Paper short abstract:

How are grassroots initiatives affected by political changes? This paper tracks grassroots initiatives in ‎‎(rural and urban) Egypt over time to identify the factors that affect the success, sustainability and ‎scaling up potential of these initiatives - in a period of rapid political transition. ‎

Paper long abstract:

How resilient are grassroots-initiatives at times of rapid political transition? To date there have been ‎very few grounded studies exploring the impacts of political transitions on grassroots initiatives in ‎deprived communities. Building on data collected pre- and post- Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, this ‎paper analyses and compares the dynamics of grassroots initiatives in three field sites: (1) Cairo ‎‎(Manshiet Nasser informal settlement), (2) Lower Egypt (Tafahna Al Ashraf village) and (3) Upper Egypt ‎‎(rural villages in Menia). Through interviews with self-help activists; state officials and local community ‎members; the paper tracks the changes in these three grassroots-initiatives over a ten year period. The ‎analysis seeks to identify the institutional factors that affected the success (or failure) of these ‎grassroots initiatives over time. It examines the ways in which these initiatives sought to address ‎structural inequalities and induce local institutional change in rural and urban contexts. The research ‎also examines the roles of the state, NGOs, donor agencies and local communities in initiating and ‎supporting these grassroots initiatives. Using a new model of grassroots-led development that builds ‎on three inter-related 3C-processes, namely (1) conscientization; (2) conciliation and (3) collaboration; ‎the paper explains the reasons for the success or failure of these initiatives and explains how their ‎institutional resilience affected their sustainability and scaling-up potential. The originality of this ‎research lies in linking the individual, collective and institutional levels of analyses and in tracking ‎changes in grassroots initiatives over time and during a turbulent phase of Egypt's political transition.‎