ABSTRACT

The Arab Spring destroyed a recalcitrant dictatorship in Egypt, but the tumult that followed was unprecedented, as Egyptians voted several times in the most democratic elections in history before a military coup returned the country in July 2013 to authoritarianism. The current Sisi regime has consolidated its power, but only after severely curtailing pluralism and reconfiguring the economic, political, and social institutions that have distinguished the Egyptian state since its modern inception in the 1950s.