Effects of military coups and Arab Spring in Egypt on the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy

Our thesis study examines effects of military coups in Egypt and the "Arab Spring" on both Muslim brothers and democracy. In this direction, although our study covers years between 1952 and 2013, main focus is on the events that took place between the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy in 2011-2013. Of course, in order to make sense of all these events in a cause and effect relationship, situation of Egypt in the Ottoman Empire and anti-democratic developments after 2013 were also discussed. With competitive and free elections held for the first time since 1952, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi was elected President in 2012. However, during his one-year mission, Mursi; as a result of anti-democratic decisions, trying to rule country only by decrees, and lack of economic recovery, it naturally attracted public's reaction and began to be seen as a dictator in eyes of people. Taking advantage of this, army's dismissal of President Morsi interrupted developments in democratic direction. Although Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood couldn't internalize democracy, experience shows that military coups have nothing to do with democracy. In this context, purpose of our thesis is to explain process of the Muslim Brotherhood's coming to power through elections for the first time, despite their distancing from democracy and against multi-partyism, and to reveal reasons for losing power with a military coup in a short time despite cooperating with Egyptian army. Therefore, our study is important in that it examines relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and army theoretically and reveals why transition to democracy in Egypt isn't possible for both the Muslim Brotherhood and the army. With structures such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which use democracy as a legitimating tool for their own interests; democracy, which has a very fragile structure in the Middle East, will never be established as long as there is an army that does what it wants by legitimizing coup against Islamist structures that see itself as owner and privileged position of state.