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.

"Explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshe psut to Cleopatra--women who ruled with real power ... What was so special about ancient Egypt that provided women this kind of access to the highest political office? What was it about these women that allowed them to transcend patriarchal obstacles? What did Egypt gain from its liberal reliance on female leadership, and could today's world learn from its example?"--

In a lucidly argued revisionist study of Ottoman Egypt, first published in 1996, Jane Hathaway challenges the traditional view that Egypt's military elite constituted a revival of the institutions of the Mamluk sultanate. The author contends that the framework within which this elite operated was the household, a conglomerate of patron-client ties that took various forms. In this respect, she argues, Egypt's elite represented a provincial variation on an empire-wide, household-based political culture. The study focuses on the Qazdagli household. Originally, a largely Anatolian contingent within Egypt's Janissary regiment, the Qazdaglis dominated Egypt by the late eighteenth century. Using Turkish and Arabic archival sources, Jane Hathaway sheds light on the manner in which the Qazdaglis exploited the Janissary rank hierarchy, while forming strategic alliances through marriage, commercial partnerships and the patronage of palace eunuchs.

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.

Focusing on gender & the family, this text reconsiders the origins of Egyptian nationalism & the revolution of 1919 by linking social changes in class & household structure to the politics of engagement with British colonial rule.

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.

A new assessment of the impact of power relations on economic development

The creation of the Egyptian monarchy in 1922, under King Fuad II, opened contests and debates over fundamental cultural questions, particularly definitions of Egyptian modernity, rule and identity. Here, James Whidden looks at the political, cultural and intellectual landscapes of Egypt between the wars, from the nationalist agitations for independence in 1919, the rise of the Wafd - first under Saad Zaghul and then Mustafa El-Nahas Pasha - and the rise and fall of different political and power brokers in the period such as Abd al-Latif al-Makkabati or Abd al-Khaliq Tharwa. Whidden therefore focuses on the different interpretations of the nature of Egyptian politics, highlighting the ways in which patriotism and elitism, Islam and tradition, colonial manipulations, and ideological politics combine. In particular, he examines how monarchists, like Zaki Fahmi and Diaeddine Saleh, attempted to neutralise opponents through cultural works, patronage and political party contests. The period under examination was to a large extent defined by the 'revolution' of 1919 and the constitutional and electoral processes that followed. The sectors of society involved in this were the effendiyya and the notables - such as Zaghul. But these were soon dominated by the monarch, as the Wafd party allied with the king. Bearing this in mind, Whidden examines how these notables attempts to mobilise the people in revolutionary activity, electoral contest and the formation of political party organization in this period. Although a 'liberal constitution' was written by an appointed constitutional commission in 1923, Whidden argues that the disagreements it occasioned suggest that politics in the interwar period was very much an attempt to redefine or rewrite that constitution to the differing assumptions of liberal, nationalists and monarchists. Monarchy and Modernity in Egypt is thus a vital resource for those interested in Middle East history, as well as intellectual developments within the region.