Suchergebnisse

From day one, the Egyptian uprising in 2011 has been called a "youth revolution". While young educated Egyptians indeed were at the forefront of the protests on January 25, an exclusively agecentred perspective is insufficient for grasping the meaning of the events. Rather than focusing purely on a specific age group I conceive of "youthfulness" as a broader social construct. In this paper, I explore in what way we can consider the Egyptian revolution to be a youthful revolution, and argue that a focus on both youth and youthfulness offers an important conceptual access point to understanding the ongoing social, political and cultural transformations in Egypt. In order to make sense of the developments, we need to be aware of the most important youthrelated (structural) causes, triggers, and demands. The gerontocratic regime and its symbolism explain why youth advanced to a category of political conflict. Finally, also the largely negative image of youth that prevailed in Egypt, as well as young people's role and situation need be taken into account for analysing not only the dynamics of the 18 days in Tahrir but also the ongoing struggle for power and identity in Egypt.

One common demand in the 2011 uprisings in the MENA region was the call for 'freedom, dignity, and social justice.' Citizens rallied against corruption and clientelism, which for many protesters were deeply linked to political tyranny. This book takes the phenomenon of the 2011 uprisings as a point of departure for reassessing clientelism and patronage across the entire MENA region. Using case studies covering Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the Gulf monarchies, it looks at how the relationships within and between clientelist and patronage networks changed before 2011. The book assesses how these changes contributed to the destabilization of the established political and social order, and how they affected less visible political processes. It then turns to look at how the political transformations since 2011 have in turn reconfigured these networks in terms of strategies and dynamics, and concomitantly, what implications this has had for the inclusion or exclusion of new actors. Are specific networks expanding or shrinking in the post-2011 contexts? Do these networks reproduce established forms of patron-client relations or do they translate into new modes and mechanisms? As the first book to systematically discuss clientelism, patronage and corruption against the background of the 2011 uprisings, it will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle Eastern Studies. The book also addresses major debates in comparative politics and political sociology by offering 'networks of dependency' as an interdisciplinary conceptual approach that can 'travel' across place and time