ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the impact of the Egyptian revolutionary mobilisation and ensuing transformation on the logics of action of the authoritarian social contract of informality that has set the rules for both regime and population during the last decades. Confronted with rapid social and economic transformations, which were not accompanied by political transition, the ruling elites relied on five major strategies in order to implement their main logics of action to hang on to power and privilege. In order to secure power, the Mubarak regime relied on limited political liberalisation, repression, limited economic liberalisation, Islamisation and informalisation. More than two years after the 'wall of fear' in many Arab countries, the optimism of young and old revolutionaries seems to fade. The impact of the so-called 'Arab spring' on the political systems in the region is context specific, at times contradictory and rapidly changes over time.
