Shrinking civic spaces: the skewing role of civil society organisations and the state in promoting youth political participation in Egypt

After the 25th of January revolution in Egypt, donors have shown an increasing interest to support the spreading of democratic and liberal norms through financing civil society activities. Training and capacity-building activities for youth on civic and political engagement, human rights, and electoral processes were increasing. The weak role of political parties in youth civic and political rights education, before 2011, has left a gap that should have been filled. Civil society organisations stepped in after the uprising to fill this gap through undertaking political education programmes aiming to foster youth engagement in the public sphere. A few years after the revolution, however, shrinking civil society spaces in Egypt have made it impossible to further continue supporting such activities. Despite donor funding to youth programs in Egypt, civil society organisations were not able to advance these programs and consolidate their existence as influential actors in supporting youth participation, mainly due to restrictions imposed on civil society organisations. In contrast, the state has continued to enact legislations that aimed to depoliticise the various civic spaces, either it is informal through civil society organisations or formal through the MoYS youth centres. Moreover, several initiatives were launched by the government to control youth political participation and create a new youth elite that is aligned with the government narratives. These efforts have skewed the role civil society organisations have played after the 2011 uprising through donor-funded youth programs. In this paper, I examine how political shifts impact donors driven civil society efforts in the realm of youth political participation programs? And how do authoritarian regimes reshape youth participation initiatives to support their rhetoric and gain regime loyalty? I argue that the increasing emphasis on the participation agenda and the role of civil society organisations in promoting youth participation, should not be seen in isolation from the rapid transformation of civic spaces, especially in the global south, where formal and informal institutions are used to co-opt civil society organisations and youth segments to ensure loyalty to the ruling regimes. This paper is based on single case study research and Egypt serves as the main case of analysis. While the main time frame of this paper is between 2014-2020, I trace back some of the state tactics implemented during the Mubarak regime to shed light on similar patterns towards youth-co-optation. The methods used are based on a legal analysis of two recent legislation that impacted youth and civil society participation namely, law no. 149 of 2019 of civil society organisations and youth institutions law no. 218 of 2017. As well as a secondary review of newspapers, civil society organisations statements, and literature review of previous scholarly work on youth political participation in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab spring.