Delegitimizing the Egyptian Regime: Negative Campaigning and Strategic Framing as Techniques to Demobilize Antagonists

Abstract

Islamist social movements are vital players in MENA’s political arena. This study explores how these movements attempt to delegitimize their rivals and the frames they assign to them in hotly contested situations. For this purpose, this study used content analysis to analyze the entire range of Arabic language communiqués issued by the Muslim Brotherhood from July 2013 to January 2019. The theoretical framework is based on negative campaigning literature and two concepts of social movements theory; legitimacy as a crucial moral resource and strategic framing as a technique to demobilize antagonists. This article demonstrates that the Brotherhood conducted a negative campaign to incriminate and undermine the post-2013 order and damage its image, credibility, and reputation. As part of this campaign, the movement deployed many strategies and negative frames to give harmful meaning to the regime, its institutions, ideas, and leaders. This study contributes to research in political communication by deepening the understanding of strategic framing as a technique to demobilize antagonists and demonstrating how moral resources lie at the heart of negative political communication campaigns. It argues that the Brotherhood uses strategic framing to raise doubts about the regime’s authenticity and sincerity.

Keywords

Negative campaigning social movement theory strategic framing legitimacy Egypt Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movements

Introduction

Negative campaigning aims to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or a policy, emphasizing their negative attributes or damaging policies (Samoilenko & Icks, 2016, p. 115). It is a central component of contemporary politics (Vaccari & Morini, 2014, p. 19). Negative campaigns are common in most Western democracies (Vaccari & Morini, 2014, p. 22) and the Arab world. The current conventional wisdom regarding negative political campaigns is that negative campaigning works. Many studies argue that negative campaigns are effective (Fridkin & Kenney, 2004; Kahn & Kenney, 1999; Kaid & Johnston, 1991; Lau et al., 1999; Nai et al., 2022; Seeberg & Nai, 2021; Verhulsdonk et al., 2022). However, according to Ansolabehere and Iyengar (1995), negative campaigns are more effective when focused on partisan rather than uncommitted audiences by reinforcing partisans’ perceptions. However, women demonstrate lower receptivity to political attack messages than men on social media and respond differently to negative campaigns (Phillips, 2021). According to Nai and Maier (2021), negative campaigns can be quite effective for certain people, but they can also be very ineffective for others. Negativity and incivility have different consequences for different people. For example, respondents who are high in conflict avoidance are more likely to have a negative opinion of the sponsor after being exposed to negative messages; respondents who are high in psychopathy are more likely to have a negative view of the target after being exposed to character attacks, and incivility worsens the perception of the target for those who are low in conflict avoidance and agreeableness. According to Vaccari and Morini (2014), negative campaigns can quickly spread and achieve momentum if they are not met by an equivalent response (p. 40). Indeed, promoting the negative characteristics of opponents in hotly contested situations is preferred in political communication (Hallahan, 2011, p. 185). According to Banda (2022), political parties use more negative messaging strategies as competition increases. One of the most used techniques in this context is framing. Message framing is readily apparent in political communication (Hallahan, 2011, p. 178).

The Internet has undoubtedly made the launch of negative campaigns more effortless, more convenient, and cost-effective than ever (Morini, 2014, p. 917). Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is taking advantage of the unlimited capabilities offered by social media in its continuous struggle against the Egyptian regime. Social networking opened up more attractive campaigning channels to communicate political messages “unmediated” (McNair, 2017, p. 102).

Considering strategic framing and moral resources from social movement theory, this article illustrates how Islamist social movements try to win advantages by referring to the negative aspects of their opponents and emphasizing their negative attributes. By so doing, this study bridges the gap between social movement theory and negative campaigning. It shows how Islamist social movements attempt to wrest legitimacy from incumbent regimes embroiled in a struggle with these movements as an essential moral resource. It argues that strategic framing and legitimacy lie at the heart of negative political communication campaigns. Islamist social movements endeavor to delegitimize rivals by negatively framing their institutions, projects, and ideas. Hence, this study provided a significant opportunity to advance our understanding of strategic framing as a technique to demobilize antagonists, contrary to the conventional wisdom that previews strategic framing as a technique to mobilize proponents.

Literature Review

Research Context

On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest against the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia in a solitary act of defiance. The self-immolation of the street fruit vendor ignited a revolution that would change the Middle East. Soon after, revolutionary conflagrations spread to Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. These revolutions also caught the world’s attention because new media evaded governmental control and helped popularize the revolutionary message by spreading viral images and videos of the revolutionary uprisings. As inspired by the Tunisian revolt, known as the Jasmine Revolution, activists in Egypt called for a revolution to protest against poverty, joblessness, regime corruption, and the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, who was in power for 30 years. As a result, on January 25, 2011, people took to the streets in large numbers in a “day of rage.” On February 11, 2011, after 18 days of massive protests and demonstrations, Mubarak stepped down and handed power over to the army.

Founded in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood Movement was the forefather of political Islam. Banned but tolerated under Mubarak’s regime, the Brotherhood emerged as the most potent political force after Mubarak’s overthrow. On April 30, 2011, the Brotherhood announced the formation of the Freedom and Justice Party, headed by the Brotherhood’s politburo member, then-President Mohammed Morsi (BBC, 2011; CNN, 2011; Dawn, 2011). The Brotherhood appointed Rafiq Habib, a Coptic Christian, as deputy chairperson to show that the party was open to citizens of all faiths. Morsi announced that the party would be a civil, not a theocratic group (BBC, 2011; Dawn, 2011). Indeed, the Brotherhood had previously declared that it would not put forward a presidential candidate, easing some fears that they would seek to dominate the elections (CNN, 2011). Consequently, this position changed. On March 31, 2012, in the aftermath of the sweeping victory they achieved in the parliamentary elections, the movement announced that they were running for the presidency in a surprise move (Black, 2012).

On June 24, 2012, the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi became Egypt’s first freely elected civilian president after defeating his competitor Ahmed Shafik by over 900,000 votes. He secured 51.7% of the vote, compared to 48% for Shafiq (Guardian, 2012). However, the Brotherhood’s support ebbed once they won office, as voters gradually saw them as authoritarian, secretive, and divisive and perceived their religious project as a threat to the Egyptian state (Kingsley, 2014). On June 30, 2013, after simply 1 year in power, millions of Egyptians occupied Tahrir Square and jammed all the major routes around the presidential palace, calling for Morsi to “Get out.” Consequently, most of the Brotherhood’s headquarters were ransacked and burnt, and clashes between the movement members and Egyptian protesters were rife. The next day, Tamarod or “Rebellion,” the movement that organized the demonstrations, called for Morsi to step down or be forcibly removed. As the protests against Morsi swelled, under the motto “legitimacy is a red line,” his backers gathered outside east Cairo’s Raba’a al-Adawiya mosque, which sat conveniently close to several Brotherhood properties, to show that Morsi still had sizeable support of his own. The Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) backed Tamarod’s calls with a 48-hr ultimatum. On July 3, 2013, Defense Minister Abdel Fatah al Sisi overthrew Morsi and established an interim government with the Head of the Supreme Constitutional Council, Adly Mansour, as President (Spencer, 2013). The military coup was the starting point of the greatest crisis the Brotherhood had witnessed so far (Willi, 2021, p. 305).

Since its downfall, the Brotherhood has been embroiled in a struggle with the incumbent Egyptian regime. On August 14, 2013, at least 817 protesters -their majority were supporters and members of the Brotherhood- were killed in a premeditated attack by the Egyptian security forces to disperse the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in (Kingsley, 2014). The Egyptian government soon deemed the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Dozens of its leaders then fled to Sudan, Qatar, and Turkey.

Social Movement Theory and Islamist Movements

Social movement theory is a framework that is precisely geared toward explaining collective actions and offering a logical framework intended to clarify the appearance, organization, strategies, potential social, cultural, and political consequences, and the possibility of success of social movements (Kuumba, 2001, p. 47). Based on their studies’ goals, social movement theorists apply various forms of the theory’s analytical framework, such as resource mobilization and strategic framing.

Resource Mobilization

Resource mobilization researchers seek to explain how social movements mobilize successfully to pursue their desired goals (Edwards & Kane, 2014, p. 205). These scholars argue that resources are a fundamental link between grievances or the desire for change and the ability to mobilize around that desire (Edwards & Kane, 2014; Mahoney & Tang, 2017; Zald & McCarthy, 2002). Resources are critical for a successful social movement (Edwards & McCarthy, 2004; Jenkins, 1983). Among those resources are moral resources, including legitimacy, authenticity, solidary support, and sympathetic support (Edwards & Kane, 2014, p. 217).

Many scholars focus on legitimacy as a critical moral resource. For example, Hudson (1977) described legitimacy as an “indispensable political resource” for Islamist movements (p. 2). He argues that the lack of legitimacy “largely accounts for the volatile nature of Arab politics and the autocratic, unstable character of all the Arab governments” (Hudson, 1977, p. 2). Therefore, many Arab states encountered a crisis of legitimacy that helped the ascendance of Islamist groups and legitimized their cause. This trend of scholarship that focuses on legitimacy as a moral resource also highlighted the role of the Arab defeat in the Arab-Israeli wars, which weakened the Arab nationalists’ secular ideology and fueled Islamism. For example, Milton-Edwards (2016) claims that the Israeli victory over Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the Six-Day War of 1967 was a watershed in the fortunes of the Brotherhood as the promises of Arab secular nationalist leaders, such as defeating Israel and liberating Palestine proved futile. According to Haddad (1992), Islamists exploited this situation to delegitimize the Arab regimes by contending “that the war was punishment for misplaced trust in the promise of alien ideologies that had been fostered as a means of mobilizing for modernization and development" and that the “defeat was devastating because the margin of deviance from the faith was great” (p. 267). During the Mubarak era, the Brotherhood attempted to delegitimize the regime by portraying it as authoritarian. Therefore, they questioned the legitimacy of the electoral process under what they called “dictatorship” (El-Nawawy & Elmasry, 2018, p. 49). The Brotherhood also maintained that the Mubarak government’s corruption had caused it to “lose its legitimacy” (El-Nawawy & Elmasry, 2018, p. 56).

Koa (2021) argues that “legitimacy is a critical moral resource around which political communication campaigns of social movements revolve.” He also believes that legitimacy sheds crucial light on how social movements attempt to shore up this moral resource and how they deploy it to frame themselves credibly to enhance their image and win the hearts and minds of their target audience to fulfill their political desires (p. 88). As a fundamental moral resource, Legitimacy was the biggest concern of the Brotherhood, even after they won the parliamentary elections. In its pursuit of legitimacy, the Brotherhood introduced massive and rapid improvements to the standards of living of Egyptians, hoping that such measures would guarantee the people’s ongoing support and bolster its legitimacy (Willi, 2021, p. 263). Al-Awadi (2004) maintained that the Brotherhood’s social contributions throughout its history are based on three focal features: “First, a legitimacy gained from the social services; second, an organized network enabling such services to be delivered effectively; and finally, the politicization of this legitimacy” (p. 21). One tactic social movements in opposition employ to gain legitimacy is constructing themselves as representatives of their country’s cultural identity (Gentile, 2009; Zheng, 2011).

Deploying the concept of moral resources, this study demonstrates how the Brotherhood attempts to delegitimize the incumbent regime. Theoretically, this study argues that social movements tend to focus on the government’s transgressions and sensationalize malpractices in times of political strife.

Strategic Framing

Social movements theorists apply strategic framing to explore how social movements assign meaning to relevant events and objects in ways intended to mobilize potential adherents, gain their support and demobilize antagonists (Snow & Benford, 1988, p. 198). Social movements usually employ vocabulary and symbols from a “cultural tool kit” to offer common interests and values to people, forming a sense of solidarity that can trigger political action (Hannerz, 1969, p. 187; Swidler, 1986, p. 273). In political communication, framing is considered a strategic act in a discursive form that comprises actors making sense of an issue and participating in public deliberation. In this course, actors frame themselves, their relationships with other players, and the meaning of their actions (Kosicki & Pan, 2001, p. 58). In this way, framing is never limited to influencing news coverage, but it becomes a discursive means to achieve political potency (Kosicki & Pan, 2001, p. 58). Political message framing also emphasizes or deemphasizes specific features (Hallahan, 2011, p. 178). Usually, public relations practitioners take the lead in guiding the public’s perception through deliberate tactics of image repair strategies that may help them frame the crisis in a way that allows the public to interpret the situation from the organization’s point of view (Koa, 2022, p. 39).

According to Wiktorowicz (2004), Islamist movements employ framing as interpretive devices that convey grievances and recognize opportunities, transforming them into the mobilization of resources and activism. Islamist movements have successfully framed activism as a “moral obligation” that requires an unwavering commitment to the cause of religious transformation (Wickham, 2004, p. 232). Framing is robust; framing makes high-risk actions seem imperative, whatever the costs (Gunning, 2009, p. 167). Islamist movements deploy different communication devices to frame their rivals. For instance, Koa (2018) argues that the Brotherhood employs propaganda techniques to set its agenda of discrediting the Egyptian regime. For example, to denigrate the current President Abdul Fattah Sisi and develop its plan to present him as a villain, the movement portrayed him as “the mass-murderer,”“butcher,” the “putschists’ leader,” and “traitor” (Koa, 2018, p. 582). In the past, Islamist opponents of the Egyptian regime relied principally upon religious frames (Koa, 2018, p. 584). For example, to delegitimize the authorities during President Nasser’s administration, the Brotherhood framed them as infidels (Kufar) or ignorant (juhal). They also pronounced Egypt as the land of unbelief (dar-al-kufr) because of failing to implement Islamic law in life and governance (Eickelman & Piscatori, 1996, p. 12).

One term connected with negative framing is stereotyping. Stereotypes “are qualities perceived to be associated with particular groups or categories of people” (Schneider, 2005, p. 24). The modern phrase was first used by the journalist Lippmann (1922) to term judgments formed about other people based on their ethnicity. Thus, stereotyping depends on “attributes that an individual ascribes to a social group” (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p. 104). Stereotyping is problematic because it labels every group member with the same characteristics ascribed to the entire group. It is overgeneralized and has an exaggerated negative or positive value depending on the type of stereotype (Ting-Toomey, 1999). Negative stereotyping aims to incite people to reject an idea or a labeled group (Sarwal, 2015).

Accordingly, this study investigates how Islamist social movements strategically deploy framing as part of their political communication to demobilize antagonists and delegitimize opponents in hotly contested political situations. Correspondingly, this article is devoted to answering the following research questions:

RQ1: How do Islamist social movements attempt to delegitimize their rivals in hotly contested political situations? i.e., What strategies do the Brotherhood employ in their negative campaigns?

RQ2: How do Islamist social movements frame rivals in hotly contested political situations? i.e., How do Islamist social movements portray themselves versus others?

Method and Scope

A census of Arabic language communiqués issued by the Brotherhood from July 3, 2013, to January 2, 2019, was analyzed using content analysis. All the communiqués were in Arabic; the coders were fluent Arabic speakers (the primary researcher and the inter-coder). An independent bilingual researcher cross-checked all translations used in this study. All the communiqués were published on the Brotherhood’s official Arabic Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Ikhwan.Official. Therefore, the dataset was made up of a total of 263 communiqués. A total of1,052 paragraphs were analyzed—this research employed MAXQDA 2018 software to enable the organizational aspects of structuring the research data. MAXQDA is a professional software package for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods data analysis (Koa & Hassan, 2022; Udo & Stefan, 2019). Since its foundations at the end of the 1980s, it has focused on supporting mixed methods research (Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2021, p. 305). MAXQDA has supported my work through the central feature of working with codes (categories) and assigning codes to selected parts of my data (Udo & Stefan, 2019, p. 4).

Unit of Analysis

The size of the unit of coding depends on the coding frame and what the researcher is looking for in the material (Schreier, 2012, p. 128). Coding the communiqués paragraph by paragraph helped the researcher focus on the study’s objectives.

Coding

In this research, I used the inductive approach to content analysis. Inductive coding is usually deployed when there needs to be more former knowledge about the category. Thus the researchers create their categories (Croucher & Cronn-Mills, 2015, p. 210). The inductive coding process is similar to the grounded-theory approach (open, axial, and selective coding) (Riazi, 2016, p. 37). However, my process followed the three phases Elo and Kyngäs (2008) outlined: open coding, creating categories, and finally, abstraction. For the open coding phase, each communiqué was read several times, line by line, to be fully understood. Then the various categories were created according to which the data could be classified based on similarities and dissimilarities to reduce the number of categories (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008, p. 111). The last phase was abstraction, which involved a general description of the underlying data “themes” that generated the entire discussion communication strategies and frames the Brotherhood deployed in their negative campaign. For example, the following is a paragraph from the Brotherhood’s public statement issued on October 30, 2014, entitled “A Statement by the Brotherhood about the Forced Displacement of Sinai Residents.”

What the Putschists are doing in Sinai is merely implementing the American-Zionist project of handing over Sinai to the brutal Zionist enemy. The country’s legitimate president, Dr. Mohamed Morsi, was aware of this beforehand and thus enthusiastically began reconstructing Sinai to abort this heinous scheme and enacted a national plan to protect this land (Brotherhood, 2014b).

During the open coding process, the above paragraph was coded under the code “delegitimizing the government.” Still, it was moved to the more comprehensive theme during the abstraction process; “linking the regime with Zionism.” During the reporting phase, the whole theme and the paragraph were discussed within the Egyptian historical and cultural context to provide a deeper and more holistic examination and understanding of how it might work.

In each paragraph of the data set, the following two questions were asked: what or who is being framed? What are the frames assigned to them? The Brotherhood’s mechanism of portrayal was bidirectional flow; the first focuses on the negative image of the regime and its institutions, while the second teemed with a comparison between Sisi and Morsi.

Reliability

MAXQDA includes the “Inter-coder Agreement” feature that compares how two different coders have independently coded the same document (Silver, 2018, p. 108). To check the reliability of the findings, an inter-coder was employed. Therefore, 10% of the data was re-coded by the inter-coder. Thus, 26 communiqués from the 263 already analyzed were randomly selected and analyzed by the inter-coder. The Inter-Coder Coefficient Kappa (k) achieved an average of .86, which is considered a perfect agreement (Burla et al., 2008, p. 114). For intercoder reliability, the following procedures are followed as recommended by Silver (2018):

I created a project with 26 documents to be coded.

I included the necessary codes for the “Code System.” These codes have been defined in the code memos.

I made a copy of the project file and passed it on to the second coder.

Each coder wrote their name behind all documents to be coded.

I and the inter-coder independently coded the 26 documents.

I used the “Merge Projects” function to merge both projects.

Then, I selected the “Inter-coder Agreement” feature.

Finally, I gave an order to the MAXQDA to calculate the Inter-Coder Coefficient Kappa.

The calculation of the average result of k of the 26 documents achieved .86. This result is considered perfect. However, after discussing discrepancies, we achieved a 100% agreement.

Findings and Discussion

To maintain public support and expand its followers’ network, the Brotherhood appears to have designed its strategy to discredit the regime in the eyes of the Egyptian public and beyond while presenting the movement as the only reliable alternative. The movement uses different key communication strategies to achieve this strategic goal, including (1) exposing the regime’s transgressions, (2) linking the regime with Zionism, (3) stereotyping the regime and its institutions with corruption, and (4) hindering the regime from winning the people over. These strategies are discussed below. The following discussion clarifies how these strategies were employed.

Strategies of the Brotherhood’s Negative Campaign

Exposing the Regime’s Transgressions

The Brotherhood created a strategy to expose the regime’s abusive practices, framing them as violating all taboos relating to human rights, religions, and indigenous traditions. After deposing Morsi, the incumbent administration escalated this approach, combining repression with legal amendments in a multi-pronged approach to eliminating the organization. In mid-January 2014, a referendum approved a new Constitution with 98% popular support. The results were announced on January 18, signed off by the interim president, Adly Mansour, and came into effect immediately. The new Constitution replaced the November 2012 Constitution that was crafted under the administration of Morsi without the input of boycotting Christians and secularists. Unsurprisingly, the 2014 constitution bolstered the military’s authority and autonomy, granting them special privileges, especially in issues related to its budget (article 203) and their right to prosecute people before military courts (article 204). It also reinstated presidential power that had been circumscribed. For example, the president has the right to assign 5% of the MPs in the House of Representatives. This constitutes 23 MP out of the 450 members (see article 102). The 2014 Constitution restored the 1971 constitution’s embargo on political groups with a religious reference (see article 74). It also prohibited using worship places and non-governmental organizations for political purposes or election publicity (article 87). Such modifications aimed at barring the Brotherhood from electoral politics and giving the military the right to curb them.

Accordingly, the Brotherhood created a strategy to expose the regime’s abusive practices to exclude them from the political arena. For example, the movement expressed skepticism toward the new constitution’s referendum results. In a statement commenting on the constitutional referendum, the group presented evidence revealing that the regime counterfeited the constitutional referendum by exploiting conflicting views among people who worked within the campaign claiming that the numbers of voters reported by the regime’s media were not in conformity with the actual numbers they have. The Brotherhood wanted to convey the critical message that the government is a liar that cannot be trusted.

The null and void referendum was rigged, as impartial observers expected.

We know how the Putschists and their followers falsified the figures. Some time ago, one of the leaders of the “Kamil Jameelak” that called for the nomination of the Sisi for President resigned, saying that they managed to collect only 8500 signatures. Therefore, his colleagues emerged in the media, declaring they had collected 5.5 million signatures. Some newspapers affiliated with the coup reported that 4000 Egyptian citizens in Japan voted in favor of the constitution. At the same time, we know that the number of those registered to vote is 423 people, and those who voted for them only amounted to 34 people (Brotherhood, 2014c, Paragraphs 1&5).

Such a strategy has historical precedents. The Brotherhood used it during Mubarak’s era and Sadat’s period. As early as the 1970s, the Brotherhood alleged that the calls for democracy and respect for law were “a thin veneer hiding despotic authoritarianism” (Ibrahim, 1982, p. 42; 2002, p. 84). However, what has changed is the fervent intensity of these claims in the post-2013 period. While previously the Brotherhood’s discourse reflected “the swing of a pendulum, seesawing between moments of self-assertion and moments of, self-restraint” (Wickham, 2015 , p. 96), now the Brotherhood is relentlessly condemning the regime.

Through the lens of the social movement theory, this strategy can be understood through the concept of legitimacy. The destruction of the regime’s legitimacy and the construction of the Brotherhood’s legitimacy. A strong relationship between the Brotherhood’s communication exposing the state’s abusive practices against the movement during the Mubarak era and the Brotherhood’s popular support has been reported in the literature. Previous studies indicate that such a strategy is effective. For example, Abdelmajeed (2010), Ranko (2015) argue that the Brotherhood’s communication exposing the state’s abusive practices against the movement during the Mubarak era positively impacted the Brotherhood’s popular support. They believe that the Brotherhood succeeded in employing the state’s increasing repression in the movement’s discourse and that this translated into a positive electoral outcome in 2005. Thus, increasing repression against the movement positively impacted their popularity as it increased the number of sympathizers.

With the Egyptian regime’s hegemony over state and private mainstream media, the Brotherhood has thus been forced to find alternative bases to spread their word and challenge the authority, deploying technology and new media. Since the removal of Morsi, the Brotherhood has employed a concerted strategy to expose the regime’s malpractices to discredit it in the eyes of the people and delegitimize the government. They attempt to reveal what the regime’s media never tell and uncover what they call the “crimes” of “the putschists” against the Egyptian people. This theme of “exposing the regime’s malpractices” appeared in 35% of the Brotherhood statements suggesting that it is a significant component of their communication strategy. This shows the great attention the Brotherhood is paying to such a strategy. Within the social movement theory framework, it can be argued that the Brotherhood adopts strategic framing to delegitimize the Egyptian incumbent regime.

One of the tactics used for such a purpose is exploiting national and international events to delegitimize the regime by presenting it as criminal, corrupt, and untrustworthy. For example, on March 8, 2016, the Brotherhood took advantage of International Women’s Day to expose “regime practices against Egyptian women” while presenting themselves as respectful of women’s performance and achievements. According to the statement,

Criminal coup authorities were not to miss the chance to celebrate International Women’s Day in their way. Since the July 2013 coup against legitimacy, women have become one of the putschists’ favorite victims. They killed nearly 100 women and girls and expelled 526 female students from Egypt’s universities. Under military junta rule, 304 Egyptian women and girls suffered general assaults, harassment, and violations, while 24 of them were unjustly tried before military courts, and 24 more were raped or assaulted in coup prisons […]. Injustice has crossed all limits. Egyptian women’s suffering under this coup has reached unprecedented levels (Brotherhood, 2016b).

In the above statement, the Brotherhood’s claim subverts the traditional view relayed by the state that it is the protector of women’s progress.

Questioning the regime’s intentions is another tactic the Brotherhood uses to discredit and delegitimize the government. The Brotherhood is highly skeptical of the high-profile projects initiated by President Sisi. For example, the Brotherhood attacked the new Suez Canal project that began on August 5, 2014, and was first used a year later. The new project aimed to increase the Suez Canal’s revenues by 259% to about 13.226 billion dollars in 2023 compared to the canal’s current return of almost $5 billion (Kenawy, 2016, p. 284). On January 24, 2015, the movement warned participants of the Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC), held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, that the allocated funds would be squandered.

To all states and governments: participating in the donor conference for the coup’s leaders will only drain and squander your money. The coup regime in Egypt has failed to establish any successful economic project, and you will soon see the inevitable abject failure of the new Suez Canal project. For a year and a half, they have not achieved stability, safety, or development for the Egyptian people. Be confident that your money will be lost by this bunch of criminals (Brotherhood, 2015b).

This significant statement received comprehensive media coverage because the movement referenced a leaked conversation in which Sisi allegedly made offensive remarks about his Gulf sponsors. Sisi claimed that the oil-rich states had “money like rice” and that Egypt should have a share. The Brotherhood alleged that these leaks prove that “the real religion of the regime is the dollar” and that their “real Qibla of the regime is the Whitehouse and Tel Aviv” (Brotherhood, 2015b). Qibla is the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during Ṣalāṫ and is fixed as the direction of the Kaaba in the Hejazi city of Mecca. Through such theological and cultural references, the Brotherhood attempted to delegitimize the Egyptian government by alleging that they were not real Muslims and that their intentions were not to be trusted.

The Brotherhood has also been quick to blame the regime for political crises. For example, one popular topic of discussion in the movement has been the siege of the land, air, and sea imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt in June 2007. Egypt and Israel closed their border crossings with Gaza because the Palestinian security affiliated with Fatah fled and no longer provided security on Gaza’s borders. Hamas took control of the strip. The movement assigned the Sisi government responsibility for the Gaza Strip blockage and portrayed the regime as a Zionist ally (Brotherhood, 2016a).

The Brotherhood maintains that the coup regime imposed on our Egyptian nation directly cooperates with the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip by the Zionist occupier and offers the latter unreserved support. This does not represent the position or view of the Egyptian Nation toward its besieged brothers or its support of the Palestinian Cause […]. Since the military coup led by Sisi, the coup authorities have consistently shown full support for the Zionist entity. This is entirely contrary to the Egyptian people’s understanding and doctrine and its stance toward the Zionist entity that has killed many of our compatriots and is still killing and besieging our brothers in Palestine (Brotherhood, 2016a).

In particular, the Brotherhood’s media took advantage of the Egyptian regime’s attempts to destroy the underground tunnels that the Palestinians used to bring goods into Gaza because of the siege on the Strip. Their narrative exploited the regime pumping salt water from the Mediterranean into Gaza’s underground tunnels by presenting the regime as a co-partner in the blockade. For example, on August 27, 2016, a cartoon published by the Brotherhood’s political wing on their website, presented Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as flooding Gaza. The caricature is credited to Carlos Latuff, a freelance Brazilian political cartoonist. See Figure 1 that was reprinted from fj-p.net (2016).

Figure 1.

Another exciting tactic the Brotherhood uses to expose the regime’s practices is presenting them as violating cultural norms or transgressing taboos. These include arresting and killing women, desecrating mosques and churches, killing worshipers during prayers, desecrating Allah’s book, burning the martyrs’ bodies, and burning field hospitals. As an example, they wrote:

They crossed all red lines; besieging mosques, killing worshipers, burning some mosques, burning Qur’ans, and detaining women and girls at midnight after killing others in Mansoura and Rābiòca (Brotherhood, 2013c, para. 8).

The Brotherhood seeks to present itself as the representative of an “authentic” Egyptian cultural identity to legitimize itself. Achieving legitimacy has been their concern in their statements. For instance, in their statement memorializing the fifth anniversary of the Raba’a massacre, they exploited the remembrance to discredit the regime and pass a message that they encompass legitimacy.

The Egyptian people are the only source of legitimacy and shall grant it to whomever they choose. The people had given President Dr. Mohamed Morsi legitimacy through free and fair elections, as the world witnessed. Therefore, the coup against him is a coup against the entire Egyptian people, a subversion of the people’s will and people’s right to choose their government. Insisting on the return of President Mohamed Morsi is not for personal interest or partisan gain but to uphold the people’s right to free choice (Brotherhood, 2018, para. 8).

Many social movements in opposition frequently try to construct themselves as representatives of their country’s cultural identity while presenting their rivals as violating such authentic cultural norms. Among such is the Chinese Falun Gong, which according to Zheng (2011), frames itself as a genuine representative of Chinese culture through many strategies that highlight the positive qualities of the movement and the achievements of its cultural performance (p. 175). Likewise, the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI, Italian Social Movement) claims to be the only interpreters and authentic representatives of the “real Italy” against the fake Italians or anti-Fascists (Gentile, 2009, p. 307). Similarly, the Brotherhood echoed these movements and presented themselves as the representatives of an “authentic” Egyptian cultural identity.

To sum up, Figure 2 illustrates the Brotherhood’s tactics in supporting its strategy of exposing the regime’s transgressions. In the light of social movement theory, the Brotherhood uses strategic framing to raise doubts about the regime’s authenticity and sincerity. Hence, strategic framing can be crucial in negative campaigning to delegitimize political rivals.

Figure 2.

The Brotherhood’s communication tactics support exposing the regime’s practices strategy.

Discomfiting Their Rivals

Discomfiting rivals is yet another strategy the Brotherhood uses to discredit its opponents in the eyes of the public and international entities. The Brotherhood seeks to convey that the regime is a liar that cannot be trusted and that the Brothers are more reliable. Commenting on the death of 37 Islamist detainees who were allegedly killed in a gas leak inside the Abu Zaabal prison on August 18, 2013, the group attempted to hinder the regime by claiming that the detainees were killed under torture with burns, ruptures, and scars on their bodies as well as gunshot wounds appearing on the corpses.

Yesterday, we issued a statement condemning the killing of 37 Egyptian citizens detained by the Interior Ministry during the coup. We suspect they were suffocated with gas, as claimed by the Putschists. Although gassing is an unforgivable crime, the ugly truth emerged today when families went to receive the bodies from the morgue. It became apparent that they all died under brutal torture, evidenced by the burns, ruptures, scars on their bodies, and gunshot wounds […] (Brotherhood, 2013a).

Discomfiting their rivals is the Brotherhood’s strategy to discredit the Egyptian regime. It appeared in around 20% of the analyzed documents. It is another way of presenting the state as fraudulent. The Brotherhood uses this strategy as one-way-oriented communication. The feedback is the least important element here for the Brotherhood as they aim at discrediting the state by bringing related controversial issues to the forefront.

This strategy was also used by segments of the clergy under the leadership of Khomeini in the Iranian aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) to marginalize rivals. The Khomeinists aimed to gradually displace and eliminate their competitors, dismissing the contributions of other forces in the revolution and laying exclusive rights to the revolutionary spoils (Azimi, 2008). Similarly, the Brotherhood uses this strategy to discredit the regime and present itself as a legitimate alternative.

Such a strategy was expressed through the Brotherhood’s caricatures as well. For example, Egypt Window, one of the Brotherhood’s key websites, published a cartoon showing the sweeping constitutional changes that would increase incumbent President Abdel Fatah Sisi’s power and allow him to rule until 2034, basically aiming at eliminating the opposition from the political arena. See Figure 3 that was reprinted from EgyptWindow (2019). On February 14, 2019, the Egyptian parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve draft amendments to the country’s 2013 constitution, ending presidential term limits and potentially allowing Sisi to remain in office until 2034. Egypt’s parliament, which has 596 members, saw 485 votes in favor of the changes. Regarding social movement theory and negative campaigning literature, discomfiting the regime is a strategy to delegitimize it and win advantages over it by referring to its negative aspects of it and its damaging policies.

Figure 3.

From Constitutional amendments and death sentences!, by editorial team, 2019, Egypt Window (https://old.egyptwindow.net/index.php/article/59805/). Copyright 2019 by Alaa Allagta. Reprinted with permission.

Linking the Regime With Zionism

On May 14, 1948, Israel was created on the land of Palestine after the 1948 Palestine war, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed and forcibly expelled from their homes and lands. The Palestinians were replaced by hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants under the supervision of the Jewish Agency, headed by David Ben-Gurion. Since then, several wars have erupted between the Arab countries and Israel, such as the 1967 War, the 1956 Suez War, the Tenth of Ramadan War on October 6, 1973, the 1982 First Lebanon War, and the 2008 Gaza War, and many others. In these wars, hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

American support has been notoriously central to Israel’s survival as a state. When David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of Israel, the American President, Harry S. Truman, was the first to recognize it on the same day. Since then, the United States has been Israel’s main ally and backer. Several nations colonized Egypt throughout history, including the Ottoman Turks, the French, and the British. The French Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the country in 1798. Great Britain occupied Egypt in 1882 after the Anglo-Egyptian War to maintain British strategic interests and ensure trade and economic solidity (Al-Sayyid Marsot, 2007; Cleveland & Bunton, 2009). Millions of Egyptians and Arabs sacrificed their lives to gain independence from colonial powers. Great power support for Israel thus became strongly associated with colonialism, and pervasive negative perceptions of Zionism following the establishment of Israel intensified as the Israeli-Arab conflict developed (Jaspal, 2016, p. 47). With frequent reference to this history, the Brotherhood links the Sisi regime directly with Zionism and sometimes colonialism. Direct links with Zionism were found in 21% of the public statements during the studied period. One can argue that the Brotherhood’s strategy of linking its rivals with Zionism and Colonization is a negative strategy to discredit its national foes with an attempt to delegitimize them. When it seeks to deny the regime, the West becomes (re)colonial.

However, in a somewhat contradictory fashion, the Brotherhood also runs a constant campaign to convince these “Colonial Countries” that they are a moderate and reliable alternative to the Egyptian regime. For example, Bardhan (2014), Breuer and Khashaba (2014) argue that the primary function of the Brotherhood English website is to change Western communities’ views of the movement who view it as radical, undemocratic, and inflexible. Accordingly, the analysis of the Brothers’ communication in English tends to downplay antagonism toward Israel or its allies in many Western countries, further evidenced by the Brotherhood’s advocacy and support of the Turkish-Israeli agreement discussed above. Even after the January 25, 2011 revolution, the Brotherhood conducted a campaign to present the movement as a potential ally to the West. Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh, a Senior Leader in the Brotherhood and the Secretary-General of the Arab Medical Union, wrote on February 9, 2011, in a Washington Post article entitled “Democracy supporters should not fear the Brotherhood.” He stressed in his report that “the West and the Brotherhood are not enemies” and that they seek Americans’ support to pursue a democratic process.

The people of Egypt will decide their representatives, their form of democratic government, and Islam’s role in their lives. For now, as we verge on national liberation from tyranny, Egyptians in Tahrir ‘Freedom’ Square and all over the country are hoping Americans will stand by them in this crucial hour (Abou El-Fotouh, 2011)

He also affirmed that the Brotherhood would respect all the treaties signed by the old regime, implicitly referring to the peace agreements signed with Israel. As they condemned Sisi’s call to expand the peace process with Israel and called him a traitor, they asserted their respect for the peace agreement with Israel.

Our responsibility and moderation track record is a hallmark of our political credentials, and we will build on them. For instance, it is our position that any future government we may be a part of will respect all treaty obligations made in the interests of the Egyptian people (Abou El-Fotouh, 2011).

In practice, the Brotherhood itself has had an ambiguous relationship with Israel. When the Brotherhood arrived at the helm of power, Morsi vowed to respect the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979 (Blomfield, 2012; Greenberg, 2012). At the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, days after Morsi’s election, Israeli President, Shimon Peres, sent a greeting to Morsi. In his response, Morsi pledged to work to keep Middle East peace efforts on track.

I am looking forward to exerting our best efforts to get the Middle East peace process back on its proper track to achieve security and stability for all region people, including the Israeli people (Morsi, as quoted in the news report of Greenberg, 2012).

Notably, Morsi was lauded internationally for brokering the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas during the war that erupted in November 2012. He brokered the peace deal between them and was respected by both sides. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Morsi:

I want to thank President Morsi for his leadership to de-escalate the situation in Gaza and ending the violence. This is a critical moment for the region. Egypt’s new government assumes the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone of regional stability and peace (Clinton, as quoted in Ninan & Hughes, 2012).

Thus, for the brief period, they were in power, there was much continuity with the Mubarak presidency in the Brotherhood’s approach to Israel. Arguably then, Anti-Zionism is just a communication tactic deployed by movements in their quest for legitimacy and states in the Middle East to acquire people’s compliance, gain their support, smear their rivals’ reputations, and delegitimize them. The Brotherhood links the Sisi regime directly with Zionism and sometimes with colonialism and foreign powers to disgrace and delegitimize it in the eyes of the people. For example:

Indeed, when treasonous spies, and agents of foreign powers, hold on trial the honest and patriotic people of this country, this is an unacceptable fall. This injustice will not last long before the growing revolutionary tide is witnessed in streets and squares across Egypt (Brotherhood, 2015c).

In another cartoon, Sisi was portrayed as a trivial scarecrow in army apparel as Israeli warplanes flew over the Sinai, failing to lift a finger in response to the violation of the Egyptian territories’ borders. On February 21, 2017, the Brotherhood published a caricature on its website, Egypt Window, to mock Sisi after an Israeli drone killed four jihadists from the ISIS Sinai Provision. The Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, stated that Israel was behind the drone strike in an apparent response to four rockets fired by ISIS earlier the same month at the resort city of Eilat by the Red Sea. The cartoon’s Arabic words read Lieberman: confess responsibility for Sinai strikes. See Figure 4 that was reprinted from EgyptWindow (2017).

Figure 4.

From Cartoon: Lieberman admits responsibility for the Sinai raids, by editorial team, 2017, Egypt Window (https://old.egyptwindow.net/index.php/article/29931/). Copyright 2017 by Alaa Allagta. Reprinted with permission.

As a second example, in a statement entitled “Patriotism between Fact and Allegation,” they claim that they are real patriots and love the country more than others, accusing the regime of helping the Zionists.

Under the banner of protecting National Security, the Putschists exposed the nation’s back to the Zionist enemy, cooperating with the enemy! Has Egyptian history ever known such an absurd situation? (Brotherhood, 2014a, Paragraph 18)

The Brothers explain how the prophet Mohammed loved Mecca, his homeland, and that they followed his steps. In contrast, they accuse the regime of betraying their country and the people who sacrificed their lives for its independence by allying with a historical enemy. According to the Brotherhood, the only solution is that the people get rid of this regime if they want the country to flourish.

We face a coup that feuds with its people and homeland and befriends its enemies. Thus, this country will not progress until this fascist coup is brought down and its leaders are subjected to just retribution (Brotherhood, 2014a, Paragraph 19).

In many statements, the Brotherhood conveys the theme, “we are more Egyptian than the regime.” On February 28, 2015, the Egyptian Court of Urgent Matters designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood relayed this as an adoption of the Zionism vision and plan, portraying the regime as merely an agent that executes Zionist orders.

The disgraceful verdict was not issued against “Hamas,” which upholds the honor of the nation and its identity but is a damning verdict that proves the Putschists are betraying the Egyptians, against the Palestinian Cause, and merely implementing the Zionist enemy’s orders and adopting its vision and agenda (Brotherhood, 2015d, paragraph 2).

On March 28, 2017, the movement issued a statement to address the 28th regular Arab League summit held at the King Hussein bin Talal Convention Centre in the Dead Sea area of Jordan, with kings, presidents, princes, and heads of Arab delegations participating. The summit’s goal was to discuss the Palestinian issue, the situation in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and terrorism. Unlike the Brotherhood’s usual discourse, for the first time, the movement used the phrase “state of Israel” instead of “the Zionists” (Brotherhood, 2017). This discursive transition is undoubtedly an issue that requires further investigation by other scholars. However, the Brotherhood’s strategy of linking its rivals with Zionism and Colonization is a propaganda device to damage the image of its political counterparts and discredit them in the eyes of the people.

The power of this strategy stems from its appeal to the hate and fear propensity toward two groups inextricably linked in people’s minds and hearts with bloodshed and traumatic memories. In the meantime, the Brotherhood presents itself as a ubiquitous force and a populist alternative to its rivals, especially to the Egyptian regime, which frequently suffered armed defeats by Israel and is now presented as a tool in the hands of the Zionists.

Negative Stereotyping of the Regime and Its Institutions

It is another strategy that the Brotherhood uses to discredit its rivals in the eyes of the public. Using this strategy, the movement seek to assign attributes to the state that can easily be prompted when the Egyptian incumbent regime or its institutions are mentioned, as in the following examples:

President Sisi is a traitor.

The Egyptian military regime is dictatorial.

The Egyptian Judiciary system is oppressive.

The Egyptian media is misleading.

Pro-regime Clerics are hypocrites.

After its ousting in 2013, the Brotherhood began to focus on portraying the regime, its leadership, and its institutions as corrupt and illegal. Thus, what comes from such corruption is considered unacceptable. See Table 1 for the complete stereotypes and frequencies.

Table 1.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Portrayal of the Regime and its Institutions.

The institution	Portrayal	Frequencies
President Sisi
	The mass-murderer (Sarah and mujrim)	89
	The Putschists leader	51
	Traitor	49
	Contempt for democracy	29
	Liar	19
	Perverse (munharif)	14
	Corrupt (fasid)	14
	Unjust (zalim)	13
	Loser (fashil)	8
	Terrorist (’iirhabi)	8
The incumbent regime led by Sisi
	Criminals	82
	Dictatorial	63
	Tool at the hand of colonization and Zionism	61
	Disingenuous	54
	Fascists	49
	Corrupt	46
	Has no value for the Egyptian’s souls	46
	Terrorists	46
	Against the constitutional legitimacy	44
	Liars	43
	Illegal	40
	They are looking for vested interests	40
	Gang	38
	Traitors	29
	Losers	25
	Against human rights	25
	Thieves	24
	The people’s enemy	12
Judiciary System
	Tool at the hand of Putschists	34
	Corrupt	32
	Oppressive	20
Media
	Misleading	32
	Tool at the hand of Putschists	21
	Hypocrites	6
Pro-authority Clerics
	Hypocrites	11

The movement attempted to convey that Sisi was a dictator and a bloodstained authoritarian leader. As one of many examples, on July 1, 2015, Egyptian forces killed 13 Brotherhood members in Cairo. The Brotherhood claimed that these men were arrested and executed in cold blood by “criminal bandits affiliated with the traitor coup perpetrator.”

The group stresses that its martyrs, assassinated by the treacherous coup commander’s criminal militias, had been detained inside a house and then killed in cold blood without any investigations or charges. Thus, Egypt is transformed into a state of outlaw gangs. The Brotherhood denounces violence and murder in the Sinai and elsewhere. It holds the criminal Sisi and his gang fully responsible for these crimes […]. The assassination of Egypt’s finest men, such as […], pushes the situation onto a dangerous curve and makes the entire scene highly volatile. This reminds the whole world of its responsibility toward the crisis into which Egypt is being forced, as plotted by the heinous murderer Sisi. The criminal Sisi did not stop dragging the homeland toward a fateful end by issuing fascist laws to facilitate mass executions […] (Brotherhood, 2015a).

The Brotherhood also portrayed and accused President Abdel-Fattah Sisi of being a traitor. The theme appeared in the group’s narrative 49 times. In the past, such allegations posed a severe threat to the state. For example, President Anwar el-Sadat was branded a traitor and later assassinated (Agdemir, 2016). The Brotherhood’s comics even framed him as the “Cohen of Egypt,” as in Figure 5 that was obtained from fj-p.net (2017).

Figure 5.

An example of the Brotherhood’s portrayal of Sisi as the “Cohen of Egypt.” From Is Sisi sweeping the fame of the spy “Eli Cohen”?, by Sayed Tokal, 2017, Freedom and Justice Gate (https://fj-p.net/44235/). Copyright 2017 by Freedom and Justice Gate. Reprinted with permission.

Eli Cohen was an Israeli Mossad spy best recognized for his espionage mission from 1961 to 1965 in Syria. He established close ties with the political and military hierarchy and became the Chief Adviser to the Minister of Defense. For years, Cohen impersonated a wealthy businessman named Amin Thabit. Before he was uncovered, the information he provided to Israeli intelligence had significantly influenced Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War of 1967. Syrian counterintelligence division revealed Cohen and condemned him under pre-war martial law, sentencing him to death. He was executed in Marja Square of Damascus (Freedom and Justice Gate, 2017). Such stereotyping of Sisi could echo in Egypt, where Cohen is notorious for establishing an espionage cell inside Egypt. He was born in Alexandria on December 26, 1924, to a Jewish family. He is also known as the alias “John Darling,” responsible for a terrorist cell that had targeted American and Western installations in Cairo and Alexandria to damage ties between Egypt and other powers (Sayed, 2018).

Another stereotype associated with the regime is that of thieves. This is particularly poignant in a society where the poverty rate is high and the cost of living has dramatically increased since the overthrow of Mubarak. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics of Egypt, 27.8% of Egyptians live in extreme poverty, reaching up to 50% in the governorates of Upper Egypt (CAPMAS, 2015). The Brotherhood portrays the regime as “thieves” who “seek personal interests.” This theme is found 40 times in the analyzed statements.

The Egyptian people refuse to be ruled by a group of thieves and vampires who are unscrupulous and ill-mannered (Brotherhood, 2015b, paragraph 1).

They are just a group of military men who want to enslave people, rule them with an iron fist and firepower and take over all of the state’s resources for their benefit […] (Brotherhood, 2013b, paragraph 5).

The Brotherhood reinforced this idea in different forms of communication. The caricature has played an important role in depicting Sisi and his regime as corrupt. See for example Figure 6 that was published on fj-p.biz (2020). It depicts Sisi in army apparel as bloated, holding a banner with the phrase “we starve for Egypt” while feeding a piece of meat to an eagle representing the Egyptian military. On the other hand, starving Egyptians appear like skeletons carrying Sisi on their shoulders, and predators ravage those Egyptians. The predators are unemployment, corruption, poverty, high prices, and tourism crises.

Figure 6.

A cartoon depicting Sisi as starving the Egyptian people. From In 3 catastrophic scenarios, the coup government expects 12.5 million citizens to fall below the poverty line!, by Walid El-Shazly, 2020, Freedom and Justice Gate (https://fj-p.biz/311843/). Copyright 2020 by Aljazeera.net. Reprinted with permission.

The above discussion shows that the Brotherhood has implemented a strategy to stereotype the regime with negative labels to advance the strategic goal of discrediting and delegitimizing the regime. Taking into account negative campaigning and social movement theory, it can be argued that stereotyping aimed at leading people to view the Egyptian regime as aggressive, criminal, corrupt, traitor, oppressive, misleading, dictatorial, a tool at the hand of colonization and Zionism, has no values for the Egyptians souls, and the people’s enemy. The goal of serotyping here is to discredit the Egyptian regime and its institutions in the eyes of the public and demobilize them. Using this strategy, the movement seek to assign attributes to the regime that can easily be prompted when the Egyptian regime or its institutions are mentioned.

Conclusion

Based on two concepts of social movement theory, legitimacy, and strategic framing, this article sought to analyze the Brotherhood’s negative communication and present the key strategies they deployed to advance their goal of delegitimizing and discrediting the regime ousted President Morsi. The study suggests that the movement conducted a negative campaign that sought to intentionally damage and call into question the regime’s image, credibility, and reputation. This negative communication campaign deliberately framed the Brotherhood’s opponents as foolish, irresponsible, disconnected, and evil to present themselves as a more desirable alternative. This finding is consistent with that of Samoilenko and Icks (2016). They argue that the efforts of negative campaigning aim at winning advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or a policy, emphasizing their negative attributes or damaging policies.

The Brotherhood’s negative campaign comprised many undermining strategies: exposing the regime’s wrongdoing, linking the incumbent regime with Zionism, and stereotyping the government and its institutions with corruption. The Brotherhood attempts to inflict hatred in the audience’s hearts toward the regime through such strategies. Some of the movement’s harmful campaign elements lack an evidential foundation that qualifies them as smear techniques, whereas others have historical, cultural, and contemporary resonance. However, scholars such as Fridkin and Kenney (2004), Kahn and Kenney (1999), Kaid and Johnston (1991), Lau et al. (1999), Nai et al. (2022), Seeberg and Nai (2021), Verhulsdonk et al. (2022) have concluded that negative campaigns are often effective.

The Brotherhood’s verbal and visual media framed their opponents as “untrustworthy” and “unreliable” to frame themselves as a more desirable alternative and as the legitimate representatives of an “authentic” Egyptian cultural identity. Social movements often construct themselves as authentic representatives of their national culture through discursive strategies highlighting the negative qualities of rivals and questioning their achievements and performance (Gentile, 2009; Zheng, 2011).

Moreover, the findings from this study show that social movement theory’s concept of legitimacy is a critical moral resource for the Brotherhood and has been central to the Brotherhood’s political communication strategy. This moral resource is imperative for understanding why social movements conduct smear or negative campaigns since such campaigns frequently revolve around this concept. This contribution emphasizes the finding of Hudson (1977), who described legitimacy as an “indispensable political resource” for Islamist movements (p. 2). It also advances the work of scholars who highlight the role of the lack of this resource in undermining governments, such as Milton-Edwards (2016) and Haddad (1992).

Finally, this article has shown that social movement theory’s concept of strategic framing has been deployed as a technique to demobilize antagonists. Strategic framing is crucial for understanding how negative campaigns of Islamist social movements attempt to frame their rivals and how they present them to the public at the national, regional, and international levels. Given social movement theory, the Brotherhood uses strategic framing to raise doubts about the regime’s authenticity and sincerity. Hence, strategic framing can be a crucial part of negative campaigning to delegitimize political rivals. This finding has important implications for advancing our understanding of strategic framing as a technique to demobilize antagonists, contrary to the conventional wisdom that previews strategic framing as a method to mobilize proponents.

A further study could assess whether exposing the incumbent regime’s abusive practices will discredit and delegitimize the government in the eyes of the public and increase the number of sympathizers with the Brotherhood. Such a proposed study could use in-depth interviews with political communication and public relations experts or an experimental research design with pre and post-tests in which the experimental group receives some Brotherhood statements and reads them. In contrast, the control group is not exposed to the independent variable under investigation, providing a baseline against which any transformations in the experimental group’s ideas about the incumbent regime and the Brothers can be compared.

Footnotes

Appendices

Translation of Figure A1.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Moeen Koa

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