The Egyptian Military and the 2011 Revolution

by Sara Salem
Jadaliyya

"The Egyptian military has emerged as one of the most powerful and influential actors since the inception of the modern Egyptian state. Despite this, since the late 1970s, there has been relatively little work that contextualizes and historicizes the military, even though it has continued to play a role in Egyptian political and economic life, as an institution and a community of elites.[1] The importance of such a line of inquiry cannot be overstated in our current moment. Specifically, it could shed a great deal of light on the conditions that deepened the military’s engagement in politics in recent years, most notably during the 2011 eighteen-day uprising and its aftermath.

For example, one way of understanding the position the military took vis-à-vis the 2011 revolution is to analyze the ties between the military and other members of the ruling class in Egypt, particularly in light of realignments among political actors over time. The question of interest is: What power shifts have occurred within the ruling class and how have they generated constraints on its cohesion and ability to govern Egypt? More specifically, how did these shifts within the ruling class relate to the societal tensions that contributed to the 2011 uprising and the military’s intervention? It is useful to conceptualize the military and the security forces as forming part of the ruling class, alongside other elites. When an imbalance or major shift occurs within this power dynamic, changes within the ruling class may lead to policies exerting economic and social pressure on the population. This in turn can lead to unrest, weakening the ability of the ruling class to govern—a shift that has serious ramifications for the entire ruling class.

This article puts the military’s decision to break ways with Egypt’s civilian ruling elite in 2011 in historical context, and analyzes the position of the military vis-à-vis new, emergent groups within the ruling class in the 1990s. It argues that shifts in the power dynamics within the ruling class can help us understand both why the 2011 revolution occurred when it did, and why the military had an incentive to intervene in 2011. Leading up to 2011, the growing influence of a new group of elites not only challenged the military’s position within the ruling class, but also set the stage for the 2011 uprising and the subsequent intervention of the military......"