Heba F. El-Shazli is an Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on International Relations Theory; Politics, Government and Society of the Middle East; Israeli-Palestinian Politics; and Islam and Politics. She is an affiliate faculty to the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies (AVACGIS) at George Mason University. She is also an Adjunct Faculty at Georgetown University’s Master’s Degree Program at the Center for Democracy and Civil Society.

• AcknowledgementsPreface Introduction – An Elusive Victory: how Egyptian workers challenged the regime, and the rise of the protest movementPart I – A brief overview of Egyptian workers’ revolts and history Chapter 1. The Historic Rise of Organized Labor and its role in protest democratic movements globally; and Egyptian Workers’ Contentious Collective Action Chapter 2. An Overview of The Egyptian Labor Movement’s History (Pre- and Post-1952) and the Shaping of the Current Labor Movement: the nature of political conflict, contenting elite factions and the institutional basis of political powerPart II – The Two Case Studies; Other Workers’ Protests, and Socio-Economic and Cultural FramingChapter 3. First Case Study – The Municipal Real Estate Tax CollectorsChapter 4. Second Case Study - The Garment & Textile workers at the Misr Company for Spinning and Weaving in El-Mahalla al-Kubra Chapter 5. Other Workers’ Protests and how their repertoire mirrored the protests of larger unions and worker groups Chapter 6. The Cultural Framing: Socio-economic, political and cultural changes in Egypt leading up to the January 2011 UprisingPart III – ConclusionChapter 7. The Hope for a Democratic Transition: Post January 2011 Uprising and the Role of the Independent Labor Movement Leading to the May 2012 Elections and BeyondChapter 8. Concluding remarks and Epilogue: Political, Economic and Social Developments from 2012 to 2018Appendix A: The Municipal Real Estate Tax Collectors Case Study Supporting Letters and DocumentsAppendix B: Examples of Other Significant Protests by Egyptian WorkersAuthor Biography Bibliography Index

"The Arab Spring was a great and lost opportunity to bring democracy and secular reform to the Arab world. Heba F. El-Shazli shows how workers and their organizations were central to the movement’s strength; and how defeat was a blow to campaigns to bring economic as well as political justice to working people in Egypt and throughout the world." –Gerald Friedman, University of Massachusetts, USA