Did Egypt’s post-uprising crime wave increase support for authoritarian rule?
| Author | Caroline Abadeer,Alexandra Domike Blackman,Lisa Blaydes,Scott Williamson |
| Published date | 01 July 2022 |
| Date | 01 July 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211052374 |
Did Egypt’s post-uprising crime wave
increase support for authoritarian rule?
Caroline Abadeer
Independent Researcher
Alexandra Domike Blackman
Cornell University
Lisa Blaydes
Stanford University
Scott Williamson
Bocconi University
Abstract
Countries transitioning from autocracy to democracy often struggle to maintain law and order. Yet relatively little is
known about how increasing crime rates impact public support for authoritarian leadership during a transition. We
find an empirical relationship between rising crime and support for authoritarian leadership in Egypt following the
2011 uprisings. Analysis of original crime data from Egypt suggests that electoral districts exposed to larger year-on-
year changes in localized patterns of crime were more likely to vote for the ‘strongman’ candidate in Egypt’s first, and
only, free and fair presidential election in 2012. We also analyze survey data which shows that Egyptians who were
highly concerned about crime were more likely to express support for a ‘strong leader’ as well as for military rule, even
after controlling for a broad set of covariates. This research illustrates how instability triggered by political transitions
can have negative implications for democratic consolidation.
Keywords
authoritarianism, crime, democratization, Egypt
On 23 February 2012, presidential hopeful and former
Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel Moneim Aboul
Fotouh was attacked in Cairo. Newspapers reported that
masked men stole Aboul Fotouh’s car, injuring him dur-
ing the robbery. This incident was notable not only for
its prominent victim but also because it reflected a
broader pattern of rising social violence in Egypt follow-
ing the 2011 uprisings. Robberies, carjackings, and
homicides were accompanied by a palpable increase in
public anxiety, leading television commentators, politi-
cians, and journalists to draw attention to Egypt’s crisis
of personal security. Egypt’s experience with crime dur-
ing its democratic transition was not atypical; increases in
violent crime often accompany periods of political
change (e.g. Fox & Hoelscher, 2012; Duran-Martinez,
2015; Deglow, 2016; Berg & Carranza, 2018). In fact,
democratization frequently involves a weakening of sta-
tus quo institutions, which can introduce forms of law-
lessness and criminality (LaFree & Tseloni, 2006;
Savelsberg & McElrath, 2014).
What are the political consequences of rising crime
during periods of nascent democratic transition? We use
evidence from Egypt to argue that crime increased pop-
ular support for authoritarian modes of governance,
undermining democratic progress. Using an original,
district-level dataset of reported crimes before and after
the 2011 uprisings, we show that districts with larger
increases in crime were more likely to support Ahmed
Shafiq, a ‘strongman’ candidate who embodied a restora-
tion of the old regime’s autocracy, in the 2012 presiden-
tial election. While the relationship is modest – an
increase of roughly two percentage points – the closeness
of the election suggests that rising crime may have been
influential for the outcome.
We also examine survey data to explore whether the
relationship between rising crime and support for
Corresponding author:
adb295@cornell.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2022, Vol. 59(4) 577–592
ªThe Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433211052374
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authoritarian governance finds support at the individual
level. Using data from the Pew Global Attitudes Project,
we show that the Egyptians who were most concerned
with law and order were also more supportive of strong-
man rule prior to the 2012 presidential election. We
replicate these findings using the Survey of Young People
in Egypt (SYPE) panel survey to show that, in 2013,
youth more concerned about security were less likely
to prioritize democracy and human rights, after taking
account of respondents’ pre-2011 political beliefs.
Finally, we draw on data from the Afrobarometer to
demonstrate that Egyptians who were more concerned
with crime in March 2013 were also more likely to
express support for army rule just months before a ‘pop-
ular-participatory’ veto coup ended Egypt’s short-lived
democratic transition.
1
Taken together, these findings
are consistent with the argument that increases in crime
can undermine support for democracy.
Our findings contribute to a growing literature on the
political implications of crime. Scholars have shown that
lawlessness can affect outcomes ranging from approval rat-
ings of national leaders (Romero, Magaloni & Diaz-
Cayeros, 2016) and trust in the government (Cammett,
Diwan & Vartanova, 2020) to political participation (Bate-
son, 2012; Trelles & Carreras, 2012; Ley, 2018) and inter-
personal trust (Corbacho, Philipp & Ruiz-Vega, 2015).
2
Our research highlights how transitions can be undermined
by the public’s concerns about instability when the political
opening leads to rising crime.
Furthermore, this study deepens our understanding of a
particularly important case where democratic transition
ended in failure. Egypt is the most populous country in a
region noted for its democracy deficit (e.g. Stepan &
Robertson, 2003; Bellin, 2004). Under the pre-
revolutionary Mubarak regime, Egypt represented an influ-
ential example of resilient authoritarianism (Blaydes, 2011).
As a result, Egypt’s transition held implications for the
possibility of democratization across the Arab world. The
collapse of Egypt’s nascent democratic transition heralded a
sharp shift against the prospect of a successful democratic
wave in the Middle East. By demonstrating how rising
crime increased support for authoritarian modes of govern-
ance, we shed light on one channel that may have contrib-
uted to the lack of democratic consolidation in Egypt.
Violence in transition
Crime and democratization tend to go hand-in-hand from
an empirical perspective (Savelsberg & McElrath, 2014).
Transitions to democracy often occur after revolutions or
civil wars, and the disruptive process of restructuring polit-
ical institutions may reduce state capacity, facilitating
opportunities for criminal activity. This pattern is sup-
ported by cross-national studies that show a correlation
between weakly institutionalized democracies and levels
of violent crime (Fox & Hoelscher, 2012; Lafree & Tse-
loni, 2006), as well as case studies of transitioning countries
such as Mexico (Kalyvas, 2015; Grillo, 2012; Trejo & Ley,
2020; Villarreal, 2002).
Research on the political effects of criminality suggests
that transitional crime waves may complicate prospects
for successful democratization. A large body of literature
argues that threat activates authoritarian attitudes,
increases acceptance of strongman politics, and decreases
support for democracy and civil liberties (Sales, 1973;
Doty, Peterson & Winter 1991; Davis & Silver, 2003;
Bateson, 2012; Roccato, Vieno & Russo, 2014). Con-
sistent with these findings, other research shows that
individuals victimized by crime are less likely to trust
or be satisfied with democracy (Blanco, 2013; Blanco
& Ruiz, 2013; Carreras, 2013; Ceobanu, Wood &
Ribeiro, 2010; Fernandez & Kuenzi, 2010) or more
likely to support authoritarian governance (Hou &
Quek, 2019). While these studies are not focused on the
transitional period in particular, they do suggest a
dynamic whereby individuals affected by rapidly chang-
ing crime rates become less likely to support democratic
institutions.
3
This relationship between criminal vio-
lence and support for authoritarian governance can also
manifest in voting for parties and politicians less com-
mitted to democratic values. Concerns about crime are
often correlated with support for parties or candidates
who demonstrate authoritarian tendencies (Ansolabe-
here & Iyengar, 1994; Holland, 2013; Pepinsky,
2017; Rydgren & Ruth, 2011).
The level of support for authoritarian governance has
important implications for transitional periods when
nascent democratic institutions are vulnerable to collapse
without a strong public commitment to the new political
system (Diamond, 1999). For instance, popular chal-
lenges to the transitional government can signal the fea-
sibility of a military coup to antidemocratic elites (Casper
1
We adopt the terminology used by Jumet (2018) who describes the
2013 military coup in this way.
2
Crime can also, in turn, be affected by political dynamics, including
the strategies adopted to fig ht it (Calderon et al., 2015) and the
institutional structure of the state (Kalyvas, 2015).
3
There is also evidence that political exclusion is associated with
subsequent increases in violence. For evidence from Egypt, see
Brooke & Nugent (2020).
578 journal of PEACE RESEARCH 59(4)
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