About me
Political scientist specialised in the Middle East and North Africa region. My main interest is the study of party politics and party systems. Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague.
Corresponding Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded CLOSER project.
Selected Publications
2025
"Egyptian authoritarian resilience, the evolution of the party system and the Nation’s Future Party," Mediterranean Politics Online first. DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2025.2562381
Through a case study of the new dominant party in Egypt, the Nation’s Future Party, this article argues that failed transitions can provide the ruling elite with an opportunity to restructure social alliances along existing social cleavages, especially the core/periphery one. The article highlights the political project of the post-2013 Egyptian regime: reaffirming the domination of the core over the periphery. The logic of this authoritarian resilience shows in the evolution of the party system, as it is now organized around a dominant party, the Nation’s Future Party, and its nationalist discourse.
2024
With Sara Tonsy, "Bridging the gap: The ‘revolutionary’ strategy of the Strong Egypt Party as a new attempt towards overcoming the secular/Islamist cleavage," Mediterranean Politics 29(2), pp. 143–164. DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2022.2124739
The 2011 revolution provided the Egyptian ‘third way’ between Islamism and secularism with an opportunity to enter the political scene. Following the 2012 presidential election, this current was divided into a wasaty trend following a ‘possibilist’ strategy within the Mursī administration, and another trend gathered around the figure of ‘Abd al-Mun‘im Abūl-Futūh and following a ‘revolutionary’ strategy with the aim to overcome the secular/Islamist cleavage by mobilizing revolutionaries from both sides against the remnants of Mubārak’s regime. This article shows how the difference between these two trends – both born from the reformist wing of the Muslim Brotherhood – is rooted in a generational divide. While the wasaty leaders left the Islamist organization in the mid-1990s, when their project was about to enter official politics, the younger generation did so only after the departure of Mubārak, with the objective to pursue the ‘revolution’s goals’.
2023
With Alexis Blouët and Naïma Bouras, "Law and political Islam’s transformations: Egyptian Islamists and the notions of a civil state and a religious party," Social Compass 70(3), pp. 345–360. DOI: 10.1177/00377686231172082
Two notions have been at the center of the Egyptian constitutional debates since 2011: the ‘civil state’ and the ‘religious party’. The Muslim Brothers have played on the ambiguity of the notion of a ‘civil state’ as being neither secular nor theocratic, just as their understanding of an Islamic state. The Salafi al-Nūr Party has long refused to embrace the notion. Nevertheless, in 2019 it obtained from the Parliament’s Speaker a definition close to the one defended by the Muslim Brothers and endorsed it as a victory against the secular interpretation of the term. The same ambiguity appears regarding the notion of a ‘religious party’. The al-Nūr Party tried to prevent the interdiction of such parties in the 2014 Constitution. At the same time, it distances itself from the notion, and abides by the law, including Christian members, presenting female candidates, and organically separating political and religious activities.
2023
"Introduction to the issue: 'On Islamist Parties and the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis: Lessons from the Past Decade'," Middle East Law and Governance 15(4), pp. 425–434. DOI: 10.1163/18763375-15020005
At the beginning of the 2010s, several Arab countries seemed about to follow the model of Turkey, with an electoral victory of Islamist parties in a context of democratization. A decade later, Turkish AKP has turned authoritarian, and the Moroccan and Tunisian Islamist parties have lost both access to governmental office and a large part of their electoral appeal. In this context, lessons can be learned from the early failed democratic experience in Algeria (1989–1992), and from the evolution of its Islamist movements since then.
From these four case studies, the contributors of this issue investigate the notions of moderation and inclusion, and their interrelations. Their articles build on the current trends within literature by taking into account the variety of Islamist movements, and their incorporation within different national trajectories. These articles contribute to the academic discussion by bringing new facts and ideas regarding this topic of inclusion-moderation.
2021
"Representing the people in the street or in the ballot box? The revolutionary coalition campaign during the 2011 Egyptian elections," Mediterranean Politics 26(1), pp. 97–116. DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2019.1673572
The results of the 2011–12 Egyptian elections highlight the gap that exists between the ‘emotional’ and the ‘rational’ conceptions of the people and its representation. If the revolutionary moment had allowed some organizations to temporarily gain legitimacy to speak in the name of the people, these organizations have been ill-equipped to compete within the existing structure of the social cleavages. This article examines the electoral system, the lack of resources at the disposal of the revolutionaries, the polarization of the political field around the religious issue, and the difficulties involved in conciliating between the electoral campaign and street activism.
2020
"'Like Sugar in Tea'. Competing Imaginaries and the Reinforcement of the Idea of a Nation-State in Egypt," Archiv orientální. Supplementa XII., pp. 59–77. DOI: 10.47979/aror.s.2020.XII.59
This article examines how, in a context of conflicting identities and collapsing states throughout the Middle East, the model of an Egyptian nation-state has—conversely—been reinforced during the recent revolutionary and counter-revolutionary waves. At first, the liberation of speech during the “Arab Spring” period of 2011–2013 allowed the public expression of competing models (pan-Islamism, pan-Arabism, Coptic ethno-nationalism, regionalism) of imagined communities. At the same time, however, the national flag became the most widespread symbol of the revolution, appropriated by all the political actors, from the leftists to the Salafis. Since 2013, the expression of diverging conceptions of identity within the political field has become impossible. Thus, the affirmation of alternative models of identity has occasionally taken a violent path, especially in the North-Sinai region, where regionalist feelings meet the pan-Islamism of insurgent jihadi movements. Simultaneously, the state has been trying to co-opt some of the most prominent identities, with a first official recognition of the Nubian culture within the 2014 Constitution, and with the adoption of a quota for Coptic candidates in the Parliament and local councils.
2018
"The modularity of the ‘revolutionary’ repertoire of action in Egypt: origins and appropriation by different players," Social Movement Studies 17(1), pp. 113–118. DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2017.1377602
The Egyptian ‘revolutionary’ repertoire of action, that is to say the repertoire used by the protesters of January 2011, was characterized by a combination of several features: occupation of a symbolic place; ‘horizontal’ forms of organization; recourse to new electronic information and communication technologies (especially social networks); and rhetoric centered around universal values such as dignity, social justice, human rights, and democracy. This repertoire was born as a result of the merging of two parallel cycles of mobilization, which had actually started during the previous decade, one animated by activists from the educated middle class, and the other by workers struggling for economic and social reforms. After the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, it demonstrated its extreme modularity, being appropriated by different players from all sections of the political spectrum, from the Salafist hāzimūn to proponents of the military power.
2016
« The Role of Elections: The Recomposition of the Party System and the Hierarchization of Political Issues », in Bernard Rougier & Stéphane Lacroix (eds.), Egypt's Revolutions. Politics, Religion, and Social Movements, Palgrave-Macmillan.
Though all the institutions elected in 2011-2012 have been prematurely disbanded, these elections strongly contributed to define political priorities according to the choices of the electorate. Indeed, the legal and political conditions following the ousting of Hosni Mubarak allowed, first, the creation of political parties based on the various organizations existing within the Egyptian society, and second, the politicization of the elections, through the campaigning activity of the parties, competing in order to represent various sectors of the electorate. As a result, it appears clearly than the most important issues for Egyptian voters are related to the nature of the state itself: should it be Islamic or secular, military or civilian? These two issues are henceforth shaping the boundaries of the political debate in Egypt.
2015
With Alexis Blouët, "The Notions of Citizenship and the Civil State in the Egyptian Transition Process," Middle East Law and Governance 7(3), pp. 236–256 . DOI: 10.1163/18763375-00703001
This article deals with two notions that have become central in the Egyptian political and constitutional transition process since 2011 – citizenship and the “Civil State” – and presents the struggle to define them that took place during the 2012 writing of the Constitution. Even though the principle of citizenship is not seriously contested by any of the important political players, its scope and relationship with Islamic normativity (subordination, preeminence, or independence) have both been fiercely debated. As for the notion of the Civil State, it is characterized by an important semantic haziness, which results in a political tension around the issue of its definition, although there is relative consensus in Egypt regarding the term itself. The political and legal struggles around the writing and the adoption of the 2012 Constitution reveal how the tension related to these two notions has been embodied in the discussions surrounding several constitutional articles.
Contact
You can follow me on the Fediverse: https://sciences.social/@clement
