Soon after the 2013 military coup, state-sponsored violence and human rights abuses have begun to shake Egyptian society. The regime of president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has attempted to rationalize them, claiming that this is the only path to save the most populous Middle Eastern country from civil unrest, terrorism, and economic decay. Al-Sisi, the former army chief during the 2013 coup, initially portrayed his ascendency to power as the only way to restore security and end the threat of terrorism. Egypt’s (...) generals have also recognized that they cannot rely only on the promise of restoring security to justify ending of the democratic opening and their heavy-handed ruling techniques. Therefore, they have also been using a web of alternative narratives to justify their approach and have been spreading these narratives using security-controlled public and private media institutions. Conspiracy theories, defamation campaigns, and hate speech against voices of dissent have assumed central positions... (shrink)

This article aims at exploring one specific facet of pluralism: How can we conceive of a variety of democratic cultures that are not just local adaptations of one basic western-centric understanding of the democratic ethos? Drawing on Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian sources, a convergence among diverse democratic cultures is cursorily highlighted on such elements as the priority of the common good, the acceptance of pluralism, the desirability of collegial deliberation, the equality of citizens, and the value of individuality. (...) Then two important points of dissonance are analysed in greater detail – the idea of the priority of rights over duties and the role of political conflict within a democratic polity – and shown not to be correlative with a divide between western and non-western contexts. Finally a typology of 4 kinds of democratic cultures is outlined. (shrink)