Tahrir protesters cited economic concerns more than democracy as their motivation

Evidence

All the same people and all the same structures remained in place, except now, SCAF was in power at the top. Domestically, the military faced a chaotic and mind-bogglingly complex political scene—who were they supposed to talk to in order to make sure they could keep “the revolution” happy? How many people were ever actually in the square anyway, and whom did they represent? Empirical analysis of the biggest crowds, which came out later, indicated that participation was more complex than initial narratives would have suggested—most people cited economic concerns as their primary motivation, far ahead of democracy; around 25 percent of people in the Square supported the Muslim Brotherhood; more were middle-class, rather than poor and unemployed, and a majority got their primary information from television (especially Al Jazeera), rather than the internet. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 239

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing the actual post-hoc empirical study cited here and how its numbers compare to contemporaneous on-the-ground reporting given the book’s sympathy toward the revolution.
• XREF: Connects to the Milgrom/Coleman literature on information costs and institutions, and to the idea that revolutions’ mass publics rarely match their elite narratives - later echoed in Bevins’ treatment of the missing revolution. — connects to: Tahrir crowds were middle-class, TV-informed, and economic-motivated — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 239; Resentment of economic inequality gets redirected against democracy itself. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 443; Activists privately voice broad political concerns but publicly frame motives narrowly — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 80

Broader Connections

• Tahrir crowds were middle-class, TV-informed, and economic-motivated #corroborates (0.95) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 239
• Activists privately voice broad political concerns but publicly frame motives narrowly #complicates (0.78) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 80
• Resentment of economic inequality gets redirected against democracy itself. #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 443