Unpopular Protest: Mass Mobilization and Attitudes to Democracy in Post-Mubarak Egypt

Abstract

Political science has long debated the significance of protest during a democratic transition, but attention has been largely confined to its impact on elite support for democracy. Contributing to scholarship on the attitudinal consequences of mobilization, we examine how protest shaped popular perceptions of democracy during the post-Mubarak transition in Egypt. We do this by matching wave 2 of the Arab Barometer survey with georeferenced protest events reported in Arabic-language newspapers. Our results show that Egyptians came to hold less favorable attitudes to democracy following sustained protest in their district. We find that this relationship was principally driven by longer-lasting, static street protests that targeted public space. Qualitative case details illustrate how such tactics could disrupt everyday life and affect livelihoods. These findings highlight one way in which popular support for democracy can be eroded during a transition.