ABSTRACT
The military coup was a constitutive event. It triggered political subjectivation processes both within the Islamist camp and within the coalition of players who had asked for Mursi’s deposition. This chapter shows how the coup virtually dichotomized Egypt’s political arena. This new societal division cut across the formerly salient division between the people and the regime by pitting an alliance of civic and state forces against an equally variegated coalition of anti-coup forces. In this contest, both sides articulated competing conceptions of legitimacy to discredit their respective opponents and lionize their allies. They thereby unwittingly conditioned alliance-building, authorities’ means of responding to protest as well as how the public would come to evaluate the contending players and their actions and goals.
