Image Source: The Guardian; https://tinyurl.com/369779az

By Caleb Helsel

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s 2013 coup in Egypt marked the end of Egypt’s brief democracy and the birth of a new, more violent autocracy.

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Abstract

            In 2013, Egyptian Minister of Defense Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a military coup against the democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, restoring autocratic rule to Egypt. Egypt’s return to autocracy came after a brief democratic experiment following the fall of its previous dictator, Hosni Mubarak, during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. After brutal crackdowns on anti-coup demonstrators, Sisi established himself as the undisputed leader of Egypt. Existing scholarship on the topic portrays Sisi’s Egypt as more repressive than that of Mubarak’s or Morsi’s. Thus, this paper utilizes quantitative measures to compare indicators of political repression prior to Sisi’s coup (2010-2012) and after the coup (2013-2016) to determine whether there is an increase in repression under the current Egyptian government. I conclude that Egypt’s 2013 coup represented a critical junction in political repression, with the state successfully suppressing domestic dissent to a degree never seen before in Egypt. The coup also has diplomatic significance in contemporary global politics as Sisi has positioned himself as both a strong, pro-American ally and as a mediating force in regional conflicts.

Introduction

            With the revolutionary spirit of the Arab Spring spreading across the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian rule in Egypt came to an end in February 2011, sparking hope for a democratic Egypt. However, these hopes were diminished in July 2013 when the country’s first democratically elected leader, Mohammed Morsi, was arrested in a military coup led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. With the restoration of authoritarianism in Egypt, some practitioners describe Egypt as more repressive today than it was under Mubarak.Research cites the imprisonment of journalists and the massacres committed by agents of the Egyptian state, but numerical evaluations of repression in Egypt under the Sisi regime when compared to the presidencies of Mubarak and Morsi is lacking.^[1] This research will explore the effect of the 2013 coup on repression in Egypt. I argue that the 2013 coup d’état and the subsequent rule of Sisi demonstrably increased repression in Egypt. This is demonstrated by the decline in political activism following an intense period of state violence at the onset of Sisi’s rule, on top of existing restrictions on press freedom. This study contributes to a better understanding of Egyptian post-revolutionary governance, and an improved baseline for policymakers and researchers interested in autocracy in the Arab world.

This paper will first provide a brief synopsis of Egypt’s recent history and will be followed by a quantitative analysis of state repression in Egypt. This research examines the funding for the Central Security Forces (CSF) from 2010-2016 compared to the number of CSF-related civilian deaths and Egypt’s Press Freedom Index Scores to investigate whether there is a significant difference in the level of repression between the pre-coup and post-coup eras. [2]

Theoretical Framework

In his work on France’s Bonaparte emperors, Karl Marx describes how liberal-democratic revolutions can be subverted by a single military officer. Marx explains that this subversion occurs when a military officer, such as Sisi, positions himself as a popular champion and uses a coup to claim power in the revolutionary state for himself, stating:

“Society is saved just as often as the circle of its rulers contracts, as a more exclusive interest is maintained against a wider one. Every demand of the simplest bourgeois financial reform, of the most ordinary liberalism, or the most formal republicanism, of the most insipid democracy, is…castigated as an ‘attempt on society’… Finally, the scum of bourgeois society forms the holy phalanx of order and the hero Crapulinsky [a licentious aristocrat] installs himself…as the ‘saviour of society.’”^[3]

Marx’s description of Louis Bonaparte’s 1851 coup in France, in the quote above, almost perfectly aligns with Sisi’s 2013 coup in Egypt. For a brief period, Egypt was a democratic, “large coalition” regime, as described in the works of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita.^[4]      However, following the 2013 coup, the “circle of rulers” contracted as the military reasserted its exclusive control and terminated the democratic, “large coalition” regime that was in place under Morsi. Like Marx’s Crapulinsky, Sisi also portrayed himself as a savior figure. He presented himself and the Egyptian army as a unique, quasi-messianic force that, through Allah’s providence, brought stability to Egypt and saved it from disorder.^[5] Furthermore, the 2013 coup caused a contraction in the number of factions with access to power. Monem Said Aly (2011), writing shortly after Mubarak’s downfall, noted that the kaleidoscope of groups that brought down Mubarak’s regime included the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian army, NGOs, established political parties, and hundreds of youth coalitions.^[6] However, following Sisi’s coup, the Egyptian military primarily exercised control (as compared to other interest groups).^[7]

Sisi’s regime is deeply centered around his uncontested dominance, a regime type with a significant amount of literature surrounding it. Timothy Frye (2021) has suggested autocracies can be divided into 3 types: single-party regimes, military regimes, and personalist autocracies.^[8] Sisi’s regime falls into the category of a personalist autocracy, as Sisi has ensured he is the ultimate source of all authority by eliminating foes in his inner circle and appointing his family members to key military posts.^[9] This puts Sisi’s Egypt in the same category as Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Svolik (2012) categorizes autocracies as “contested” (where the leader must contend with an inner circle of elites all of whom are competing for power) or “uncontested” (where the leader has silenced all meaningful opposition from within the regime).^[10] Sisi’s regime is an uncontested autocracy as he centralized power in a way that Mubarak or his predecessors, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, never did. In other words, Sisi’s regime does not just repress dissidents on the street, but dissidents within the halls of power as well.

            While Sisi’s coup was efficient and bloodless, the following days were marked by a period of intense state violence, most notably in the 2013 Raba’a Massacre, where over 800 anti-coup dissidents (most estimates say over 1000) were killed en masse by the Egyptian military.[11] For an aspiring personalist autocrat, state violence and repression are the key to uncontested power. Frye explains that, in addition to the autocrats’ dual threats, they also face the dilemma of repression.^[12] Excessive repression is expensive and may generate resentment among the population, but too little repression and the opposition will believe that they can freely gather and oppose the regime, a dilemma further elaborated on by Mauricio Rivera (2017).^[13] Niccolo Machiavelli ([1532] 2009) alluded to this dilemma when he cautioned leaders that it is better to be feared than loved (if they cannot have both), but above all to avoid being hated.^[14] Being feared keeps one’s rule secure, but being hated leads to popular discontent that can bring regimes to the ground, as Mubarak’s regime was. Sisi has been very effective (so far) in threading this needle: utilizing intensely violent repression at the outset of his regime but not accidentally creating a repeat of the events of 2011 since then.

The Egyptian Military Status Quo

Since the mid-20th Century, Egypt has primarily been under the control of repressive authoritarian leaders with a military background. In 1952, a group of military leaders known as the Free Officers overthrew the British-backed King Farouk.[15] Four years later, Gamal Abdel Nasser emerged as the leader of the revolutionary military government and began to remake Egypt in his image. Nasser was an Arab nationalist and socialist who harbored a distrust of liberal, multiparty democracy, viewing it as a tool exploited by foreign imperialists and the old aristocracy.^[16] As a result, Nasser established a one-party state under his Arab Socialist Union (ASU).^[17] Although elections were held under the ASU’s rule, only ASU candidates could appear on the ballot, a process that the New York Times referred to as a “measured democracy.” ^[18]

Internationally, this posture attracted the attention of the Soviet Union, which, under Nikita Khrushchev, was eager to expand its diplomatic tent to left-wing governments that did not necessarily conform to orthodox Marxism-Leninism.[19] Nasser initially tried to maintain diplomatic relations with Washington through proliferating US weaponry.[20] However, relations with the US gradually deteriorated until 1967 when American support for Israel in the Six Day War led to Nasser’s regime breaking diplomatically with the United States and fully entering the Soviet orbit.[21]Anwar Sadat succeeded Nasser after the latter’s death in 1970 and constructed a new, liberalized face for the Egyptian regime. While Nasser relied on robust social services, a state-controlled economy, and an Arab nationalist identity to secure legitimacy, Sadat radically broke with this model and led major political and economic reforms.^[22] Sadat liberalized the economy to invite foreign investment and raise revenue for the state. He also broke up the ASU into separate leftist, centrist, and rightist political parties and permitted additional political parties.^[23] However, Sadat’s centrist party, the National Democratic Party (NDP), maintained full control of Egyptian governing institutions. Thus, Egypt remained a repressive dictatorship with the elite officer corps as the “final arbiters” of Egyptian politics.^[24] Although Egypt had evolved from a socialist regime into a “post-populist” liberalized regime under Sadat, the authoritarian nature of the regime, where the ruling coalition consisted largely of elite military officers, persisted.^[25]

On the diplomatic scene, Sadat abandoned the socialist-oriented Arab nationalism of his predecessor and cultivated close relations with the United States, becoming one of its principal anti-Soviet partners in the Middle East.[26] Sadat abandoned Nasser’s alliances with radical, Pan-Arabist regimes like Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in favor of conservative regimes in the American orbit, such as Saudi Arabia.[27] Sadat collaborated extensively with the United States in diplomatically recovering the Sinai Peninsula from Israel, ultimately doing so at the 1978 Camp David Summit in exchange for recognition of Israeli statehood.[28] In doing this, Sadat’s Egypt endeared itself even more to the West and solidified itself amongst the pro-Western regimes of the Middle East.

Following Sadat’s assassination in 1981, his vice president, Hosni Mubarak, assumed the presidency.^[29] Mubarak implemented reforms that made Egypt appear as if it were on the road to a democratic transition, such as creating an official Human Rights Council, allowing more NGOs to operate in the country, and slightly lowering the barrier of entry for new political parties.^[30]  However, he consolidated his own personal power over the Egyptian state, declaring a 30-year-long “State of Emergency.” During this period, he expanded state authority to imprison critics for prolonged periods. Additionally, he prohibited strikes and demonstrations. Many of Mubarak’s contemporaries called him a “pharaoh” because of his centralization of power ^[31]

Mubarak also maintained Egypt’s diplomatic stature in relation to the United States and Israel. Mubarak remained a staunch American ally and honored the Camp David Accords. For Egypt’s fealty to the United States, it continued to receive considerable financial and military support, totaling $1.3 billion a year by 2011.[32] However, the United States under President George W. Bush attempted to pressure Mubarak to adopt democratic reforms. Mubarak balked at these demands, holding a multi-party presidential election in 2005 to appease American leaders that lacked genuine freedom and fairness. Ultimately, the Bush Administration backed down from its effort to democratize Egypt, deciding that Mubarak’s dictatorship was a more reliable partner to American interests than a potential democratic one, despite the regime’s growing unpopularity and rampant corruption. [33]

By 2011, the persistent authoritarianism and corruption of the regime had brought Egypt’s youth to a breaking point. Prominent anti-government social movements had already existed since the early 2000s, criticizing the government’s neoliberal economic policies, fraudulent elections, and control of the judiciary. Ultimately, the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of nearby Tunisia kicked off a series of revolutions that rocked the Arab world.^[34] The sudden, brutal murder of blogger Khaled Said, who police claimed was wanted for theft and weapons possession on June 6, 2010, shocked the country.[35] The regime’s poor attempt to cover it up by claiming the cause of death was a drug overdose brought tensions to a boiling point, and triggered a protest movement launched by online activists that, within less than a year, would grow into a revolution demanding the resignation of Mubarak.^[36] The revolutionaries would get their wish on February 11, 2011, when Mubarak agreed to step down as president, ending a 30-year presidency and an authoritarian system that had existed since the Free Officers revolt in 1952.

Egypt’s brief democratic aspirations began with the hope for a brighter future. Following a brief interim government led by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), elections were organized for the summer of 2012.[37] Mohammed Morsi won the presidential election with approximately 51% of the vote.^[38] Morsi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a long-suppressed Islamist political organization advocating for the Islamization of both government and society.[39] Morsi was the first (and so far, only) leader in all Egyptian history to ascend to power in a free and fair democratic election. Unfortunately for Morsi, his term was short-lived.

Morsi’s government lost legitimacy with key supporters within a year of his inauguration.[40] Morsi pushed unpopular constitutional reforms that increased his government’s control over the judicial branch and various government ministries and enshrined Islamic law as the basis for legislation. Such a move legitimized fears among secularists of a theocratic takeover of the government.^[41] Furthermore, Morsi alienated the old guard of the military by replacing many of their top leaders.[42] While doing so, he ironically appointed General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as Minister of Defense— the man who would soon overthrow him. In diplomacy, Morsi challenged the role of the United States in the Middle East, calling on them to end their unequivocal support for Israel and dictatorships like that of Mubarak. This move may have discouraged the United States from supporting Egypt’s democratic experiment.[43] On June 30, 2013, major protests broke out in Cairo demanding Morsi’s resignation. The Egyptian military, under Sisi’s command, seized the opportunity and forcibly ousted Morsi on July 3.[44] Sisi was formally sworn in as President of Egypt in 2014 and has served as Egypt’s leader ever since.^[45]

After a brief democratic interlude following the 2011 Revolution, Sisi restored military autocracy to Egypt, specifically the pro-Western variety of Sadat and Mubarak. Independent election monitoring criticized the 2014 Presidential election, the first to feature Sisi as a candidate, as marked by a climate of repression and a lack of media freedom.[46] Since then, there has not been another free and fair Egyptian election, and Egyptian political activity has been brutally curtailed. As I will argue, Sisi’s new authoritarianism is more repressive than the regimes that preceded it.

A Watershed for International Relations

Sisi’s regime remains an ally of the United States. President Barack Obama declined to call Sisi’s actions in 2013 a “coup,” which would have triggered U.S. laws preventing military aid to states after a military coup. The United States continued arms and equipment shipments to Egypt, viewing Sisi as a partner in the fight against the emergent Islamic State.[47] President Donald Trump referred to Sisi as his “favorite dictator” in 2019, and at the 2025 Gaza Peace Summit, Trump praised Sisi as “my friend, a strong leader, the president.”[48]

Despite continuing to cultivate a relationship with the United States, Egypt has begun to court Russia and China as well, seeking to diversify its partnerships. As of 2024, Egypt is a member of BRICS, where it hopes to gain additional financing from BRICS-linked institutions, such as the New Development Bank, to improve its economy on top of the money it already receives from the West. [49] Egypt is a part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and has begun to receive substantial Chinese investment. Notably, Sisi’s project to create a New Capital 30 miles outside of Cairo is heavily financed by China, with the Chinese state-owned China State Construction Engineering Corporation playing a central role.[50] Egypt also maintains a consistent relationship with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine, sustaining economic ties and, at one point, Egypt considered sending 40,000 rockets to the Russian military, leading to diplomatic tensions with the United States. [51]

 Sisi’s Egypt is a key mediator in the Israel-Hamas War that began in 2023, alongside Qatar. Egypt has participated in nearly every negotiation between Israel and Hamas since the current hostilities began.[52] The Gaza Strip is particularly relevant to Egypt as Israel has repeatedly threatened to displace Gazans into the Sinai Peninsula.[53] This is a red line for Egypt, as Egypt fears the mass influx of Palestinians could turn the Sinai into a staging ground for attacks on Israel, which would open Egypt to Israeli attacks.[54] Egypt also fears cooperation between existing Islamic State insurgents in the Sinai and Palestinian militant groups—though not Hamas—which is an enemy of IS and has collaborated in the past with Egypt against the Sinai insurgents. [55]  As such, Egypt has played an active role in mediating discussions around Gaza with the goal of lasting peace on its border and an independent, unified, stable Palestinian state. [56]

Hypotheses

            H₁: An increase in funding for the Central Security Forces will result in an increase in civilian deaths from the Security Forces.

The Central Security Forces (CSF) is a paramilitary organization that was created under Nasser’s rule in 1969. Every Egyptian regime from Sadat to Sisi has used the CSF as the “central arm in crushing street dissent.”^[57] As the main instrument of the Egyptian state’s anti-protest apparatus, it can logically be assumed that CSF funding increases would lead to a greater capacity for state repression.  Thus, there would be more civilian deaths during periods of social unrest.

H₂: An increase in funding for the Central Security Forces will cause a decrease in Egypt’s Press Freedom Index score.

As the CSF receives greater funding, this paper hypothesizes that this increase will lead to overall greater repression in Egypt, therefore, reducing Egypt’s Press Freedom Index score as journalists will be coerced into compliance with the Sisi regime.

Methods and Data

A mixed approach of quantitative and qualitative methods captures the multidimensionality of the issue at hand. This study will find the correlation coefficient between CSF funding and civilian deaths and compare the averages for each variable across the pre- and post-coup periods.^[58] This will be supplemented by additional qualitative analysis of relevant literature to contextualize the quantitative results.

Funding for the Central Security Forces refers to the money allocated to the CSF by the Ministry of the Interior under the Egyptian government budget. To find CSF funding, this paper will use the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) 2020 paper “Understanding Egyptian Military Expenditure,” which gives data on estimated CSF funding for fiscal years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. This data is sourced from the official Egyptian national budgets mentioned.^[59] For previous years, SIPRI provided the formula that it used to calculate the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 CSF funding.

(Y= CSF funding, X= Allotment for “Public Order and Public Safety Affairs” in the Egyptian budget)

I will apply SIPRI’s formula to the Egyptian budgets from 2010-2015, provided by the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative.

Press freedom, as defined by Freedom House (2022), is “the ability of journalists to report freely on matters of public interest.”^[60] To measure press freedom, this paper will use Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’ Press Freedom Index, which has ranked countries on a numerical scale for press freedom since 2002.[61] A country first in the Press Freedom Index is the country with the least restrictive environment for journalists, while the country last in the ranking has the most repressive environment. This paper will compare scores for Egyptian press freedom for every year from 2010 to 2016 to determine the statistical significance in the difference between pre-coup and post-coup years and its correlation to CSF funding.

Civilian deaths will be defined as deaths from political protest, sectarian events, extrajudicial killings, or incidents involving excessive force by authorities during events involving the CSF.  To measure this variable, this paper will examine independent datasets to compare the number of civilian deaths in political incidents in which the CSF was involved. It will determine if there is a statistically significant difference between the pre- and post-coup periods. The data sources for these fatalities include Wiki Thawra, an Egyptian dissident NGO that cataloged incidents of repression in Egypt during and following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011; the UT Austin Strauss Center Social Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD), which was used for civilian deaths data from 2010 and 2014-2015; and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), which was used for 2016 civilian death data.^[62] It should be noted that it is often difficult to get accurate data on deaths caused by agents of the state’s coercive apparatus.^[63] As Egypt is an authoritarian regime, finding accurate statistics is even more difficult, and datasets may vary drastically.

Results

Figure 1 – Estimated CSF Funding from Fiscal Year 2010-2011 to 2016-2017 (EGP)

Source: SIPRI, Egyptian national budgets

            Figure 2 – Civilian Deaths from Political Incidents Involving Security Forces

Source: Wiki Thawra, SCAD^[64], ACLED^[65]. Wiki Thawra translation help provided by Huda Alazani

Figure 3: Egyptian Position in the Reporters Without Borders ranking

Year	Ranking
2010	127
2011-2012*	166
2013	158
2014	159
2015	158
2016	159

Source: Reporters Without Borders^[66] *2011-2012 were combined for RSF’s ratings

            As shown in Figure 1, CSF funding had a large spike immediately after the coup in FY 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 before falling in the following years. Figure 2 shows that civilian deaths were highest in 2011 (the year of the Revolution) and 2013 (the year of the coup), and lowest in 2010 and 2016. Figure 3 shows that Egypt’s Reporters Without Borders rating was worst in the 2011-2012 period (during the Revolution), before plateauing between ranking 158 and 159 in the world afterwards.

Analysis

The findings suggest that increased funding for the CSF had a negligible effect on press freedom. Press freedom remained stagnant throughout the studied period. The pre-coup average was 146.5, while the post-coup average was 158.5, a difference which is not statistically significant. The correlation coefficient with CSF Funding was r= 0.32, indicating a weak correlation between CSF funding and Egypt’s Reporters Without Borders ranking. In context, these findings are reasonable as major news agencies under both Mubarak and Sisi, such as Al Ahram, are state controlled, and independent media are harassed and detained under Sisi as they were under Mubarak. [67] The brief democratic interlude of Morsi did not roll back Mubarak’s media censorship, and censorship continued under Mubarak-era laws until Morsi’s overthrow.[68]

However, civilian deaths are a more complicated issue. The correlation coefficient between CSF funding and civilian deaths was r = 0.18, indicating a very weak correlation between the two. However, examining the issue of civilian deaths more broadly, we see a clear numerical impact. The average number of deaths per year in the pre-coup period was 443, while in the post-coup period it was 766.25, within the standard deviation of the pre-coup period.[69] This number, however, does not give the full story. In 2013, the year of Sisi’s coup, civilian deaths in political incidents involving Security Forces reached their height of 2,661. Significantly above the upper standard deviation of the pre-coup period, while the period of 2014-2016 saw a sharp decline, culminating in only 45 deaths in 2016. Had this measurement been used alone, both hypotheses would be rejected. Still, this inconsistency may be explained with some additional context.

Nadine Sika’s 2018 study on Egyptian youth activism reveals that, after brutal shows of force by the regime in the aftermath of the coup (most infamously in the Raba’a Massacre), activists were too afraid of violence or arrest to take part in political events.^[70] As Sika explains:

Many young activists have voiced their “fear” not only of demonstrating on the street, but also of creating street art, graffiti, attending music festivals, or even just taking photographs on the streets. They fear political violence both from the authorities and from the citizens at large, who have been exposed to the media campaigns against young activists. ‘I feel that all my freedoms and rights were all of a sudden taken away. So now I am afraid to work in the public space. I have a lot of fear.’[71]

Political activity, which was tolerated under Mubarak, the SCAF, and Morsi, was brutally suppressed under Sisi.[72] Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition to Sisi’s rule, report the post-coup violence to be a deeply traumatic experience “which prompted them to abandon political activism and focus on their career and personal life.”^[73] With this in mind, we can contextualize the data that we observed in this study and see, in the words of King, Keohane, and Verba (1994), an “observable implication” of the 2013 coup.^[74]

The coup resulted in a brutal crackdown on protestors in 2013 in the immediate aftermath. Egyptian activists, who had previously been energized by the success against Mubarak and SCAF, were now thoroughly eliminated as a political force, too frightened by the events of 2013 to dare risk engaging in political activity.[75] With less political activity came fewer clashes with the CSF, and thus the sharp reduction in deaths from 2014-2016. The year 2013, therefore, represents a “critical juncture,” as a period of institutional flux that dramatically changed the status quo.^[76] The post-coup violence in 2013 was a substantial event that changed the nature of political activity in Egypt. The paper’s first hypothesis is supported by contextual evidence indicating that the 2013 post-coup repression in Egypt was a flashpoint that successfully quashed opposition to the Sisi regime and sharply reduced future political activities. However, I am rejecting my second hypothesis due to a lack of evidence of significant change during the period.                                                    

Conclusion

            2013 marked a dramatic end to Egypt’s democratic experiment. Military authoritarianism returned to Egypt in a more repressive and violent form than it had ever witnessed before. This paper concludes that there was an observable increase in repression in Egypt in the aftermath of the coup. 2013 witnessed a brutal government crackdown on dissent, where civilian deaths briefly skyrocketed. This effectively eliminated any threat to the Sisi regime emerging from the populace, which had the effect of starkly reducing civilian deaths. However, the second hypothesis that press freedom would decline was unsupported, as Egypt’s Reporters Without Borders average ranking did not change significantly after the coup, nor did the change in ranking have a strong correlation to funding for the CSF.

            The United States’ continued relationship with the Sisi regime following the coup and its subsequent bloodshed demonstrates another aspect of these events: Egypt was more convenient for the United States as a dictatorship than a democracy. Under Sadat and Mubarak, the United States supplied political, military, and financial support to Egypt as a Cold War, anti-communist ally. Even after the Cold War ended, the United States continued to see Egypt as a core component of its Middle East strategy and continued to back Mubarak’s regime despite its unpopularity, corruption, and unwillingness to truly democratize. Morsi’s brief stint as President and his open criticism of the United States and Israel made Egypt an unreliable partner, a fact that was quickly rectified by Sisi. The United States was willing to cast aside a democratically elected Morsi in favor of a ruthlessly repressive Sisi, who they likely saw as a more valuable partner.

            Suggestions for future research include replicating this paper’s methodology with different variables, such as arrests or internet censorship, to outline more aspects of state violence in Egypt that goes beyond just those killed. In addition, many other authoritarian states have special security forces solely for the purpose of crowd control and protest suppression. In particular, the National Guard of Putin’s Russia and the SAVAK of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s Iran bear many similarities to Egypt’s CSF. These may be ideal areas for further application of the framework utilized in this research. On the diplomatic side, the United States’ continued support for Egypt despite American legislation preventing military aid following a military coup opens areas of research into Congressional legislation on foreign policy, and its failure to constrain the President in foreign policy or enforce human rights standards. This is particularly relevant in the context of Israel’s actions in Gaza, where the United States continues to supply military equipment to Israel despite credible accusations of war crimes and genocide by the Israeli state.

A limitation of this research was that English translations of Egypt’s budgets (or budgets that SIPRI had already used in their work) were only available from 2010 onward. Future research may include applying the SIPRI’s CSF formula to the remaining budgets from 1981-2009 to get a more complete picture of repression in the Mubarak years.

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Endnotes

---

^[1] Steven A. Cook, “Egypt Goes From Bad to Worse: Under President Sisi, the Nation Longs

for the Good Old Days of Mubarak,” Council on Foreign Relations. April 3, 2017, accessed November 19, 2022. https://www.cfr.org/blog/egypt-goes-bad-worse-under-president-sisi-nation-longs-good-old-days-mubarak; Ibid, “Sisi Isn’t Mubarak. He’s Much Worse,” Foreign Policy, December 19, 2018, accessed November 18, 2022.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/19/sisi-isnt-mubarak-hes-much-worse; Zena Al-Tahhan, “‘Egyptian Society Being Crushed’ Five Years After Military Coup,” Al Jazeera, July 2, 2018, accessed November 1, 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/7/2/egyptian-society-being-crushed-five-years-after-military-coup; Amy Hawthorne & Andrew Miller, “Worse Than Mubarak,” Foreign Policy, February

27, 2019, accessed November 18, 2022. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/02/27/worse-than-mubarak/.              

[2] This indicator was chosen because the CSF are traditionally the primary means of crushing street dissent in Egypt since the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser, which I elaborate more on in the Hypotheses section

^[3] Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”. in The Marx-Engels

Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, [1851] 1978), 444-445.

^[4] Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith, The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad

Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (New York. PublicAffairs, 2011), 17; Ibid, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge. MIT Press, 2003).

^[5] Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, “Statement by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi at Ceremony Marking

His Inauguration,” Speech, Cairo, June 8, 2014; Bosmat Yefet and Limor Lavie, “Legitimation in Post- Revolutionary Egypt: Al- Sisi and the Renewal of Authoritarianism.” Digest of Middle East Studies 30 (2021): 176, https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12244

^[6] Monen Said Aly, “The Paradox of the Egyptian Revolution,” Middle East Brief, September 2011, 3, accessed October 28, 2025, https://www.academia.edu/41758249/The_Paradox_of_the_Egyptian_Revolution .

^[7] Maged Mandour & Hossam el-Hamalawy, “Understanding Sisi’s Grip on Power” Rosa

Luxemburg Stiftung, June 18, 2024, accessed September 10, 2024. https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/52220/understanding-sisis-grip-on-power; Sara Tonsy, “The Egyptian Army in the Political and Economic Fields Since 2013: A Neo-Military Society,” Confluences Méditerranée 122 (2022-2023): 129-130.

^[8] Timothy Frye. Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia (Princeton, Princeton UP, 2021), 38-39.

^[9] Robert Springborg, “Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, The One and Only Egyptian Dictator,” in Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power Across Global Politics, ed. Klaus Llarres, (London: Routledge 2021), 286.

^[10] Joshua A. Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 56-67.

[11] “‘Turning Point’: What Happened during Egypt’s Rabaa Massacre 10 Years Ago?,” Al Jazeera, last modified August 14, 2023, accessed October 27, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/14/turning-point-what-happened-during-egypts-rabaa-massacre-10-years-ago.

^[12] Frye “Weak Strongman,” 118.

^[13] Mauricio Rivera, “Authoritarian Institutions and State Repression: The Divergent Effects of Legislatures and Opposition Parties on Personal Integrity Rights,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 10 (2017): 2185.

^[14] Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Tim Parks (New York: Penguin Random House, 2009), 64.

[15] Ahmed Fahmy Shahin, “The Quest for Legitimacy: The Egyptian State From Nasser to

Sisi” (PhD diss. University of St. Andrews, 2017), 33-34. https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/15580

^[16] Kafayat Ullah and Jahanzeb Khan, “Gamal Abdul Nasser: The Protagonist of Arab Nationalism,” Middle East Review 2 (2020): 165.; Nayra Mahmoud Hassan, “Leader’s Political Ideology and Decision- Making Process: Nasser as Case Study,” Future Journal of Social Science 2, no. 2 (2023); Faris M. Almutairi, “Nationalist Revolution and its Influence on Political and Social Democracies: Educational and Agricultural Systems under Nasser, 1952-1970,” Annals of the Faculty of Arts 52 (2023): 335, https://doi.org/10.21608/aafu.2024.354999.

^[17] Patricia Peghini Ryan, “The Arab Socialist Union of Egypt” (PhD diss., West Virginia University, 1972). https://www.proquest.com/docview/302593067

^[18] “Nasser’s ‘Measured Democracy’,” New York Times, March 23,1964. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/23/archives/nassers-measured-democracy.html

[19] Odd Arne Westad, “The Revolutionaries: Anticolonial Politics and Transformations”, in The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge UP, 2005), 67.

[20] Byroade to State Department, telegram, [1955], Office of the Historian, United States Department of State. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780312286835/page/272/mode/2up?q=272.

[21] Said K. Aburish, Nasser: The Last Arab (New York: St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books, 2004), 272.

^[22] Dina Shehata, “Sixty Years of Egyptian Politics: What Has Changed?” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Spring 2018, https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/sixty-years-of-egyptian-politics-what-has-changed/;Shahin, “The Quest for Legitimacy” 35.

^[23]Marina Ottaway, “Abdicating Responsibility: Political Parties in Egypt,” Wilson Center, May 25, 2021, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/abdicating-responsibility-political-parties-egypt.; Egypt Law No. 40/1977

^[24] Jason Brownlee, “Peace Before Freedom: Diplomacy and Repression in Sadat’s Egypt,” Political Science Quarterly 126, no. 4 (2011–2012), https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2011.tb00715.x; Ahmed S. Hashin, “The Egyptian Military Part One: From the Ottomans Through Sadat,” Middle East Policy 18, no. 3 (2011): 68, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4967.2011.00498.x. 

^[25] Shehata, “Sixty Years.”

[26] Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, “Shifting Tides: Egypt’s Unexpected Path after the 1973 War,” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, American University in Cairo, Fall 2023. https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/shifting-tides-egypts-unexpected-path-after-the-1973-war/.

[27] Dessouki, “Shifting Tides,” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs

[28] Brent Scowcroft to Gerald Ford, memorandum, “104. Memorandum from the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft) to President Ford,” October 11, 1974, accessed October 27, 2025. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v26/d104; “The Camp David Accords: The Framework for Peace in the Middle East,” opened for signature September 17, 1978.

^[29] Hicham Bou Nassif, “Wedded to Mubarak: The Second Careers and Financial Rewards of Egypt’s Military Elite, 1981-2011,” Middle East Journal 67, no. 4 (2013): 509.

^[30] Fauzi M. Najjar, “Mubarak’s Constitutional Reforms,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 38, no. 1 (2011): 12, https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.20559000. ; Human Rights Watch, Monopolizing Power: Egypt’s Political Parties Law (New York: Human Rights Watch, January 2007). https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/01/04/monopolizing-power/egypts-political-parties-law; Egypt Law No. 177/2005; Hamdy A. Hassan, “Civil Society in Egypt Under the Mubarak Regime,” Afro Asian

Journal of Social Sciences. Vol 2. No. 2.2. Quarter II (2011): 11-13.

^[31] Dina Shehata, “The Fall of the Pharaoh: How Hosni Mubarak’s Reign Came to an End.”

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[61] Reporters Without Borders determines these rankings via a questionnaire sent to their in-country partner organizations asking recipients to score their country on 43 different indicators such as imprisonment of journalists, length of imprisonment, degree of self-censorship, etc. These numbers are then synthesized into a “Global Score” that determines a country’s ranking vis-a vis other countries and their categorization into the above categories. The exact formula used by Reporters Without Borders varies from year to year, which is a weakness of the source. I choose to use it regardless because despite the exact math changing, the questionnaire continues to ask roughly the same questions, and the overall ranking of states in the Index does not appear to be significantly impacted by the change in calculations. EX: North Korea is consistently ranked “Very Serious” year after year.

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[72] Sika, “Repression, Cooptation”,685; Cook “Sisi Isn’t Mubarak.”

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^[74] Gary King et. al., Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, 208-230).

[75] Sika, “Repression, Cooptation”,685

^[76] Giovanni Capoccia & R. Daniel Kelemen, “The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism,” World Politics 59, No. 3 (April 2007), 341-369

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