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Contesting the Repressive State: Why Ordinary Egyptians Protested during the Arab Spring, by Kira D. Jumet. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. 296 pages, $99.00 cloth; $29.95 paper.
Reviewed by Lisa Blaydes
Political scientists have long been concerned with the role of elites in organizing and mobilizing protests. Activists are often described as either first movers who are relatively insensitive to the costs of repression or as ideologues who derive utility from expressing their deeply held ideological commitments. But how can we understand the decision of ordinary individuals to participate in popular protests? Protest participation is especially puzzling when one considers the high costs incurred by individuals who challenge repressive regimes. Kira Jumet's carefully researched monograph, Contesting the Repressive State, provides a compelling narrative about why ordinary Egyptians took to the streets in 2011 as well as how the protest movement eventually lost momentum.
Jumet focuses on the individual-level decision calculus associated with protest participation. In order to understand why individuals protested, she interviewed almost 200 Egyptians. This included individuals who participated in the protest uprisings and those who did not, a research design strategy that allows her to...