Hybrid regimes and narrative legitimacy during economic crises: Resiliency narratives of Egypt’s economic crisis

Abstract

This study advances a theory of resiliency narratives to hybrid regimes by proposing a continuum mapping a democratic, hybrid and modern authoritarian narrative structure based on its directionality and informational content during economic crises. Using Egypt’s 2016 economic crisis as a case study, we examine Egyptian and Russian native language media reporting. The results show that Egyptian media provide coherent narratives of economic resiliency devoid of ideological messaging, with attribution of blame placed on domestic causes more than international, providing support to the hybrid regimes’ differentiated narrative structures.

Keywords

Economic crisis Egypt global media hybrid regimes international communication legitimacy resiliency Russia strategic narratives

The pervasiveness of media and media consumption across much of today’s global society places it at the forefront of disseminating key information on local and global economies. This is especially true during economic crises when government and institutional legitimacy is at stake. Not only can media coverage of economic crises have a greater impact on public perceptions than the material realities of the economy itself (Boomgaarden et al., 2011; Goidel and Langley, 1995; Haller and Norpoth, 1997; Soroka et al., 2015), but effective government messaging can help increase the efficacy of leaders’ monetary policies (Binder, 2017). Thus, during an economic crisis, the role of media is accentuated and critical to how citizens come to make sense of the crisis, including the steps taken in response by their government (Quiring and Weber, 2012).

However, research suggests that media coverage of economic crises function differently in authoritarian and democratic countries. In Western democratic contexts, studies find the media framing economic crises by relying on elites for information while legitimizing neoliberal policy responses (Berry, 2016; Damstra and Vliegenthart, 2018; Mercille, 2014). In more authoritarian-leaning states, scholars argue the media legitimizes the state by reinforcing the ideological foundations of the ruling party, placing emphasis on the charismatic nature of leaders, and redirecting blame to outside forces threatening the nation (Cooley and Stokes, 2018; Dukalskis, 2017; Hill and Gaddy, 2015; Hinck et al., 2018b; Lamberova and Treisman, 2020; Mazepus et al., 2016; Stockmann and Gallagher, 2011). In both cases, then, ideological concerns are present, which James and Steger (2014) define as the ‘patterned clusters of normatively imbued ideas and concepts, including particular representations of power relations’ which provide ‘conceptual maps [that] help people navigate the complexity of their political universe and carry claims to social truth’ (p. 423). In times of crisis, the ideological beliefs of a country play important roles in shaping their perceptions of what or who is to blame and why.

Less studied by communication research are nations falling in between – those known as hybrid regimes which exhibit characteristics of both democratic and autocratic leadership. Not only is communication-related scholarship on how hybrid regimes use media to respond to economic crises vastly understudied, but, as Mazepus et al. (2016) argue, the strategies by which hybrid regimes attempt to bolster domestic legitimacy has often been neglected as well.

Understanding how hybrid regimes, and their media reporting, respond to economic crises is a particularly useful site for study in that the normative power driving hybrid regime legitimacy is in limbo, and thereby reliant on effective communication messaging to maintain power. As Schulmann (2014) explains, hybrid states are unique in that they must highlight a ritual performance of democracy while depicting absolute authority, both of which do not actually exist in the reality of the state. The result is a balancing act whereby the hybrid state must maintain a passive population with the appearance of democratic performance, while ensuring the irrevocability of state power with as little violence as possible.

To understand how this balancing act unfolds, specifically as it relates to the role of the media in bolstering state legitimacy during an economic crisis, this study advances a theory of resiliency narratives as a theoretical extension of Cooley and Stokes (2018) resiliency narrative framework to hybrid regimes. From their analysis of Russian web and broadcast media during Russia’s 2014–2015 economic crisis, Cooley and Stokes (2018) concluded that authoritarian-leaning states make their case for legitimacy during economic crises by manufacturing resilience narratives that weave together a cogent ideological framework to stakeholders. This stands in contrast, however, to studies claiming that leaders in hybrid regimes prefer a rhetoric of economic performance and provision of public services mimicking that of democratic governance over overt ideological messages (Guriev and Treisman, 2019). To clarify the nature of resiliency narratives in hybrid regimes, we propose a continuum mapping democratic, hybrid and modern authoritarian narrative content based on the directionality and informational content of media reporting during economic crises. Thus, this study makes theoretical contributions regarding how hybrid regimes maintain domestic support and also explores the efficacy of resiliency narrative coherence during economic crises.

News media and economic crisis

News coverage of economic crises have been studied in a variety of contexts, including the Netherlands (Damstra and Vliegenthart, 2018), Germany (Quiring and Weber, 2012), the UK (Berry, 2016), Ireland (Cawley, 2012; Mercille, 2014), Italy (Alberti and Hollihan, 2014), Egypt (Tawfik, 2018), Russia (Cooley and Stokes, 2018), Greece (Mylonas, 2014) and Cyprus (Katsourides, 2016). Within these contexts, news media is argued to serve as a key source of information for citizenry to understand and make sense of the extent of a crisis, steps the government is taking in response, and legitimation of the actions and positions of those in power.

Media coverage of economic crises significantly implicate government legitimacy and public support of policies. According to Quiring and Weber (2012), ‘The question of the effectiveness and legitimacy of governmental attempts to influence a nation’s economy is most relevant in times when economic growth is weak or negative’ (p. 311). Indeed, effective government messaging can increase the efficacy of monetary policy by influencing public anticipation and behaviour (Binder, 2017). Tawfik (2018) adds that without public outreach, government policy is unlikely to succeed in stabilizing macroeconomic performance. Media in essence airs the public performance and response to a crisis for the public to consume and consider.

While media coverage can help legitimize government policy during economic crises (Berry, 2016; Quiring and Weber, 2012), studies find it does so, at least in the context of Western democracies, by presenting a limited range of opinion. Here research finds media framing reliant on elites subsequently downplaying the everyday concerns of working-class people and supporting a neo-liberal ideology (Berry, 2016; Damstra and Vliegenthart, 2018; Mercille, 2014; Mylonas, 2014). As Damstra and Vliegenthart (2018) found, despite media outlets’ variety in readership, Dutch news similarly framed the Netherlands’ economic crisis in ways limiting critical perspectives on policy debates through reliance on elite sources. As such, the framing of the economic crisis was driven not by objective economic indicators but by key events over time, with the economic suffering of individual people not receiving significant attention. Similar results were found in the UK (Berry, 2016) and Ireland (Mercille, 2014).

Although media coverage can, at times, create public backing for government policies, it can also undermine social cohesion. As Cawley (2012) found, Irish print media framed their economic crisis by emphasizing division, opposition and competing economic and social interests; these framing mechanisms weakened perceptions of social cohesion and common interests. Likewise, Alberti and Hollihan (2014) argue that mediated accounts of fears stemming from the European debt crisis revealed the inadequacy of institutional frameworks to end the panic. These fears challenged the authority of national and EU leaders to protect the interests of their citizens. The result was a fuelling, rather than a containment, of market panics, negatively impacting public trust and confidence in government institutions.

Social stability and informational control in authoritarian and hybrid media

Authoritarian-leaning nations understand well the implication of economic fears arising from social instability during economic crises. As Huntington (1991) noted, the survival and legitimacy of authoritarian regimes depend heavily on their economic performance. Likewise, Shih (2020) argues that economic shocks pose significant risks to authoritarian regimes.

Recognizing the importance of media in managing social stability, over the past decade, authoritarian-leaning countries have taken considerable steps to strengthen control over their media systems. For instance, Chinese media employs a variety of influence tactics to maintain social cohesion and support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including policies promoting self-censorship, positive framing techniques, information manipulation, and ideotainment (Chen and Xu, 2017; Stockmann, 2013) as well as strategically managing relationships with critical journalists (Repnikova, 2017). Additionally, through aspirational narratives such as the ‘China Dream’, Chinese media attributes its economic success to CCP leadership while warning that foreign forces threaten future growth (Hinck et al., 2018b). Similarly, under President Vladimir Putin, the Russian state has re-exerted control over the state media (Hinck et al., 2018a; Oates, 2016), with significant attention paid to bolstering information control online (Maréchal, 2017). The Russian state media has also invested in strategic publicity campaigns to enhance Putin’s charismatic leadership (Hill and Gaddy, 2015), and in times of domestic and economic crisis, shifted its foreign policy discourse in opposition to the US (Stoner and McFaul, 2015).

The perceived success of authoritarian policies in maintaining social stability has led to the spread of authoritarian practices globally (Diamond et al., 2016). According to Freedom House, there are fewer democracies in Central and Eastern Europe today than at any point since Freedom House launched its annual report back in 1995 (Csaky, 2020). The report notes that Central and Eastern European leaders have not only openly attacked democratic institutions, but are also ‘dropping even the pretence of playing by the rules of democracy’. However, most research suggests hybrid regimes still rely on some democratic practices, or at least the illusion of them, to maintain their legitimacy (Finkel and Brudny, 2012; Gerschewski, 2013).

As Guriev and Treisman (2019) argue, modern autocrats have adopted a new rhetorical style that employs a softer form of control through informational manipulation. That is, rather than terrorizing or forcibly indoctrinating the population, rulers survive by leading citizens to believe that they are competent and public-spirited. This leads to a preference for an informational rhetoric of economic performance with a focus on providing public services that resemble democratic leadership. These public performances allow authoritarian-leaning leaders to increasingly mimic the structured shell of democracy, even holding elections.

Although the ability to manipulate information may be important for authoritarian regimes, the nature of today’s globally connected digital communication technologies can inhibit their ability to do so. According to Rozenas and Stukal (2019), despite being able to manipulate much of the news media, the autocrat’s ability to censor economic information is significantly more limited. Citizens are able to benchmark news against their own incomes, prices of goods and services, and have exposure to outside information on global economic indicators. Thus, rather than attempting to manipulate poor economic data, authoritarian-leaning regimes attribute good economic performance to their own management and scapegoat external factors or others for poor performance. This process of selective attribution increases as political sensitivities increase and as economic slowdowns and income inequalities permeate through authoritarian-leaning regimes. In the next section, we argue that the key to understanding how hybrid regimes enact this selective attribution process, while maintaining information control, is through media narratives that deliver a compelling story aligning with their audiences’ perceived realities.

Resiliency narratives

Within international media studies, the concept of strategic narratives has been used increasingly by communication scholars. According to Miskimmon et al. (2013), strategic narratives are ‘a means for political actors to construct a shared meaning of the past, present and future of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors’ (p. 2). While much has been written on how strategic narratives shape a nation’s international security environment, less attention has been paid to how they are used to bolster domestic support. One model that does so is that of resiliency narratives.

According to Cooley and Stokes (2018), resiliency narratives ‘are the means by which stakeholders (i.e. citizens) collectively understand their relationship and the collaborative work needed in order to anticipate risk, limit impact and adapt to change’ (p. 129). Within Somers and Gibson’s (1994) four-part narrative typology, resiliency narratives fall within the public narrative category or those put forth by, and circulated among, social institutions within a given society. Accordingly, public narratives must be drawn from within the constructs and confines of the society itself in order to be effective. This is an important consideration when discussing hybrid regimes in that the limbo-like nature of the hybrid state allows for greater flexibility in narrative creation, but also creates greater risk for narratives to fail in their efforts.

Resiliency narratives are comprised of four components: the ability to limit the impact of the crisis; the ability to recover quickly through survival and evolution; the ability to grow in the face of rapid change; and the capability to anticipate risk (Cooley and Stokes, 2018). When these components cohere, they contribute to the state’s maintenance of power by creating ‘the illusion of system resilience to their citizens in order to prevent uprising and potential collapse during a crisis’ (p. 129). In the context of nations with strong state media relations, resiliency narratives can form the strategic backbone of attempts at Rozenas and Stukal’s (2019) notion of selective attribution: a formulaic, narrative delivery of casting blame on others and praise on self during an economic crisis with the aim of preserving the legitimacy and the empowering of state ideology.

More specifically, in their analysis of Russian resiliency narratives during its 2014–2015 economic crisis, Cooley and Stokes (2018) found state media weaving an ideological narrative whereby Russia’s resilience was depicted within a larger global economic crisis caused by Western economic failures, with the US shown as intentionally attempting to marginalize Russia. Accordingly, despite this scene of global economic crisis, the Russian state and people were shown as resourceful, strong and proactive enough to overcome these challenges in pursuit of a new global economic order, and thus reminded of their great power status. From this, citizens were given a narrative framework to envision paths of personal economic growth despite the difficult external economic conditions.

Whether this process maps onto hybrid regimes is less clear. While the categorization of hybrid regimes remains problematic (Mazepus et al., 2016), with some even defining Russia as a hybrid regime as it holds elections, one key difference in Russian media’s economic reporting is its ideological tone, directing blame on outside forces rather than domestic leadership. In this regard, Russian media narratives appear more akin to those found in Chinese media, which also includes ideological components and warns that foreign forces are poised to undermine China’s economic growth (Hinck et al., 2018b). In both cases, Russian and Chinese media messages stand in contrast to Guriev and Treisman’s (2019) claim that hybrid regimes avoid overt ideological messaging while also supporting Diamond et al.’s (2016) classification of Russia as one of the ‘big five’ authoritarian nations along with China.

On the other end of the spectrum are media practices in democratic countries. According to Easton (1975), legitimacy in democratic governments is based on shared ideas and procedures assuring the representation of citizens’ interests. In Western democracies, media reporting on economic crises generally direct questions inward to government officials or note abuses by free market actors’ pecuniary greed. While ideology may still be present, such as support for continued neoliberal economic policies (Berry, 2016; Damstra and Vliegenthart, 2018), such messaging is far more implicit. This is not to say that democratic systems are completely devoid of placing blame on foreign audiences. Indeed, the presidency of Donald Trump in the US witnessed numerous aspersions thrown at China first during bilateral trade negotiations and later during the economic shutdown from the spread of COVID-19. This messaging, however, was criticized within the US media with media commentators and academics alike terming such behaviour to be dangerously courting authoritarian impulses and in contrast to democratic values, providing further anecdotal support for differences between democratic and authoritarian news norms.

For hybrid regimes falling in between democratic and authoritarian systems, narratives of resilience appear especially useful as a rhetorical tool to maintain the legitimacy of the state. For hybrid states, a narrative balance must be struck in depicting internal resiliency and confirming the leadership’s competency while simultaneously avoiding overt propaganda by instead taking on a more informational tone (Guriev and Treisman, 2019). Furthermore, as hybrid regimes attempt to mimic democratic governance, one might expect their media reporting of economic crises to likewise more closely reflect the practices of more democratic nations, including blame directed at government officials.

Regardless of where one falls, for resiliency narratives to be effective in achieving their goals of selective attribution, they should possess narrative coherence and fidelity (Fisher, 1987). First, fidelity refers to how well stories fit within the other observations, accounts and past experiences of audiences in reference to the narrative subject. In other words, fidelity is driven by the extent to which the story ‘rings true’ to its audience. Here we propose that Cooley and Stokes (2018) findings of fidelity within Russian resiliency narratives can be understood as reflective of more authoritarian-leaning practices which shifted blame towards outside actors rather than internal ones, relying on ideological components to do so. In contrast, as suggested by Guriev and Treisman (2019), fidelity in hybrid regimes should come in the form of more information-driven narratives depicting the government as addressing its economic problems with some measure of success, thereby demonstrating their provision of public goods.

Second, narrative coherence is the degree to which a story makes sense internally. Coherent narratives are those that provide consistent and expected plotlines, sufficient detail and strong characters. Importantly, audiences assess coherence by comparing it to other stories. While Cooley and Stokes (2018) qualitatively assessed the coherence of Russian resiliency narratives, focussing on the mutually constitutive plotlines and characters presented, this study attempts to advance the resiliency narrative framework by quantifying coherence through measuring the correlations among the underlying structure and presentation of the four resiliency narrative components. In this case, effective resiliency narratives would be those with strong correlations among the four components sustained over time.

Taken together, we propose a continuum of democratic to authoritarian media reporting of economic crises (Table 1).

Table 1.

News reporting of economic crisis by regime type.

	Democracies	Hybrid regimes	Modern authoritarian-leaning nations
Attribution	Internal: Blame on government leadership or domestic agents	Internal: Recognition of domestic problems but avoid blaming government leadership	External: Blame on foreign forces causing economic troubles
Ideology	Tacit support for neoliberal policies	Managerial focus demonstrating administrative competence of government	Overt support for leader or party in power

While the continuum provided above represents a theoretically ‘neat’ categorization of media practices among regime types, it’s important to note that political realities on the ground are often more messy than portrayed by academic models. Indeed, political systems are not static but in flux, as states evolve and respond to sociological and cultural changes as well as external and internal political shocks. Nonetheless, from a theory-building perspective, charting such dynamics lays the foundation for clearer comparative analyses. Thus, comparative analysis – like that attempted in this study – may trade deeper historical-contextual analysis for broader generalizable findings, and, in doing so, enable researchers to track how various political regimes transition between systems. In this sense, the model provided above is best used to benchmark shifting communication dynamics as states move along the continuum towards more democratic or authoritarian tendencies, while recognizing that some overlap is likely.

Case study

To test our model of hybrid resiliency narratives, we analysed media reporting on Egypt’s acute foreign exchange crisis in mid-2016. Admittedly, categorizing Egypt as a hybrid versus authoritarian-leaning regime is somewhat problematic in that Egypt’s political dynamics have been in flux for some time now. As Shehata (2018) explains, under the leadership of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, Egypt exhibited a ‘post-populist or hybrid authoritarianism’ system of governance, with the Egyptian state managing this ‘hybrid formula’ by balancing populist policies with ‘selective liberalization/repression, divide-and-rule strategies, access to external rents, and to extensive borrowing externally and internally’ (p. 105). However, this balancing act unravelled in Mubarak’s final years as the state became increasingly dependent on taxation for government revenue, and a new urban middle class emerged that aspired to greater political and economic independence along with a more assertive civil society and independent media. At the same time, declining social spending enabled Islamic actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi movement to establish a network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and mosques providing educational and health services to the lower middle class and poor. The system finally reached its breaking point during the Arab Spring when Egyptians mobilized in mass protests to force Mubarak out of office in 2011.

What followed, however, was considered as a failed transition to democracy (Shehata, 2018). The elections held in 2012 brought the Muslim Brotherhood into power, but in doing so, sparked a social crisis leading to extrajudicial rejection of the Islamist agenda as upper class, as secular Egyptians joined forces with women and the state bureaucracy to support the military overthrow of Egypt’s first elected president in July 2013. Although, initially, the US denounced Egyptian efforts to overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood, even suspending economic and military assistance (Sharp, 2013), after Field Marshal Adbel Fattah al-Sisi’a election in 2014, the US unlocked its military aid and supported the regime (BBC, 2014). Al-Sisi’s presidency then began what Shehata (2018) argues was a transition towards bureaucratic authoritarianism.

Indeed, during al-Sisi’s initial years in office, Egyptian authorities cracked down on civil society actors, constricting control of basic freedoms by arresting political opponents and invoking national security concerns to muzzle dissent (Human Rights Watch, 2015). Such actions have intensified during al-Sisi’s presidency with Egypt’s World Press Freedom ranking slowly declining from 159 in 2014 to 166 in 2021 (Reporters without Borders, 2014, 2021). Egypt held elections in 2018 and al-Sisi was re-elected with over 90 per cent of the votes; the election featured only one other candidate, ‘an ardent Sisi supporter’, with all serious oppositional contenders halting their campaigns months before the election, citing intimidation (Davison and Tolba, 2018).

While al-Sisi’s rise to power suggests that Egypt is moving from a hybrid to a more authoritarian state, Arafat (2018) maintains that Egypt presents ‘an ambiguous model’ (p. 221). While he admits that there exists much ‘debate over whether it should be labelled an authoritarian or hybrid regime’ (p. 221), he agrees with Gilbert and Mohseni’s (2011) characterization of Egypt as representing a destabilized hybrid regime. As Gilbert and Mohseni explain, Egypt’s complex system of repression and perpetual control alongside democratic institutions and expansion of civil society suggests that it does not fit either the authoritarian-type political situation or a diminished subtype of authoritarianism. However, al-Sisi’s attempts to crack down on Egyptian civil society today may challenge Gilbert and Mohseni’s (2011) previous categorization.

Nonetheless, more recently, Mirshak (2019) analyses Egyptian resistance to al-Sisi and argues that despite the repressive capabilities of the Egyptian state, these capabilities are not absolute and remain contestable across multiple fronts. As such, Mirkash warns that emphasizing authoritarian developments in Egypt today downplays the still substantial growth of civil society organizations, including movements advocating for democratic and social change, defence of human rights, and challenging Egypt’s system of economic and social inequalities. Mirshak (2019) therefore keeps Egypt in the hybrid category in that it still allows for multiparty elections and includes a formal political system and parliament in place with limited space for civil society to function with the caveat that such labelling is not intended to demarcate a static categorization of the Egyptian state, but that ‘considering al-Sisi’s regime as lying on a continuum. . .enables us to analyse the constant contestations and shifts that could occur throughout al-Sisi’s tenure’ (p. 708). As Arafat (2018) notes, while Egypt is a long way from being considered a democracy, it still has the potential to do so, given its current position of being in a state of unfinished revolution. Understanding the strategic messaging under the al-Sisi government thus sheds further light on the shifting dynamics of the Egyptian state.

Coinciding with Egypt’s tenuous political situation, over the past decade, Egypt’s economy has suffered multiple economic shocks, including the 2008 global financial crisis, turmoil stemming from the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and an acute foreign exchange crisis in mid-2016 (Momani, 2018). This most recent crisis occurred when, upon taking office, and aiming to appease Egyptian’s social and economic grievances, al-Sisi increased government and social spending (Shehata, 2018). Although immediately following the 2013 coup, the al-Sisi government received substantial economic assistance from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait in an attempt to prevent the spread of a ‘democratic contagion arising from the Arab Spring’ and create a ‘shared ideological front against the Muslim Brotherhood’ (Aftandilian, 2021), the funds were not enough to prevent an economic crisis. Thus, by 2016, declining revenue from Egypt’s tourism sector and fees from the Suez Canal, combined with overvalued exchange rates, led to an Egyptian currency crisis and the rise of a parallel black market exchange rate. These factors then severely undermined private sector investment, leading to large fiscal deficits and high levels of public debt requiring Egypt to sign a US$12 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in November 2016 in exchange for pledging economic reforms and austerity measures (Momani, 2018). Despite undergoing significant structural reforms during this period to facilitate growth, significant challenges remain. Domestically, Egypt still experiences high levels of poverty, unemployment, economic inequality and corruption. As such, Western news outlets and policy experts continue to express concern regarding Egypt’s ability to meet the needs of those mired in poverty and reduce the high unemployment rate among Egyptian youth and women (Hamed, 2019; The Economist, 2019).

The Egyptian media, however, has been more supportive of the regime. As El Issawi and Cammaerts (2016) argue, journalists play a pivotal role in shaping Egypt’s complex and fast-moving political transition. During the Mubarak regime, state control over media was gradually relaxed with the introduction of private media ownership challenging the uniform content of the state. However, ownership eventually fell into the hands of a few wealthy Egyptian businessmen with interests closely linked to those of the state (Attalah and Rizk, 2011). Thus, when the military coup brought al-Sisi into power, journalistic freedom was replaced with a more referential posturing, bringing journalists back in line with the state.

Nonetheless, research on Egyptian media coverage of economic crises suggests some similarities with Western news practices. For instance, Tawfik’s (2018) analysis of local Egyptian media framing of the decision to float its currency in 2016 found news frames consistent across national, partisan and private news outlets. The reported framing depicted the floatation of the pound as an economic necessity, with no viable alternative, and explained it to the public as a requirement to eliminate Egypt’s currency black market and solve its currency crisis. However, this consistency of media frames could also be interpreted as merely reflecting the state’s influence over the media, rather than the mark of a free press openly reporting economic policy.

Thus, to determine how Egyptian media constructed resiliency narratives in response to its 2016 economic crisis, we ask:

RQ1. What is the structure of the resiliency narratives presented in Egyptian media coverage from 2014 to 2019?

RQ2. Are there notable shifts in the resiliency narratives within Egyptian media across time periods?

RQ3. How is attribution for the economic crisis assigned in the Egyptian media?

To further clarify the differences between hybrid regimes and more authoritarian-leaning regimes, characterized by ideological elements and directionality of blame, we also compare Russian media’s reporting of Egypt’s economic crisis. Doing so allows for further testing of Egyptian media narratives’ fidelity by comparing the extent to which its reports match those by Russian media.

While Russia exhibits elements of a hybrid regime in that it too holds elections, as Lewis (2020) explains, characterization of Russia as a hybrid regime in the 2010s provided an unsatisfactory description of its political system with Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 intensifying its shift ‘to a fully authoritarian state’ (p. 2). Russia’s authoritarian developments have unfolded at home and abroad in what Maréchal (2017) describes as its pursuit of information dominance through networked authoritarianism, including exportation of distinct technology-driven playbooks for authoritarian rule of which Russia’s low-cost digital disinformation tools have proven especially effective in repressing opposition at home (Polyakova and Meserole, 2019). The state also has an established political ideology labelled ‘Putinism’ (Fish, 2017; Laqueur, 2015; Taylor, 2018). According to Fish (2017), ‘Putinism is a form of autocracy that is conservative, populist, and personalistic’ (p. 61), with this personalist autocratic element resting on an unrestricted one-man rule resulting in the hollowing out of parties, institutions and other individual political actors. Thus, the breadth and reach of Russia’s authoritarianism distinguishes itself from other regimes through its technocratic control of its information space, bolstered by ideological currents pitting Russians citizens against outside, cultural ‘others’ as well as its foreign policy interventions in Ukraine and Syria (Lewis, 2020).

In addition to Russia representing a relatively more authoritarian-leaning case, comparing Russian media narratives to Egypt’s allows for some degree of control in that Cooley and Stokes (2018) have already demonstrated the applicability of the resiliency narrative framework within the framework of Russia media, albeit in a domestic context. Furthermore, as stated previously, Diamond et al. (2016) identify Russia as one of the ‘Big Five’ authoritarian nations dedicated to both spreading authoritarian techniques to like-minded regimes and interested in bolstering fellow illiberal states. Thus, although Russian legitimacy is not at stake in Egypt’s economic crisis, its international interests still are, suggesting it may support Egyptian regime stability.

Indeed, Russia has some vested interest in supporting close ties with the Egyptian government. Presidents Putin and al-Sisi have signed a comprehensive strategic agreement in support of military, political and economic cooperation and agreed to a US$25 billion plan for Russia to build a nuclear power plant in north-western Egypt. The two nations are also negotiating Egypt’s admittance to the Eurasian Economic Union as well as plans for a US$7 billion Russian industrial area in the Suez Canal zone (Maher, 2018).

Despite these interests and because resiliency narratives are primarily intended to create domestic support for a state, we should expect Russian media to less frequently report explicit narratives of Egyptian resilience relative to Egyptian media. Furthermore, if there are differences between Russia as a relatively more authoritarian-leaning nation and Egypt as a relatively more hybrid state – even if one transitioning to a more autocratic polity – we should find some distinctions in Russian media’s reporting of Egypt’s economic crisis relating to the nature of authoritarian versus hybrid narratives of economic resiliency.

Thus, to compare Egyptian media narratives of resilience to Russian reporting of Egypt’s resiliency, we ask:

RQ4. Does Egyptian attribution of the economic crisis differ from Russian attribution?

RQ5. How does Russian media coverage converge with Egyptian reporting on Egypt’s economic crisis?

Method

The study employed quantitative content analysis (Frey et al., 2000). First, data was selected and collected from 14 Egyptian and Russian news sources spanning from December 2014 to December 2019 using the Factiva database. The time period was chosen to include the lead-up to the crisis and track Egypt’s response. As such, data was broken into three phases for comparison, including: (1) the lead-up to Egypt’s currency crisis marked by the Egyptian government’s signing of an IMF loan in November 2016; (2) subsequent coverage leading up to al-Sisi’s re-election in March 2018; and (3) reports of continued economic recovery throughout the next year and a half. The sources were selected based on their circulation, prestige, variety of viewpoints, and availability within the Factiva database. Table 2 lists the 18 news sources from each country.

Table 2.

Media sources.

Egyptian	Russian
Al-Ahrām	Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Al-Akhbār	Izvestia
Al-Ahrār	Kommersant
Al-Wafd	Vedomosti Daily Newspaper
Al-Maydān	Argumenty i Fakty
Al-Usbū	RIA
Arab Finance	TASS

Articles selected for analysis included those referencing ‘economic crisis’ and occurring within ‘Egypt’ as a region. In total, 377 articles were sampled at a 95% confidence interval with 240 articles analysed from Egypt and 137 from Russia. Each article was determined as the unit of analysis.

Second, researchers developed content categories adapted from the coding schema from Cooley and Stokes (2018) framework of resiliency narratives, which include the ability to: (1) anticipate risk; (2) limit the impact of the crisis; (3) recover quickly through survival and evolution; and (4) grow in the face of rapid change. Two additional broad categories were included to measure the attribution of crisis responsibility. The first included categories of self-attribution of crisis responsibility (domestic political leadership, domestic political system, domestic market corruption, lack of domestic technological development, and lack of domestic investment in industry). The second identified external attribution of crisis responsibility (global economic disruption, and specific actors such as the IMF, the European Union and the United States).

Finally, two coders reliably analysed the data. Coders were trained in three phases beginning by meeting them, enabling them to get familiar with the codebook and then their conducting an initial pilot study of articles. The coders then conducted a second round of training analysing an additional subset of articles and resolved differences in coding before conducting the final intercoder reliability assessment achieving an intercoder reliability score of 0.882 using Cohen’s Kappa.

Results

RQ1. What is the structure of resiliency narratives presented in Egyptian media coverage from 2014 to 2019?

Question 1 assesses coherence within Egyptian resilience narratives by identifying and correlating the underlying structure and presentation of the four resiliency narrative components within Egyptian media. Correlations in occurrence of resilience narrative components were assessed using a Pearson correlation coefficient, flagging significance at p = 0.01. Descriptive statistics were also conducted.

Table 3 depicts the mean scores during the entire time period with Table 4 showing all four resilience narrative components to have a significant positive correlation to one another. These results reveal the interdependence of the resilience narrative components as well as the relative parity in their use throughout Egyptian news media. Taken together, it suggests Egypt’s narrative of resiliency to be largely coherent.

Table 3.

Resilience narrative component occurrence in Egyptian media.

N = 238	Mean (SD)
Limit	0.24 (0.43)
Survive and recover	0.23 (0.42)
Grow	0.14 (0.35)
Anticipate risk	0.29 (0.45)

Table 4.

Pearson r correlation of resilience narrative component occurrence in Egyptian media.

	Limit	Survive and recover	Grow	Anticipate risk
Limit	1	0.346**	0.348**	0.342**
Survive and recover	0.346**	1	0.277**	0.351**
Grow	0.384**	0.277**	1	0.369**
Anticipate risk	0.342**	0.351**	0.369**	1

significance assessed at p = 0.01.

Regarding the narratives’ content, Egyptian media reporting on the economic crisis were largely informational in nature, driven by economic data while highlighting updates regarding Egypt’s economic problems, reform plans and recovery. The following examples illustrate each of the resiliency narrative components present in Egyptian news.

First, articles demonstrating system resilience regarding the state’s ability to limit the impact of the economic crisis did so by providing clear recognition of the problems facing Egypt, shared how the state was addressing the problems, and demonstrated how government actions were leading to success. As one article notes, according to the Egyptian ‘Media Center of the Council of Ministers’, ‘Egypt is facing a severe economic crisis. . .in light of the high interest rates of external debt obtained in recent years’. The article continues by explaining the steps the state is taking to address the issue: ‘the State adopt[ed] a new debt management plan aimed at reducing public debt rates to 80per cent of GDP by 2022’. References were then made to how these actions were succeeding, with ‘The ministry stress[ing] that the level of external debt is reassuring’. Further validation was made by noting how ‘the Egyptian reform programme, as testified by many international institutions, in addition to the marked improvement in all international economic rankings’ have garnered ‘the confidence of the international community and praise of all international financial institutions for the economic reform programme implemented by Egypt successfully’ (Mist News, 2019a).

Second, articles explaining Egypt’s ability to survive and recover did so by contextualizing the problems it faced and showing how the conditions changed for the better. As the following example shows, Egypt’s crisis is placed in a larger narrative-laden timeline to demonstrate how the country weathered past crises and explains how the efforts by the government officials at the time were successfully managing the crisis while providing benefits to Egyptian society:

Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly said that in the past years Egypt has faced many challenges, and the Egyptian economy has survived the worst economic crisis since 1930. . .. The Prime Minister. . .briefly review[ed] Egypt’s achievements in the past five years. Madbouly added that the economic reform program was launched in Egypt in 2016 and was developed by an Egyptian economic team to achieve a major shift in the main indicators of the Egyptian economy to raise the quality of life for Egyptians in a sustainable manner. (Mist News, 2019b)

Third, some articles illustrated how Egypt was growing out of the crisis and adapting to the changing global economic landscape, frequently mentioning Egypt’s investment in the Suez Canal. As one article explained:

After the opening of the new Suez Canal. . .Economic and commercial activity and maritime traffic are expected to flourish. . .[making Egypt] to become one of the most important shipping gateways in the world that will link East to West and generate income for Egypt that will change its economic status. (Mist News, 2015b)

The article goes on to point out how this specifically contributes to Egypt’s domestic economy, noting that ‘the development of ports will contribute to solving the economic crises that Egypt is currently experiencing’ by helping the ‘urban and geographical redistribution of the population through integrated urban projects aimed at the reclamation and cultivation of about 4 million feddans’.

Finally, other articles demonstrate the ability of the state to anticipate risks and challenges moving forward in its reforms, including recognition of trade-offs between certain policies and their impact on the social welfare of Egyptians. As the following example shows, Egyptian media reported government officials as contemplative and forward-looking, with the ‘Minister of Trade and Industry, call[ing] on the export councils to hold an urgent meeting on Monday to discuss the reasons [for the decline in exports] and develop appropriate solutions’ (Mist News, 2015a). In the meeting, the chairman is reported as explaining that although ‘the government should continue in the programmes of support and stimulus directed to stimulate the demand for exports as it had preferred before’, it should also ‘rid the Egyptian production of burdens and expenses’ to make it more competitive. To accomplish this, Egypt must find ways to create ‘reduced product cost’, with one suggested option being the reform of ‘corporate taxes and income distribution’ but in a manner that doesn’t place ‘a burden on the cost of production’ or ‘reduce[s] competitiveness’. While this rhetoric highlights Egypt’s market-driven approach, even suggesting they ‘resort to the use of flexible subsidies in accordance with the needs of the markets and their conditions’, the chairman ‘also called for stabilizing the energy prices of the factories “gas – electricity” as well as water until the end of the current economic crisis’ for working-class Egyptians.

Thus, not only do the resiliency narratives presented by Egyptian media cohere statistically, their narrative substance does so as well. In all four examples, the key agents are Egyptian officials, with the problems related to Egypt’s economic situation devoid of ideological scapegoating, with reports demonstrating success. Taken together, they provide a story of officials recognizing Egypt’s economic challenges while mindfully pursing solutions benefitting the economy as a whole and providing benefits to their citizenry.

RQ2. Are there notable shifts in the resiliency narratives within Egyptian media across time periods?

This question examines the coherence of reported Egyptian resiliency narratives by examining whether any of the individual components are reported more frequently throughout the crisis. To determine whether there was any variation within the reports of the four resiliency components, researchers conducted an ANOVA test across the three time periods.

No statistical differences were found among the Limit, Survive and Recover, and Anticipate Risks resiliency components. As the mean scores demonstrate, their prevalence remained relatively consistent, albeit slightly increasing, over time (Table 5).

Table 5.

Egyptian media presentations of resiliency narrative components over time.

	Phase 1 (n = 80)	Phase 2 (n = 75)	Phase 3 (n = 83)
Limit	M = 0.18; SD = 0.38	M = 0.23; SD = 0.42	M = 0.33; SD = 0.47
Survive and recover	M = 0.18; SD = 0.38	M = 0.22; SD = 0.41	M = 0.33; SD = 0.47
Grow	M = 0.10; SD = 0.30	M = 0.07; SD = 0.25	M = 0.25; SD = 0.43**
Anticipate risk	M = 0.26; SD = 0.44	M = 0.23; SD = 0.42	M = 0.39; SD = 0.49

significance assessed at p = 0.05.

As Table 5 shows, significant differences were found in the frequency of the Grow component (F = 6.78; p = 0.001). The frequency of the Grow component was found to be significantly higher in Phase 3 (m = 0.25; std = 0.43) than in Phase 1 (m = 0.10; std = 0.30) and Phase 2 (m = 0.07; std = 0.25). Thus, Egyptian media reported Egypt’s capacity to grow its economy far more in the final time period than in the previous two.

One reason for this increase in the Grow component in the final time period could be the impact of Egypt’s IMF loan and its reform measures beginning to take effect, leading to more positive indicators of growth to be included into Egypt’s narrative of resilience. As an article explains:

At the height of Egypt’s economic crisis in 2013–2014, the growth rate was less than 3 per cent, foreign reserves fell to less than $15 billion, and unemployment rose by more than 14 per cent, but since November 2016, with the help of A$12 billion IMF loan Egypt took bold measures to devalue its currency, remove restrictions on foreign currency transfers, lift foreign currency restrictions on importers, and cut fuel subsidies, which have already yielded positive results. (Arab Finance, 2019)

The article also notes how ‘Egyptians gave their confidence to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when they gave him their votes during last April’s presidential election, which enabled President Sisi [to] continu[e] the IMF supported economic reform programme’. The continuation of these reforms are reported as having placed ‘the Egyptian economy on the road to recovery and established strong and sustainable growth, [that] will improve the living standards of all Egyptians’.

Taken together, the Egyptian media presented a consistent narrative of resiliency to its population over time, albeit with increases in the final time period regarding the Grow category, further contributing to the overall coherence of their narrative of recovery.

RQ3. How is attribution for the economic crisis assigned in Egyptian media?

This question assesses fidelity in resiliency narratives by identifying whether attribution is assigned to international or domestic actors and factors. We compare descriptive statistics on five deductively identified categories of self-attribution of crisis responsibility (domestic political leadership, domestic political system, domestic market corruption, lack of domestic technological development, and lack of domestic investment in industry) and four deductively identified categories of external attribution of crisis responsibility (global economic disruption, IMF, the European Union and the United States).

Tables 6 and 7 show Egyptian media placing emphasis on self-attribution twice as often as they do other actors (see bolded row in Tables 6 and 7: average attribution to other = .04 compared to average attribution to self = .08). This is a noteworthy finding, as one indication of more authoritarian leaning regimes is the shifting of attribution away from itself. Several aspects of self-attribution are significantly correlated to one another (p = 0.05). Attribution of crisis to domestic market corruption is positively correlated to attribution of crisis to leadership and political system; these are also the highest scoring categories. Egyptian media therefore cast very clear attribution of crisis on self. This would mean that Egypt’s relatively more hybrid regime media, at least in the context of the economic crisis, embedded narrative fidelity patterns counter to those found within more authoritarian-leaning states.

Table 6.

Attribution of economic crisis to other.

N = 239	Mean (SD)
Global economic disruption	0.12 (0.32)
European Union	0.02 (0.17)
IMF	0.02 (0.13)
US	0.01 (0.11)
Average attribution to other	0.04 (0.11)

Table 7.

Attribution of economic crisis to self.

N = 239	Mean (SD)
Political system	0.17 (0.37)
Market corruption	0.11 (0.31)
Lack of industry investment	0.08 (0.27)
Lack of tech development	0.02 (0.15)
Political leadership	0.02 (0.14)
Average attribution to self	0.08 (0.14)

Examples of articles attributing blame to self include one reporting a member of the House of Representatives as blaming the government for ‘the successive leaps of the dollar price on the black market. . .which is more than 20per cent of its current official price’ (Al Akhbar, 2016a). Thus, the member of parliament:

called on the government to openly explain to citizens the reality of the economic crisis we are experiencing and to clarify the difficult measures that must be taken to overcome that crisis and the amount of sacrifices that must be borne by all, including government officials themselves.

Others noted how Egypt’s ‘unexpected economic crises’ had made 23 per cent of children ‘vulnerable to extreme poverty’. The reason being that ‘Egypt in particular’ suffers from ‘the lack of coordination between the various programmes. . .[and] management. . .resulting [in] waste of resources and the level of low health services’ (Alborsanews, 2015). Most bluntly, one article explains how Egypt is ‘suffering from economic crises inherited from their corruption’, noting that ‘foreign investment will not come to a country where local investment escapes participation’ with ‘corruption’ permeating ‘parliament, and its presence in political life’ (Al Akhbar, 2016a, 2016b).

RQ4. Does Egyptian attribution of the economic crisis differ between Egyptian and Russian news sources?

This question examines whether relatively more authoritarian-leaning regimes (Russia) differ in their attribution of Egypt’s economic downturn from that of a relatively more hybrid regime (Egypt). An independent t-test was conducted comparing Egyptian and Russian media reports on attribution of the economic crisis to Egyptian domestic factors (an average score of the categories: domestic political leadership, domestic political system, domestic market corruption, lack of domestic technological development, and lack of domestic investment in industry). A second independent t-test was conducted on attribution of the economic crisis to other actors (an average score of the categories: global economic disruption, IMF, European Union and the United States). Significance was determined at p = 0.05. Table 8 shows significant differences were found between the two media systems related to attribution of the economic crisis to domestic Egyptian factors (t = 3.84, df(374), p = 0.00).

Table 8.

Attribution of economic crisis to Egyptian domestic factors (average).

	Mean (SD)
Egyptian media (n = 239)	0.08 (0.14)
Russian media (n = 137)	0.03 (0.08)

Significance assessed at p = 0.05.

The results show that Russian media attribution of the crisis to Egyptian domestic factors is significantly lower than that of Egyptian media. Of note, Russian media had significantly fewer mentions of attribution related to domestic market corruption (m = 0.04; std = 0.18) than Egyptian (m = 0.11; std = 0.31). Significant differences were also found between the two media systems related to attribution of the economic crisis to outside actors. (t = 32.73, df(374), p = 0.00)

Taken together, Russian media was significantly less likely to attribute the crisis to outside actors than Egyptian media (Table 9). This was the result largely of one factor, namely that Russian media attributed Egypt’s economic crisis to global economic disruptions to a significantly lower extent (m = 0.02; std = 0.15) than Egyptian (m = 0.12; std = 0.32) media.

Table 9.

Attribution of economic crisis to outside actors (average).

	Mean (SD)
Egyptian media (n = 239)	0.04 (0.11)
Russian media (n = 137)	0.01 (0.06)

Significance assessed at p = 0.05.

RQ5. How does Russian media coverage converge with Egyptian reporting on Egypt’s economic crisis?

This question addresses the fidelity of Egyptian resiliency narratives by determining whether Egypt’s management of its economic system similarly coheres with media reporting from outside countries, in this case Russia. Correlations in occurrence of resilience narrative components were assessed using a Pearson correlation coefficient, flagging significance at p = 0.01 with descriptive statistics included.

Tables 10 and 11 show that Russian news media also demonstrates high coherence evident in all four resilience narrative components correlating with each other, although less frequently relative to Egyptian reporting.

Table 10.

Russian media portrayal of Egyptian resiliency.

N = 137	Mean (SD)
Limit	0.05 (0.22)
Survive and recover	0.07 (0.26)
Grow	0.02 (0.15)
Anticipate risk	0.08 (0.27)

Table 11.

Russian media coverage correlations of Egyptian resiliency.

	Limit	Survive and recover	Grow	Anticipate risk
Limit	1	0.700**	0.192**	0.541**
Survive and recover	0.700**	1	0.150	0.433**
Grow	0.192**	0.150	1	0.323**
Anticipate risk	0.541**	0.433**	0.323**	1

significance assessed at p = 0.00.

Despite the lower frequency of resiliency narratives in Russian reporting, those present similarly note that Egypt is in a state of economic crisis and portray it as successfully implementing reforms to mitigate it. This suggests some level of narrative fidelity across media systems. However, within Russian media articles mentioning Egyptian resilience, discussion of individual Egyptian ministries is less prevalent, with more emphasis on al-Sisi’s leadership, and discussion of terrorism as a further cause contributing to the economic instability. As one article reported, regarding Egypt’s economy:

significant progress has been made over the past five years, and this is obvious to the population. ‘Five years ago, Egypt was a state with a collapsed economy, with a high terrorist threat’, the expert recalls. Now, he said, we can say that terrorism is defeated. (Ria News, 2019)

The article continues by attributing this success to President al-Sisi, noting how ‘[a]fter coming to power, al-Sisi began implementing large-scale projects in the energy sector, housing, industry and infrastructure’, including investing in the ‘economic zone of the Suez Canal’ with ‘[t]he head of state initiat[ing] reforms in the health, medical insurance and education sectors’ and having ‘significantly strengthened the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the armed forces’ to ‘fight terrorism in the north of the Sinai Peninsula and in other regions of the country’. Because of this, al-Sisi is reported as winning ‘the approval of the population of both domestic and foreign policies’.

Another example from Russian media highlights the positive role of al-Sisi’s leadership in explaining the tough measures Egyptians will face. The article notes that:

The Egyptian economy was not able to fully recover from the mass riots of 2011 and 2013, which provoked an outflow of investors. A blow to the country’s budget was the lack of tourists, who brought a significant portion of foreign exchange earnings to the Egyptian treasury. (RIA News, 2016)

Despite this, the article says Egypt will be able to recover, explaining that ‘[t]he head of state. . .noted that “the coming days will bring a lot of good news”. . . .from negotiations between the Egyptian government and the IMF’. Nonetheless, al-Sisi is quoted as explaining that ‘the country’s authorities will be forced to take a number of unpopular measures, including: reducing subsidies, tax reform, privatization of state-owned companies’. According to al-Sisi, ‘The biggest challenge is not the measures themselves, but their adoption by society, by public opinion’, and he recognized that the measures ‘are likely to be difficult and tough’.

Thus, Russian media reporting of Egypt’s resiliency appears to draw more upon autocratic topoi than Egyptian reporting, including the threat of terrorism and political instability as well as characterizing al-Sisi as the primary agent leading the reforms and doing so in a paternalistic manner.

Discussion

This study proposed that media reporting within hybrid regimes and authoritarian-leaning states use narratives of resiliency to maintain legitimacy during economic crises but do so in different ways. The findings demonstrate further validation of the resiliency narrative framework extended onto hybrid regimes and provides initial support of our continuum comparing democratic, hybrid and modern authoritarian-leaning narrative content based on its directionality and informational content during economic crises. As our case study shows, not only did Egyptian media demonstrate coherent narratives of resiliency, but also illustrated three key differences in the reporting of its economic crisis from modern authoritarian-leaning regimes.

First, in Egypt’s case, the results show a highly coherent narrative of resiliency. Egyptian media drew upon all four resiliency narrative components consistently over time, and in doing so, highlighted how state agents in Egypt’s government were actively implementing reforms to not only encourage economic growth, but also provide economic benefits to its citizens. Within these narratives, reporting focused on providing specific details regarding various policy solutions bolstered by informationally driven content reflecting key economic indicators rather than ideologically-driven messages. Thus, the informational content and focus on public welfare support studies arguing for hybrid regimes’ messaging strategies as distinct from typical authoritarian-leaning practices (Guriev and Treisman, 2019; Rozenas and Stukal, 2019).

Second, Egypt’s attribution of blame focussing on domestic shortcomings suggests a further distinction from patterns found in Chinese economic media narratives more generally (Hinck et al., 2018b) and Cooley and Stokes (2018) analysis of Russian resiliency narratives during its own crisis in 2014–2015 specifically. This is noteworthy in that one might expect that the critiques reported by Egypt’s media regarding the regime’s failed stewardship could diminish government support and undermine the social contract promising acquiescence to some autocratic rule in return for economic growth. However, as Schulmann (2014) noted, the nature of legitimacy in hybrid regimes is more precarious than in authoritarian states, with hybrid nations needing to portray a reality of democratic governance along with maintaining authoritarian rule. In this case, the media’s ability to level some criticism at politicians provides at least an impression of democratic and journalistic checks on state power, even if such actions are directed by the government.

Indeed, when contrasting Egyptian reports on the crisis with Russia’s, we find some indication of different messaging content. For instance, whereas Egyptian news credited a variety of state leaders and agencies for successful policies, Russian coverage tended to attribute these successes to al-Sisi personally. Furthermore, whereas Egyptian reporting focused solely on economic issues, Russian media included threats of political instability arising from domestic terrorist threats. In this case, Russian media reflected more typical messaging from authoritarian nations building a cult of personality and strength around national leaders (Luqiu, 2016; Petersson, 2017) and fears of domestic terrorist threats, than Egyptian reporting.

However, it is important to note that while Egyptian media included some level of criticism directed domestically, no articles directly blamed al-Sisi. One could even argue that the criticisms reported by the media might have supported the government’s reform efforts by justifying their need despite the economic costs to everyday citizens. In this case, Egypt’s media may still reflect strategic censorship practices similar to modern authoritarian-leaning nations permitting some watchdog journalism to improve regime power and governance (Lorentzen, 2014; Repnikova, 2017). Signs of Egypt moving further towards an authoritarian system would be inclusion of more personal, heroic depictions of al-Sisi’s leadership in managing the crisis. A third distinction of Egypt’s resiliency narratives is found in comparison to Cooley and Stokes (2018) analysis of Russian resiliency narratives during its own economic crisis. While both Egypt and Russia faced domestic challenges due to the global economy, in 2014–2015, Russia drew upon ideological messaging singling out the US in claiming the West’s system of neoliberal capitalism had caused Russia’s troubles. Egypt, on the other hand, while also attributing its economic crisis to the global economy, did so without scapegoating Western countries or economic institutions, even embracing the IMF and its loan package as a means to pursue economic reforms. This embrace of Western neoliberalism may mark an additional distinguishing characteristic from modern authoritarian-leaning states as Khalil and Dill (2018) argue that Egypt’s hybrid regime relies upon a statist neoliberalism allowing for continued neoliberal reforms while maintaining control of Egypt’s society and economy.

Interestingly, Russian reporting on the Egyptian crisis did not attribute blame to the Western-led order, as it did during its own 2014–2015 economic crisis. This suggests that the resiliency narrative content is context-based, reflective of what is at stake for a nation at a specific time. Indeed, as expected, Russian media reporting on Egypt’s economic crisis had far fewer occurrences of resiliency narrative components than Egypt’s. This reflects the Egyptian government’s legitimacy primarily being at stake as it was its economy that was in trouble.

Conclusion and limitations

In sum, this study found further support for the resiliency narrative framework by demonstrating how nations can selectively create narratives in ways that resonate with their audience and bolster regime stability based on government type. Specifically, we found evidence that hybrid regimes may draw upon more informational content while avoiding ideologically-laden messaging. In doing so, such informationally-driven narratives, in contrast to ideologically-laden ones, focus on recognition of domestic problems facing the nation while supporting regime legitimacy by portraying government officials as competent and successfully implementing policies addressing these issues, rather than scapegoating foreign enemies.

However, more research is needed to further test the model, including extension to other hybrid, authoritarian and democratic countries. Indeed, whereas this study compared only two countries, comparisons to three or more would help elucidate cross-national similarities or cultural differences in resiliency narratives. Indeed, one limitation of this study was its use of Russia as a comparative case in that its legitimacy was not at stake in the crisis. An additional limitation may be Egypt’s classification as a hybrid regime: though the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index firmly ranked Egypt as a hybrid regime in 2012, its score has declined over the past decade. Thus, future research may examine Saudi Arabia, Iran or even Venezuela as representatives of more clearly authoritarian models with the need to identify additional cases of hybrid regimes, like Turkey.

Footnotes

Funding

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

ORCID iD

Robert S Hinck

Author biographies

Robert S Hinck (PhD, Texas A&M University) is an associate professor at Air University’s Leadership and Innovation Institute. His research focuses on strategic narratives in international politics, US-China relations, organizational rhetoric, and ethics. He is lead author of two books entitled, The future of global competition: Ontological security narratives in Chinese, Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan media (2022) and Strategic narratives of contested democracy: Chinese, Russian, and Arabic media narratives of the US presidential election (2019).

Skye C Cooley (PhD, University of Alabama) is an associate professor at the School of Media and Strategic Communications at Oklahoma State University and co-founder of the Media Ecology and Strategic Analysis group (MESA). His research centres on Russian political communication, global media and digital democracy, as well as developing and testing platforms for civic deliberation online.

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