International leveraging and civil society : the case of the 2011 Egyptian uprising

Abstract

In the constantly evolving realm of international relations, where new actors and issues emerge and old ones reinvent themselves, civil society has grown in significance as an international actor. Civil society, itself a constantly developing concept, cannot simply be equated to an aggregate of certain characteristics. Thus the concept needs to be re-understood as an arena of participation. One of the strategies that civil society can use in the international arena is international leveraging, the process whereby international support is sought with the aim of effecting a change at the local level. However, whereas before international leveraging was considered more to be the domain of the ‘structured’ and more organised segments of civil society, like non-governmental organisations (and much research on the subject reflects this perception), the rise of the Internet and communication technologies has made the strategy a more accessible option to the rest of the civil society participants. The Internet has provided a transnational space and tools for communication which people can use and effectively become netizens – citizens exercising their rights online. This research, using the example of the Egyptian uprising in 2011, finds that the Internet did empower the ‘unstructured’ part of civil society. Egyptians actively engaged internationally using the Internet and social media to try to shape global opinion and leverage support. Citizen journalism was an important mechanism whereby Egyptians could bring their stories to a global audience and this content was then amplified by mainstream media. Through their efforts, Egyptian netizens managed to raise solidarity, counter negative narratives and present themselves as legitimate participants. They managed to initiate the boomerang effect as they influenced international public opinion to turn in their favour, after some initial hesitations, and subsequently certain governments started applying pressure on the Mubarak regime to yield to the protesters’ demands, which it did to a certain extent.