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Will the 'taifas Neo-Mamluk state' end in Egypt?
Abstract
Under Mubarak the Egyptian state has degenerated gradually from a modern authoritarian state into a 'taifas Neo-Mamluk state' whereby the public policies result from the pull and push factors of a coalition of different self-centered state fiefdoms and oligarchic institutions (military, intelligence , police, judiciary , bureaucracy , etc..) struggling for securing their own shares of the public resources in a form reminiscent of the pre-modern Mamluk state model in Egypt and the taifas Kings' wars in Andalusia after the collapse of the unified Ummayad state in the 11th century..Public policy result from random interactions among these state fiefdoms only influenced by balance of power, self-interested bargains and functional needs...This pattern has been magnified and pushed to unprecedented extremes in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, partly in a vain attempt to contain its disruptive pro-democratic impact and partly to re-assert their interest-maximizing politics. Abdel Fattah al- Sisi's regime taking over in 2013 insisted on killing politics and creating a system whereby the state institutions rule the country directly with no political intermediaries ...But, and detrimental to its cause. Al-Sisi regime has failed -so far- to build a cohesive centralized authoritarian state structure in Egypt both politically and institutionally. Mamluk politics is unleashed particularly regarding the questions of economic interests, financial privileges , security and mechanisms of control and order..This pattern of politics is unsustainable given its in-congruence with the regime's official ideological discourse of 'strong statism' and also given the type of political economy crisis and state-society crisis in Egypt....State developentalism can't go hand in hand with this type of decentralized Mafiosi-style oligarchic state institutions politics ..The other option of a free-market developmental is requires more transparency and accountability , and more importantly it requires costly economic restructuring and austerity measures ..None of these state taifas is willing to shoulder the burden of these costs alone...The only possible way out is creating a broad social coalition in alliance behind such structuring..But this requires opening up the political sphere to articulate difference in interests in political forms of representation ..This is exactly the very thing the Current regime of taifas state adamantly rejects...This paper will use a historical and cultural institutionalist approach employing tools of content analysis of information provided by various sources including newspapers archives, official statements and data, interviews, social media pages and others
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries