Family Power And Politics In Egypt

Focusing on the family and career of the prominent Egyptian politician Sayed Bey Marei, Robert Springborg provides in this volume a political ethnography on the changing roles of the family and other social units in Egypt's political economy. He traces the rise to power of the rural nobility from the late nineteenth century, demonstrating how members of this class used family, regional, patron-client, and small-group loyalties to maintain and enhance their powers and privileges under the regimes of Nasser and Sadat. In this context the author also investigates the complexities between provincial and national politics, and between the bureaucratic/technocratic elite and the political elite of the country. Sayed Marei's career provides the ideal focus for Springborg's ethnography. From a wealthy rural family that habitually sent at least one of its members to parliament, he began his political career in 1944-45, inheriting his family's seat in the Chamber of Deputies. In 1952, he emerged as the new revolutionary government's director of agrarian reform and became thereafter a fixture in the Nasserite political elite. Under Sadat, to whom he was related by marriage, Marei enjoyed even greater prominence. He served as cabinet minister, head of the Arab Socialist Union, speaker of parliament, diplomat extraordinaire, special adviser to the president, and secretary general of the much publicized World Food Conference. With a political career spanning five generations and three regimes, Sayed Marei built a significant reputation for himself in the Arab World. Rather than imposing objective categories upon political behavior, Sprinborg instead delves into the subjective reality of Egyptian political life. He explains how politicians pursue their goals and what associations they form and use, how they themselves perceive politics to operate, and then why they behave as they do. This work is the first to explicitly utilize the family as a basic conceptual tool to understand a Middle-Eastern political system and thus will be of great value to those interested in the history, politics, anthropology, and sociology of the region and, more generally, the Third World.

This investigation of the intricate interplay of family, status, and occupation in an Egyptian village of the Delta in the context of elections for representatives to Egypt's national parliament provides a grass-roots view of Egyptian politics.

Explains why successful states and empires have developed by fostering collaboration between families and dynasties, and the state.

The starting point for the investigation outlined in this text is the relationship between political authority and economic change in Egypt and will be the presidency and the highest level of the political elite. The bulk of the field research on which this book is based was conducted in Egypt in 1986.

For nearly three decades, scholars and policymakers have placed considerable stock in judicial reform as a panacea for the political and economic turmoil plaguing developing countries. Courts are charged with spurring economic development, safeguarding human rights, and even facilitating transitions to democracy. How realistic are these expectations, and in what political contexts can judicial reforms deliver their expected benefits? This book addresses these issues through an examination of the politics of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, the most important experiment in constitutionalism in the Arab world. The Egyptian regime established a surprisingly independent constitutional court to address a series of economic and administrative pathologies that lie at the heart of authoritarian political systems. Although the Court helped the regime to institutionalize state functions and attract investment, it simultaneously opened new avenues through which rights advocates and opposition parties could challenge the regime. The book challenges conventional wisdom and provides insights into perennial questions concerning the barriers to institutional development, economic growth, and democracy in the developing world.

Publisher Description

This book addresses two important matters of current concern to Middle East scholars: firstly, the nature of the Egyptian state and society and the interactive process between them and secondly, how change, which would finally lead to development, can be initiated. The book argues that the Egyptian case represents a weak authoritarian state, which through its coercive and repressive policies towards various societal forces, political parties, professional associations and organisations and individuals, creates a weak society. Individual behaviour in urban and rural communities, sometimes viewed as signs of the strength of societal forces, is seen here as a symptom of a weak and fragmented society. The existence of a weak society in turn impedes government objectives and hinders the implementation of developmental policies and programmes, further weakening the state. This being the case, change has to be initiated externally in both the political and economic spheres.

Intentionally excluded from formal politics in authoritarian states by reigning elites, do the common people have concrete ways of achieving community objectives? Contrary to conventional wisdom, this book demonstrates that they do. Focusing on the political life of the sha'b (or popular classes) in Cairo, Diane Singerman shows how men and women develop creative and effective strategies to accomplish shared goals, despite the dominant forces ranged against them. Starting at the household level in one densely populated neighborhood of Cairo, Singerman examines communal patterns of allocation, distribution, and decision-making. Combining the institutional focus of political science with the sensitivities of anthropology, she uncovers a system of informal networks, supported by an informal economy, that constitutes another layer of collective institutions within Egypt and allows excluded groups to pursue their interests. Avenues of Participation traces this informal system from its grounding in the family to its influence on the larger polity. Discussing the role of these networks in meeting fundamental needs in the community--such as earning a living, reproducing the family, saving and investing money, and coping with the bureaucracy--Singerman demonstrates the surprising power these "excluded" people wield. While the government has reduced politics to the realm of distribution to protect itself from challenges, she argues that the popular classes in Cairo, as consumers of goods and services, have turned exploiting the government into a fine art.