Polarization lurks behind most of the political crises that outline the present world second. When political events and their partisans disdain and disagree with one another, the discord can preclude efficient governance and incite violence within the streets.
Polarization leads individuals of various political opinions to see the identical reality and draw vastly completely different, even contradictory, conclusions. During the last decade, polarization derailed Egypt’s transient experiment with democracy in some of the decisive blows to the Arab Spring.
Ten years in the past this month, the Arab Spring arrived in Cairo. Impressed by the Tunisian rebellion, thousands and thousands of Egyptians from all courses, walks of life and political leanings flooded the streets with a euphoric, even dreamlike, camaraderie. Tahrir Sq., on the coronary heart of the capital, was a sea of Egyptian nationwide flags, as Muslims and Christians took turns guarding one another from safety forces throughout ritual prayers. Collectively, Egyptians pressured President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation after almost 30 years in energy.
However the hopeful unity of the rebellion shortly dissipated after Mubarak’s fall. Polarization cracked the pro-democratic consensus. Via its Freedom and Justice Social gathering, the Muslim Brotherhood dominated on the poll field however proved unable to manipulate successfully.
Efforts to draft a brand new structure failed when the Brotherhood’s opponents walked out on the method, citing unfair procedures and disagreement over the textual content. “With the present state of polarization and with out reaching an understanding or working collectively,” an FJP spokesperson warned ominously, “we are going to attain hell and kill one another within the streets.”
After only one yr in workplace, President Mohamed Morsi of the FJP confronted mass protests, met by counterprotests of his supporters. Inside days, the Egyptian army capitalized on these divisions and seized energy in a coup d’état. With that, Egypt’s democratic experiment was over, and polarization was in charge.
Democratization is a contingent course of, and it will depend on leaders to make troublesome choices and onerous compromises at important moments. Beset by mutual mistrust and intransigence, the Egyptian opposition fumbled a chance to forge a path out of authoritarianism. As an alternative, many opponents of the FJP got here to see army intervention as preferable to continued Brotherhood rule. Some even sat onstage in symbolic assist of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi as he introduced the coup.
How had Egypt’s opposition grow to be so divided? Polarization in Egypt was a direct legacy of repression below the Mubarak regime. Between 1981 and 2011, Mubarak ruthlessly suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood whereas co-opting or tolerating its opponents. This created excessive ranges of mistrust and enmity whereas hardening identification boundaries among the many opposition.
Not each nation faces Mubarak-style political repression, however the political and psychological processes that splintered Egypt’s political class can occur anyplace. Social psychology tells us that when collective threats harden group identities, a strategy of group differentiation produces a bunch of cognitive biases, from in-group favoritism to out-group mistrust.
This course of unfolds each time a bunch of individuals understand a risk to their lives, livelihoods or methods of life, particularly when politicians exaggerate these threats for political functions. In the end, exclusionary attitudes and behaviors produced by this course of are on the core of deepening political polarization.
The derailment of Egypt’s democratic experiment ought to function a cautionary story to politicians and activists all over the place: Polarization is a severe risk to democracy, and it takes onerous work to construct belief and discover frequent floor.
Egypt’s 2013 coup introduced Donald Trump’s “favourite dictator” to energy. Below Sisi’s rule, the nation has fallen into an authoritarianism worse than that of Mubarak. As we speak, the nation’s economic system is in tatters, its democratic electoral establishments nonexistent, and its police extra repressive than ever. The regime has jailed not less than 60,000 individuals on politically motivated expenses and sidelined all viable political opposition. The Arab Spring’s heroes now languish in jail or exile.
As extra nations veer towards authoritarianism, political elites around the globe ought to bear in mind the harrowing course of that ended democratic desires in Egypt in the intervening time. A lot of that tragedy was a failure to place frequent values above partisan disputes.
Elizabeth R. Nugent is an assistant professor of political science at Yale College and the writer of “After Repression: How Polarization Derails Democratic Transition.”
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