Egypt

JOP 88/2 pp. 493-508 2026-04-01 Original The Supply of Conspiracism in State-Controlled Media Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Richard A. Nielsen, David Romney Abstract When, and why, do governments promote conspiracy theories and use conspiracist language in official media? We build on claims that autocrats use misinformation for diversionary purposes by showing that the level of threat a regime faces affects conspiracism: a mix of “classic” conspiracy theorizing and conspiratorial language. Governments facing threats may attempt to stave them off by promoting conspiracy theories in state media. By contrast, secure governments are not as prone to conspiracism because it can be politically costly in the long term. We test our arguments by examining conspiracism in Egypt’s print media between 2005 and 2018. When the government faced threats, the state-controlled newspaper printed more conspiracism than its independent counterpart. This relationship is moderated by changes in Egypt’s government: the state newspaper supplied less conspiracism during a brief period following relatively free and fair presidential elections.

JOP 88/2 pp. 647-665 2026-04-01 Original How Exiles Mobilize Domestic Dissent Elizabeth R. Nugent, Alexandra A. Siegel Abstract How can exiles mobilize dissent back home? We argue that internet communication technologies enable exiles to play an instigator role in domestic contentious politics. Analyzing the behavior of three types of social media users—influencers, amplifiers, and consumers—we explore how Egyptian exiles participated in a cascade of online dissent that culminated in sizable anti-regime protests in September 2019. Analyses of large-scale digital trace data from Facebook, Google, Twitter, and YouTube demonstrate that exiles were central to the introduction and amplification of oppositional content, facilitating its circulation among a domestic audience that then localized the content by linking it with place-based calls for protest. Our findings suggest that content produced and amplified by exiles facilitates coordination among domestic opposition and challenges the supporting role typically ascribed to opposition abroad.