January 2011 and 30th of June 2013 against Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood respectively. It analyses the role claimed by the Egyptian Army as a leader of these two waves, and the inherent contradiction between the Revolution’s ideals on one hand and the structural and behavioral organization of the Military Establishment on the other. It draws arguments from the 2014 Egyptian Constitution which bestowed upon the Army a privileged status incompatible with the march for democracy instigated by the Arab Spring, and concludes by affirming that change, intrinsically, is an object of refusal by the ruling mentality.
Following the 2011 uprisings in many Middle Eastern states, academics were quick to discuss these events within the context of Huntington’s “Third Wave” of democratization (Sarihan 2012). The problem with connecting the third wave of democratization to the Arab Spring, in terms of Egypt, is the assumption that the 2011 uprising against Mubarak was about democracy. The demands of the Revolution were bread, freedom, and social justice. The majority of the population was not asking for democracy, at least not as a primary concern. After conducting over 170 interviews in Egypt between June and December 2013, I find that the 2011 uprising was less about democracy and more about the economy and social justice. While a small number of media savvy activists well versed in democratic theory proclaimed that they were fighting for democracy, this did not mean that the millions on the streets were fighting for the exact same cause. We must recognize the difference between the statements of organized groups with limited membership, such as the April 6th Youth Movement, and the demands of the general population. In fact, from my interviews I find that the average Egyptian has neither a procedural nor institutional understanding of democracy. Most Egyptians’ definition was limited to freedom of opinion. Additionally, the demand for freedom in the abstract sense does not necessarily equate with democracy.
The eruption of Arab uprisings has certainly transformed the socio-political scene of contemporary Middle Eastern society. While the uprisings have created the space for political and legal contestation, through for example political party reform, constitutional amendments, and the institution of free and fair elections, they have, to a certain degree, left many of the socio-economic predicaments to a ‘post-transitional’ phase. The role of labor in fueling many of the uprisings seems to be an interesting site that does not only probe questions of ‘civics’ but also questions relating to social status and income disparities. This is reflected in initiatives on labor law reform, labor organizing, independent trade union movements, and the campaign for the institution of a fair minimum wage and its effective legal enforcement. Certainly, the significant contribution of labor movements in the uprisings are embedded within an historical and socio-economic context that created the necessary impetus for a wider movement that culminated in the main squares of Arabcapitals.
This paper will investigate the role of the Egyptian labor movement in resisting intolerable socio-economic conditions that were effectuated by existing labor legislation, which although problematic in and of itself, provided minimal protections to workers that were never effectively enforced. This was largely the result of a fundamental bias that geared the entire economic system towards privatization, austerity measures, and a more robust investment climate.
The paper will specifically examine the most recent labor legislation and the corresponding dynamic in the Egyptian labor movement from 2003, when the Unified Labor Law was finally adopted by parliament after a decade of stalling, followed by the appointment of a neoliberal cabinet in 2004, until January 2011. I will first map out the central arguments on labor legislation, including its theoretical basis, and practical enforcement, proposed by the different actors and observers. Second, I will focus on the Unified Labor Law, adopted in 2003 and its implications combined with the repercussions of Ahmed Nazif’s 2004 neoliberal cabinet, which embarked upon an unrelenting program of privatization, austerity, and curtailment of workers’ rights. Third, I will argue that the extremity of neoliberal policies has reignited the workers’ movement after decades of low-profile activism. In doing that, I bring out the main legal problems facing Egyptian workers including minimum wage enforcement, the law on collective bargaining and trade unions, dismissals, fixed-term contracts, among other issues. Finally, I conclude with the prospects of re-imagining the Unified Labor Law, a step that requires a systemic approach to capital-labor relations, further increasing the role of government regulation and embedding the social component of labor economics and labor law within the macroeconomic national agenda as opposed to a mere philanthropic disposition to labor matters, or as part of corporate governance policy and corporate social responsibility propaganda. While the labor movement was to a great extent behind the eruption of the Egyptian “Spring”, it is pertinent to recognize that it should not be left behind in the post-uprising public agenda.