Strategic maneuvering in supporting the feasibility of political change: A pragma-dialectical analysis of Egyptian anti-regime columns

Paving the way to the revolutionary uprising of 2011, Egyptian anti-regime columnists aimed at convincing their audiences that a political change towards democracy would not only be desirable but also feasible. The extended pragma-dialectical argumentation theory is used as a theoretical and analytical framework to explain how Egyptian anti-regime columnists maneuvered strategically in supporting the feasibility of political change. This dissertation illustrates how intrinsic and extrinsic constraints determine the space of maneuvering available for them.
The dissertation sets out to scrutinize how Al Aswany, a novelist of international fame and a prominent anti-regime columnist, maneuvered strategically in his columns published in Al Shorouk attempting to support the feasibility of political change. It investigates how Al Aswany could maneuver by means of a narrative perspective to argue his audience that the Egyptian police could be defeated. This dissertation also scrutinizes how he could maneuver by means of an allegorical fable to support the expectation that the Egyptian protesters would succeed in bringing Mubarak’s regime down.