ABSTRACT
Despite the partial disintegration of the powerhouses of political patronage in the aftermath of the January 2011 uprising, the interconnected network of clientelistic relations imbedded within the socioeconomic fabric of Egyptian society remained mostly intact. Under Mubarak, the political sphere enabled intermediary socioeconomic and political agents operating on the middle and lower echelons of the popular polity to establish networks and symbiotic relations with various state institutions, so that they thus consolidated their role in the polity as mediators, arbitrators, figures of authority, and distributors of resources. The aim of this chapter is to trace some of the socio-structural changes that have taken place in the Cairene polity in the post-Mubarak phase, focusing on the roles of the relevant socio-political actors in the context of informal politics. What are the main changes concerning the agency of such actors? Have there been any noticeable alterations in the typology of such politically relevant actors within the popular/low-income communities before and after 2011? And what impact did the January 25 revolution, and the electoral events that followed it on, have on the dynamics of these networks? The police apparatus in the Mubarak era had a notorious reputation for interfering in political affairs; to what extent can one trace similar tendencies on part of the various security apparatuses post-July 2013? And what are the main similarities and differences between the role of state security agencies in the political process before and after Mubarak?
