Overview

Two years after the Arab Spring had transformed Egypt from a dictatorship under Hosni Mubarak to a democracy under the Muslim Brotherhood, there was a military coup that saw the country return being a police state. In a paradoxical turn of events, this move away from liberalism was aided by the same influential coterie of Egyptian intellectuals and activists who had previously been leaders of civic protest under Mubarak. With contributions from experts in Middle East studies, political science, philosophy, Islamic studies, and law, amongst others, this volume represents the first thorough examination of how Egypt's liberal intellectuals emboldened the return of authoritarianism. Together they form a holistic study of liberalism and modern Egypt, addressing the restrictions placed upon liberal opposition by the structural contours of the state itself, the role of Islam and Islamic activism, as well as issues of secularism, feminism and human rights more broadly following the overthrowing of Egypt's first democratically-elected president.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dalia F. Fahmy ,  Daanish Faruqi
Publisher:   Oneworld Publications
Imprint:   Oneworld Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 14.60cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 22.50cm
Weight:   0.481kg
ISBN:  

9781780748825

ISBN 10:   1780748825
Pages:   400
Publication Date:   05 January 2017
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

1 Egyptian liberals, from revolution to counterrevolution | Daanish Faruqi and Dalia F. Fahmy Introduction The genealogies of Egyptian liberalism Structure of the argument Conclusion: Is liberalism contradictory?   SECTION I: LIBERALISM AND THE EGYPTIAN STATE 2 Egypt’s structural illiberalism: How a weak party system undermines participatory politics | Dalia F. Fahmy The party system in Egypt Elections in Egypt and why they matter The parliament as a site of contestation Political parties after the revolution: A liberal possibility Participatory politics under SCAF and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood The 2015 parliament: The political consolidation of authoritarian rule Conclusion   3 Nasser’s comrades and Sadat’s brothers: Institutional legacies and the downfall of the Second Egyptian Republic | Hesham Sallam The failure of contingent consent Institutional legacies and the limitations of agency-centered narratives The origins of the political field Conclusion   4 (De)liberalizing judicial independence in Egypt | Sahar F. Aziz The three prongs of liberalism: Private, political, and legal liberty The liberal roots of Egypt’s judiciary Incremental deliberalization in the Mubarak era A counterrevolution in the courts Conclusion   SECTION II: LIBERALISM AND EGYPTIAN CIVIL SOCIETY 5 The authoritarian state’s power over civil society | Ann M. Lesch The structures of authoritarianism The post-25 January military regime Mohammad Morsi’s contradictory policies General Sisi’s constriction of the public space The consolidation of authoritarian control   6 Myth or reality?: The discursive construction of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt | Mohamad Elmasry The Egyptian press system Disloyal to Egypt Anti-revolutionary Conclusion   7 Student political activism in democratizing Egypt | Abdel-Fattah Mady Introduction Emergence of Egypt’s student movement Student activism under Nasser Student activism during Sadat’s era Student activism during Mubarak’s era Post-January 25, 2011 revolution Conclusion   SECTION III: ISLAM, SECULARISM, AND THE STATE 8 Egypt’s secularized intelligentsia and the guardians of truth | Khaled Abou El Fadl   9 The truncated debate: Egyptian liberals, Islamists, and ideological statism | Ahmed Abdel Meguid and Daanish Faruqi Introduction Liberals and the state: Authoritarian modernism Islamists and the state: The modernist paradox Conclusion: Post-Islamism and post-liberalism as post-statism   SECTION IV: EGYPTIAN LIBERALS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE POST-2013 10 Conflict and reconciliation: “Arab liberalism” in Syria and Egypt | Emran El-Badawi Introduction State advocacy and the beginnings of Arab liberalism Activism and state opposition: The later development of Arab liberalism Egypt and Syria no more Silencing liberal activism in Egypt, ca. 1979–2013 Activists in conflict and artists in reconciliation, Egypt, ca. 2013– Temporary reconciliation with Assad, Syrian intellectuals, ca. 1982–2012 Conflict, exile and civil war: Liberal activism in Syria, ca. 2000–12 Burhan Ghalioun and Gaber Asfour, ca. 1990–2010 The Arab uprisings, 2011 Ghalioun and the SNC, 2011–12 Asfour, the ministry and Egypt’s return to military rule, 2011–14 Rabaa The limits of Arab liberalism   11 Egypt’s new liberal crisis | Joel Gordon Heroes of the revolution The liberal crisis reconsidered Postscript: Five years on   12 Egyptian liberals and their anti-democratic deceptions: A contemporary sad narrative | Amr Hamzawy Liberal ideas at a crossroads Grand deception one – Sequentialism Grand deception two – Nothing is more important than… Grand deception three – The notion of national necessity Grand deception four – Religion and politics Grand deception five – The state above everyone and everything Concluding remarks – Fascist techniques stepped up   Conclusion: Does liberalism have a future in Egypt? | Emad El-Din Shahin A liberal legacy New beginnings   About the contributors Index

Reviews

`What emerges in the reading of the entire volume is a crisis of orientation, in which leading liberal voices in Egypt have seemingly embraced a very binary of secular progress versus religious reaction, while playing a major role in the divisive politics that have characterized the transitional period. This new crisis has led many secular liberals, facing the alleged threat of Brotherhoodization, to a reactionary embrace of the ancient regime. In this perspective, even if the book focuses its attention on Egypt, it begs a more universal question: how can liberalism overcome its current crisis?' * Reset Doc * `I read Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism with a sigh of relief that understanding one of the most significant events in our contemporary history is in the caring and competent hands of some seminal critical thinkers. Dalia F. Fahmy and Daanish Faruqi have brought together a formidable volume challenging what they aptly call Illiberal Intelligentsia and gauge the future of the Egyptian democracy beyond and through their historic failures. What the community of critical thinkers gathered in this volume discover and discuss is no mere indictment of the Egyptian liberal intellectuals and their catastrophic failure at a crucial historic juncture, but something far more deeply troubling in the very nature of unexamined globalized liberalism. The result is a fiercely radical constellation of critical thinking indispensable for our understanding not just of Egypt and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, but in fact the very legacy of liberalism in the 21st century.' -- Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University `This edited volume is an essential contribution towards understanding the current state of affairs in Egypt. The different chapters offer a sense of the underlying dynamics at work within Egyptian society (among the military, the Muslim Brotherhood, secularists and the youth). The reader is invited to consider the complexity of the situation and what it will take for Egyptian people to find their way towards freedom and justice.' -- Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, University of Oxford `An extraordinary and wide-ranging exploration of the Arab spring's excitement and reversal in Egypt. Compulsory reading to grasp the role of Islam, secularism, authoritarianism and liberalism in contemporary Egypt.' -- Ebrahim Moosa, Professor of Islamic Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame `The question of democracy in Muslim societies has generated heated debate on the role of mainstream Islamist parties and democratization. Can they moderate their views? Will they respect electoral outcomes? Are they committed to political pluralism? The same questions, however, have been rarely asked of liberal and secular forces who occupy the same political space. This is precisely what is unique about this book. Focusing on Egypt's Arab Spring democratic transition, it examines the political behavior of Egyptian liberals during the transition period and after the 2013 military coup. In doing so, the editors and contributors make an important and exceptional contribution to understanding both the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab-Islamic world and the obstacles to democracy. It is a must read volume that challenges stereotypes and deepens our grasp of the politics and societies of the Middle East.' -- Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies, University of Denver, and author of <i>Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies</i> `The heroic events of January and February 2011 seemed at first to rewrite the rules of Middle Eastern politics. One of the longest ruling autocrats in the Arab World fell not to a military coup, an assassination, or violent uprising, but to the immovable presence of the people demonstrating in public. The Tahrir Revolution was `liberal' in the sense that its demands were for freedom, the rule of law, and social justice. Its promise was that these goals seemed to reflect a shared will uniting the secular and the Islamist, the masses and the middle class. Two short years later that promise was shattered in a supreme act of anti-political, counter-revolutionary violence. How did many Egyptian `liberals,' who two years earlier stood side by side with Islamists against Mubarak in Tahrir, and one year earlier voted for Morsi for President, come to side with a return to military dictatorship over constitutional politics? Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism brings together many of the best scholars on Egyptian politics to answer just this question.' -- Andrew F. March, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University, and author of <i>Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus</i>

'A fiercely radical constellation of critical thinking indispensable for our understanding not just of Egypt...but in fact the very legacy of liberalism in the 21st century.' -- Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University 'An extraordinary and wide-ranging exploration of the Arab spring's excitement and reversal in Egypt.' -- Ebrahim Moosa, professor of Islamic Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame 'The question of democracy in Muslim societies has generated heated debate on the role of mainstream Islamist parties and democratization. Can they moderate their views? Will they respect electoral outcomes? Are they committed to political pluralism? The same questions, however, have been rarely asked of liberal and secular forces who occupy the same political space. This is precisely what is unique about this book. Focusing on Egypt's Arab Spring democratic transition, it examines the political behavior of Egyptian liberals during the transition period and after the 2013 military coup. In doing so, the editors and contributors make an important and exceptional contribution to understanding both the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab-Islamic world and the obstacles to democracy. It is a must read volume that challenges stereotypes and deepens our grasp of the politics and societies of the Middle East.' -- Nader Hashemi, director of the Center for Middle East Studies, University of Denver, and author of Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies

'A fiercely radical constellation of critical thinking indispensable for our understanding not just of Egypt...but in fact the very legacy of liberalism in the 21st century.' -- Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University 'An extraordinary and wide-ranging exploration of the Arab spring's excitement and reversal in Egypt.' -- Ebrahim Moosa, Professor of Islamic Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame 'The question of democracy in Muslim societies has generated heated debate on the role of mainstream Islamist parties and democratization. Can they moderate their views? Will they respect electoral outcomes? Are they committed to political pluralism? The same questions, however, have been rarely asked of liberal and secular forces who occupy the same political space. This is precisely what is unique about this book. Focusing on Egypt's Arab Spring democratic transition, it examines the political behavior of Egyptian liberals during the transition period and after the 2013 military coup. In doing so, the editors and contributors make an important and exceptional contribution to understanding both the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab-Islamic world and the obstacles to democracy. It is a must read volume that challenges stereotypes and deepens our grasp of the politics and societies of the Middle East.' -- Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies, University of Denver, and author of Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies 'The heroic events of January and February 2011 seemed at first to rewrite the rules of Middle Eastern politics. One of the longest ruling autocrats in the Arab World fell not to a military coup, an assassination, or violent uprising, but to the immovable presence of the people demonstrating in public. The Tahrir Revolution was 'liberal' in the sense that its demands were for freedom, the rule of law, and social justice. Its promise was that these goals seemed to reflect a shared will uniting the secular and the Islamist, the masses and the middle class. Two short years later that promise was shattered in a supreme act of anti-political, counter-revolutionary violence. How did many Egyptian 'liberals,' who two years earlier stood side by side with Islamists against Mubarak in Tahrir, and one year earlier voted for Morsi for President, come to side with a return to military dictatorship over constitutional politics? Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism brings together many of the best scholars on Egyptian politics to answer just this question.' -- Andrew F. March, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University, and author of Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus

Author Information

Dr Dalia Fahmy is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Long Island University. Her research examines the intellectual and political development of modern Islamist movements. She lives in New York. Daanish Faruqi is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Duke University, North Carolina.

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