Political Islam in Exile: Transformation of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood After the Military Coup of 2013

This chapter examines the transformation of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the past decade. Since July 2013, two major dynamics have shaped the group’s structure and behavior: the repression and political exclusion at home, and the challenges and opportunities of exile activism. The first stimulated a short-lived radical transformation that resulted in unprecedented bloody clashes between the Islamists and the authorities, with a subsequent wave of political expatriation. In exile, the Brotherhood tried to utilize the opportunity of being away from the regime’s oppression and pursued its anti-coup activities. However, after a decade, the outcome proves to be modest as the Egyptian regime managed to upgrade its transnational repressive tools and the ideological and leadership disagreements led to organizational defections that largely paralyzed the group.