FASE III. APLICACIÓN

Earl divides forms of repression into three distinctive theoretical dimensions: a) who the repressive agent is, b) how the repressive action is carried out, and c) where²⁵ the repressive action takes place (2003, 47-48). A previous study of repression by Shock does not include this general typology²⁶ as he excludes the where dimension of repression and therefore misses some analytical strength. Earl therefore makes a more comprehensive effort to construct a typology of repression where she divides agents of repression into three main categories.²⁷ Furthermore, she divides repression strategies into observable and unobservable types pointing out the limits of research but also raising awareness about the repressive character of some regimes. This typology is particularly significant in the case of Egypt where state security operates through a well-developed network of contacts and informants, which are highly relevant to the regime’s repressive containment of Islamist mobilization.

As already mentioned, the definition of repression captures three elements of repressive action that need to be addressed and explained. They are the actor(s), method, and place of repression. A state by definition demands obedience and control of both its citizens and territory (see Weber 1978). State authorities in general and authoritarian regimes in

25 Here Earl explains that there are both observable and unobservable parts of repression fields.

26 Shock’s definition of repression: “Negative sanctions, using force or coercion, and violence by proxy” (2004, 32).

27 State agents tightly connected with the regime, state agents loosely connected to the regime and private agents conducting repression in the form of counter movements and state proxies (Earl 2003, 49).

69 particular, are concerned with any threat²⁸ that might question the existing socio-political order. State repression, in other words, is a process of maintaining political power through policies and methods, which obstruct any opposing/threatening collective action (Kamrava 1998: 64). The authoritarian regime of Mubarak had a whole arsenal of political, judicial and economic policies at its disposal, which it used to prevent political opposition that threatened the status quo (see 07CAIRO2871 2007, official document).

Some scholars of social movements and state control have traditionally focused on state policing techniques (della Porta and Reiter 1998; Earl 2003; Earl and Soule 2006;

Fernandez 2008). These and other experts recognize that protest policing and its mechanisms of engagement with vocal dissidents is one of the major repression techniques. Although this is an important element of repression “mechanics”, and an inherent part of a state’s control strategy, it misses important aspects of authoritarian logic and its mechanisms of repression.

For instance, focusing on protest policing ignores the deterring effects of judicial sanctions imposed by a regime. This lacuna is largely connected to a traditional scholarly focus on state responses in liberal democracies, what we might call a ‘democratic bias’ among social movement scholars (Turner and Killian 1972; Lichbach 1987; Gupta et al 1993;

Loveman 1998; Goodwin and Jasper 1999; Moore 2000). We need to broaden the analysis by including indicators of institutional aspects of state repression, as well as its impact on mobilization. It can be argued that state repression is ultimately the capacity of the state regime to control, and thus impede individual or collective opposition through physical force and/or the threat of force.

The assumption here is that “[r]egime opponents [i.e. SMO] anticipate state activity, search out its pattern, and in the light of that pattern, calibrate movement practice to navigate between the innocuous and the suicidal” (Boudreau 2004, 3, emphasis added). In the case of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is much evidence pointing in this direction. A long

28 The level of threat to state institutions, citizens’ safety and economic interests vary greatly.

Nevertheless, a threat to state authorities can come from revolutionary or reactionary types of dissent ranging from extreme left movements (anarchist/ independent syndicalist organizations) to extreme right (Christian and nationalist militias and neo-Nazi groups), and further to nonviolent forms of mobilization such as environmental activism and pacifist movements where protesters disrupt commercial and military functions.

70 tradition of mobilization under repression has facilitated the evolution of the organization and its strategies.

Besides the traditional forms of state repression involving the physical force of state security as a means to disperse activists (through beatings, arrests and even shootings), there is another, more profound form of social control. The psychological harassment and humiliation of activists in an effort to discourage them from continued dissent by instilling fear and decreasing their self-confidence, setting examples to other potential activists. Based on the previous consideration and on the construct of personal desire/belief, it is important, or rather socially admirable, for a person who is subjugated by state repression to try and overcome their mental barrier of fear in order to restore their sense of decorum and worth.

In Egypt, and assumingly elsewhere in the authoritarian landscape, the psychological notion of repression stretches(ed) beyond the state’s capacity to impose physical sanctions and techniques of protest control. Repression includes(ed) intimidation of activists through audio and video recording of participation in mobilization for later use when raiding activists’ homes, obstruction of university enrollment for known or suspected activists, denial of employment or military service to suspected activists.²⁹ After briefly theorizing control mechanisms it is important to specify forms of repression through examples.

The, now fallen, Mubarak regime was in power between October 1981 and February 2011 and during this period the regime exercised a wide variety of repressive measures against all political dissidents. The regime successfully employed “negative sanctions, using force or coercion, and violence by proxy” (Schock 2004, 32). The regime’s repression strategies have been manifested in a variety of their responses to the Islamist (and secular) opposition. Repression in this study is analyzed partly through Earl’s analytic framework:

who represses and how repression is manifested. Identifying the who of repression is, on the face of it, not difficult. However, the regime structure is not merely composed of the individual members of the political leadership, but involves a wider network of social agents and institutions that cooperate in this process.

29 This state action is perceived as a negative sanction as military service is often a springboard to better employment opportunities and often to state employment with significant benefits.

71 The Mubarak regime inherited strategies from the two preceding regimes and advanced its tactics on how to realize its repressive policies, primarily through censorship and rigid media control, but also through the creation of secret prisons and the intimidation of regime critics (Mitchell 1969; Hinnebusch 2007; Leyne 2010; Michael 2010; Topol 2010).

Moreover, during its 30-year rule the Mubarak regime succeeded in establishing full control of the political institutions through a variety of tactical tools. These tools included fraudulent elections, control of media outlets, censorship, coercing opponents into submission, imprisonment, and outright violent subjugation of its adversaries (Ibrahim 2002, 165-166; Sadiki 2009, 84, 94, 127).

The repression of political opponents in states with little or no democratic experience has been the norm whoever might have held the reins of power. Here democratic refers to independent state institutions (checks and balances of power), self-determination of the people, free speech, and the peaceful transition of political control. Egypt, as previously noted, experienced a short, interrupted and turbulent democratic period defined by the 1923 constitution in the period of the mid-1920s and 1930s (Sayyid-Marsot 1985; Zaki 1995, 75-76).

Political competition during that period produced several streams of political orientation.

These can be considered as the precursors of the contemporary political parties in Egypt.

For instance, Al-Wafd party draws on the modern and nationalist ideas of its predecessors and claims continuity of their thought.³⁰ It presents itself as a viable alternative to the ruling regime (Sayyid-Marsot 1985, 100-101; Ehab 2010) although one could discuss the sincerity of such claims as al-Wafd members of parliament often supported the policies of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and several other Islamist groups³¹ trace their roots to the same period (Sayyid-Marsot 1985, 89; Lia 1998). The leftist Socialist Labor Party and its allies, are equally eager to point to the early beginnings and tradition in Egypt going back

30 Here party leaders and its supporters make frequent references to party leaders Saad Zaghloul (1920s) and Mustafa Nahhas (1930s and 1940s) who, at the time, dominated Egyptian

parliamentary politics.

31 Gam’iyyah Shar’iyyah (institutionalized organization representing religiously conservative salafi streams of thought focused on social activism which avoids political claims), and Ansar Al-Sunnah Al Muhammadiyyah (another salafi-oriented organization), are some early Islamist groups who developed mobilization networks through religious pietism and avoided confrontation with the state authorities.

72 to the early 1920s (Zaki 1995, 75-76; Ginat 2003). An assumption can be made that the claims of political parties to have their origins in the earlier democratic period are supposed to increase their credibility and sincerity through the maintenance of a (political) tradition and prove their (long-term) public commitment (see Auda 1991).

A long tradition of Egyptian political authoritarianism has produced repression mechanisms which had become gradually more selective when pursuing political opponents. The who of repression in post-independence Egypt is represented by the authoritarian state regimes of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. All of these regimes were selective and relatively sensitive to the public reactions to repression. Nevertheless, they have always signaled that political opposition of any kind will be sanctioned and repressed, effectively incapacitating much of, what can speculatively be claimed to be, the political opposition (Brownlee 2007, 176ff).

The authoritarian regimes of Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak, distinguished between violent and nonviolent types of opponents, and the (potentially) violent groups did not necessarily pose a greater threat, but the argument for cracking down on them was less controversial and easier to legitimize. If one wishes to theorize about these regime experiences one can assume that the regime’s repression tactics have also helped to shape the nature and form of its opponents (see Snow and Benford 1992). The reverse assumption needs to be considered as well. Authoritarian regimes, in general, seem to (re)form policies and sometimes institutions in order to counter the various kinds of dissenting mobilization strategies (Boudreau 2002, 29).

The Mubarak regime often claimed to have been elected by the citizens in free and fair elections, and was therefore the legitimate holder of political power (Ezzat 2010a, 2010b).

For instance, the electoral candidates of the NDP often sought popular support through established networks of patronage “most of which can realistically be channeled only from the center [of political power]" (Kassem 1999, 127). These channels of patronage and personal favoritism had been growing in importance throughout Mubarak’s reign (Zaki 1995). This primarily depends on the regime’s ambitions to penetrate deep into civil society by increasing the people’s dependence on regime support (Brownlee 2002, 37). The regime also became progressively entangled with the business elites (Ibrahim 2002, 127-128) due to factors related to the increase in the globalization of economic communication and cultural/social interconnectedness (Etling et al 2009).

73 The Mubarak regime had been increasingly fearful of the popular appeal of the Islamists in general and the MB in particular. This is especially true after the MB’s electoral

“successes” in the 2005 parliamentary elections. “The Ikhwan [the MB] are very organised and extremely popular, and if they contested the elections, they could easily win against the NDP. A trend within the regime thinks that the Ikhwan [the MB] constitute the greatest political threat to Mubarak, and fears that what happened in Algeria [a civil strife starting in 1991/92] could happen in Egypt” (Makram Mohammad Ahmad, in Al-Awadi 2004, 173).

The regime’s structure had been highly dependent on the stability of internal relationships and alliances between different groups amongst the political elites, including the military. This was necessary because the intended purpose of repression had been to contain, limit and eventually eradicate political challengers (see Appendix II).

Analyzing the state’s formal structure one can observe three important domestic elements on which the regime bases its power of control: elite patronage/clientelist relations,³² coercive institutions of power, and economic control of the main sources of revenue.