Similarly to many governments around the world, the Mubarak regime of Egypt was hostile to the activities of civil society. Following the Revolution of 2011 in Egypt, the members of civil society organizations and activists in general were expecting an improvement of their working conditions. However, despite the promises made by the new president, conditions have worsened and the repression has increased. Pressurized by harsher restriction, the civil society needs to create strategies to ensure its survival. This study aims to understand what sorts of strategies are required under a repressive environment. The conceptual frame of this study was grounded on several articles that researched several relevant areas. These concepts were the repression, the civil society in Egypt, and the state – civil society relationship. In researching these behaviours, the goal was to understand the patterns of such environments, which are not usually present in western society. The core of the research process concerned the gathering of qualitative data through interviews with members of the Egyptian civil society. The results of the research provide a model that should be replicated with data from other repressive countries in order to ensure its accuracy. This model is based on four major strategic goals that are vital to the survival of a civil society under oppressive regimes. These four goals are fulfilled by behavioural choices that are influenced by the repression’s context. These behavioural choices illustrate the way civil society strategizes and eight of them could be isolated. Mapping the four goals against the eight BCs demonstrate two aspects. The BCs have a tendency to overlap when it comes to their strategic objectives, meaning that one behavioural choice can contribute to several strategic goals. However, this mapping also showed that some goals were sufficiently fulfilled by the BCs. The main issue is the cut of funding and this restriction has not been dealt with in an efficient way by the civil society. This problem needs follow ups and international funds and grant providers should be aware of these sanctions. Moreover, the lack of understanding the government has of the advantages of civil society should also be investigated. Indeed, the research shows that this hostility mainly comes from the government perceiving civil society as a threat.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-67930 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Rozumek, Carole |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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