Egypt and the rise of fluid authoritarianism focuses on the sub-upgrade of the regime in Egypt and the struggle of political authorities for internal political legitimacy after 2013. It is an interdisciplinary work that develops a complex theoretical framework for exploring the microstructural and macrosystemic dynamics of leadership, power, political ecology, and the process of authority formation in illiberal systems that have undergone subsystemic transformations after shockwaves, also beyond Egypt. The book offers a complex, groundbreaking socio-political and economic analysis of how the forging of an internal claim to political legitimacy in Egypt eventually transformed the regime along the authoritarian spectrum, morphing into a fluid autocracy that approximates what the book defines as a 'non-exclusivist personalist regime', thereby fragmenting elites. In the second part, the book offers an economic analysis in which legitimacy and political ecology are closely intertwined. In this regard, the Social Development Goals are employed as a prism.

Reviews

'This book makes an original contribution to the study of internal political legitimacy in post-shockwaves societies. Examining Egypt which experienced a coup one year after democratic elections in 2012, the author provides a conceptual framework which sheds light on the rise of "fluid authoritarianism" as a subset of political and socioeconomic ruptures and continuities as well. Essential reading.'
Fawaz Gerges, Professor of International Relations and author of What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East (Yale University Press, 2024)

'Polimeno offers a theoretically informed account of the distinctive bases of authoritarianism in Egypt since the fall of Mubarak, highlighting the ways in which internal and external survival strategies are reflected in the Sisi regime's legitimation discourse. The book moves beyond cursory understandings of "authoritarianism" to show how - albeit often fragile - power is organised within a range of spheres including law, religion and political economy.'
Ewan Stein, Senior Lecturer in International Relations

Introduction
1. Political legitimacy in fluid authoritarianism: a liquid interregnum
2. Not an Arab phoenix
3. Reinventing a different political machine
4. A hero in search of a political role: playing myths and symbols
5. God, the political seductor
6. The political economy of resurrection: power and nature as a critical ecosystem
Conclusion
Appendix
Index