Egypt in a Time of Revolution explains the highly unsettled state of Egyptian politics and society from late 2010 through early 2014. In contrast to accounts of the uprisings that identify the causal role of popular grievances, rentier-state windfalls, or the (dis)loyalty of coercive apparatuses, Ketchley's contribution centers the role of protest itself. This perspective rests on an impressive collection of empirical data on contentious politics, underpinned by event catalogues of hundreds of protest events, repertoires, and deaths. This allows Ketchley to convincingly explain the day-by-day details that shaped the trajectory of Egypt's ultimately failed transition: from the cross-cutting and diverse protest movement of 25 January, to the narrower Tamarrud movement that presaged the end of Egypt's democratic experiment, through the subsequent wave of anticoup protests.
The book's emphasis on the dynamics and contexts of protest also serves to highlight broader questions of interest to scholars of democratization, although at times these accounts raise as many questions as they answer. For example, the dramatic collapse of Egypt's transition should prompt speculation not only about causes, but also to identify whether other outcomes were possible. In Ketchley's telling, the spring of 2011 was a critical juncture. Having back-footed the generals, the protest coalition was perhaps poised to fundamentally revise the country's political and economic terrain. But the Brotherhood instead shifted towards electoral politics and gutted the momentum of protest. Dispatching common arguments emphasizing Islamists’ drive for power or promilitary perfidy, Ketchley instead explains this moment by referencing comparative literatures on democratization. As Chapter 4 shows, the Brotherhood effectively viewed post-Mubarak Egypt as an exemplary case of a “pacted transition.” Having ejected the autocrat, they saw their immediate task to sideline “hard liners” in the revolutionary coalition and seek out the “soft liners” among the supporters of the military regime. In the fall of 2011, for example, their party newspaper editorialized that “the people must protect the revolution by policing the political process and ceasing unnecessary protests and strikes that can create the conditions for counter-revolution” (cited in Ketchley, pp. 93). The Brotherhood subsequently demonstrated occasional revolutionary solidarity but generally withdrew from the streets to concentrate on the ballot box. Even at the time, according to key Brotherhood leader Essam al-Erian, the group understood that this was an impossible choice: prioritize elections and shoulder accusations of selling out the revolution, or persist in street mobilization and risk provoking military intervention (pg. 93).
This offers a convincing narrative of the breakdown of the antimilitary coalition, but also prompts speculation as to why the Brotherhood so readily bet on electoral politics: what caused them to assess that the country had entered a stage at which continued mobilization was harmful to the transition? Identifying whether or not an alternative path was theoretically possible in the fall of 2011 (or perhaps later, during the drafting of a constitution criticized for yielding too much to the military) might help explain the Brotherhood's fateful decision to abandon the revolutionary coalition and instead engage with the military-managed electoral process.
If Chapter 4 traces how the revolutionary coalition fractured, Chapter 5 shows how counterrevolutionaries pounced. While the Brotherhood labored amidst a dysfunctional political system, deteriorating economy, and rising insecurity, key sectors of the security apparatus carefully shaped and cultivated popular frustration. This influence has been hinted at elsewhere, but Ketchley's research shows, in fascinating and compelling detail, how these figures directly “manufactured dissent.” Through their public statements, prominent figures associated with the security services signaled that anti-Brotherhood mobilization would not only be allowed, but that it would be encouraged and protected. Egyptian police officers publicly abdicated their legal duties, proclaiming that “our officers will not protect Muslim Brother headquarters” (cited in Ketchley, pp. 116) while retired generals took out ads in newspapers praising anti-Morsi demonstrators, and uniformed police led anti-Morsi protests. As the protest wave grew—along with an increasing anti-Brotherhood vigilantism—it created a pretext for direct military intervention.
The Brotherhood's missteps in governing were legion, and popular frustration with Morsi's time in office was tangible. But this chapter deftly exploits the available data to highlight how, far from a spontaneous and uncoordinated extension of the 25 January protests, the elite-facilitated Tamarrud movement resembled other episodes of orchestrated mobilization that had buoyed the fortunes of antidemocratic forces in Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Ketchley's protest-centric account has less to say about why the regime engaged in this “astro-turfed” mobilization at this particular moment in the transition or why it was successful. For instance, to the extent that military intervention in politics comes via civilian invitation, it is an open question whether the security services’ behind-the-scenes facilitation of Tamarrud was a cause or consequence of the alienation of prominent Brotherhood opponents from the electoral process?
A tranche of books on the Arab Spring, and on the specific Egyptian case, have already been written. Egypt in a Time of Revolution stands out as a highly valuable and timely intervention because it offers an empirically grounded and sophisticated analysis of a contested and confusing period of Egyptian history. And beyond the fact that Ketchley convincingly documents and explains key episodes during this time, his work has the added benefit of broaching important theoretical questions that apply to broad comparative contexts. For these reasons, this important book deserves to be read by those interested in Egypt's trajectory during the Arab Spring, as well as those who study revolution, democratization, and contentious politics.
