Egyptian Youth-led Civil Society Organizations: Alternative Spaces for Civic Engagement?

The statement above captures the complex dimensions of politics and political action in Egypt. Given the authoritarian context of the country, the statement speaks to the fluid boundaries of politics and what could be called ‘indirect’ or ‘unspoken’ political action. This fuzzy demarcation, intentionally created at times, is an important dimension of youth civic engagement that has been overlooked in the growing research on Middle Eastern and North African young people. Yet, understanding their active roles in seemingly non-political civil society organizations (CSOs) can help explain how and why Egyptian youth took on leadership roles during what has come to