ABSTRACT
Amid a growing trend of shrinking space for civil society and rapid shifts in the social, economic and political landscape in the MENA region, it becomes crucial to understand how authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes control and consolidate power over the civil society sphere during transition phases. Since 2013, Egyptian civil society has been portrayed as an enemy for both the state and the people.
After the 25 January 2011 revolution in Egypt, the issue of foreign funds for Egyptian civil society organisations (CSOs) became the main headline in any policy or public debate regarding CSO legislation in Egypt. In late 2011 the Egyptian security forces broke into the headquarters of many international and national organisations. This sparked what later became known as the foreign fund case.
This chapter will examine: how moral panic concerning foreign funds, and the new framing of nationalism, affected the space for civil society organisations to operate in Egypt. To do so, the authors will conduct a discourse analysis of the press coverage of the famous foreign funding case ‘known as Case 173’ in two of the major newspapers and two of the most watched TV channels in Egypt. The chapter will cover the period between 2013 and 2018. In addition to the empirical research, the authors will use a comprehensive literature review of the legal texts and previous scholarly work on intersections of media, NGOs, foreign funding and civil society work in Egypt.
