A movement in exile: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s survival action frames in the post-coup era (2013–2023)

Abstract

On August 14, 2013, the Egyptian security forces raided the Rabaa and al-Nahda sit-ins, marking the largest mass killing in modern Egyptian history. The massacre, aimed at targeting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood–henceforth MB–did not end its existence; rather, it recast it as a movement in exile striving for organisational survival. Drawing on interview materials, MB media outlets, and a process tracing of key international and regional events unfolding between 2013 and 2023, this article explores the interactive relationship between exile politics and the MB’s survival action frames from a framing perspective. By mapping four successive phases highlighting its organisational trajectories to pursue survival, the article contends that the MB’s survival action frames result from the interactive relationship between failed mobilisation tactics and changes in the MB’s hosting environment which together affected and sustained intra-movement divisions. Following shifts in exile politics and inefficient mobilisation tactics to face the post-2013 Coup, the MB’s survival action frames included the organisational recentralisation of a demobilised and inactive movement and the re-setting of the group’s priorities amid unresolved leadership strife.