Civic participation and gender institutional legacy since January 25, 2011

Abstract

Civic engagement has become a threat to the current state of affairs since Egypt’s 2014 presidential elections. The blooming of motivated and active organisations, informal groups and social entrepreneurs had definitely not been foreseen in the Mubarak era, and is still rarely accounted for in current political analysis. The daily ordinary practice of mundane people, not always linked to consolidated NGOs, development organisations or state institutions, has given birth to a very organic non-movement that has proven its ability to deal with diversity (in the many possible combinations of class, religion, gender and age) for the betterment of their communities in successful ways. Youth participation and young women’s involvement has been important in challenging the previous nation-State narrative and in the genesis of this movement. Nonetheless, youth engagement and their potential have seriously been constrained by stagnant old regime structures, difficulties in accessing funds, bureaucracy and heavy repression. All of these were elements manufactured and controlled by Mubarak’s regime, that have found continuity in the current State committed to restoring the status quo ante, prioritising security over rights, and not allowing civil engagement outside its strict paradigms. As such, the public sphere has been assimilated as the exclusive domain of the State/Government. This paper will address the particularities of this organic non-movement with regards to young women’s civic engagement in addition to the specific constraints that derive from its interaction with gender politics, with a particular focus on conventional forms of advocacy by state institutions and consolidated NGOs, and their links to international funding.