› › The Rise Of The Lesser Notables In Cairo S Popular Quarters

The Rise of the Lesser Notables in Cairo's Popular Quarters

Author : Menza Fahmy

Publisher :

Page : pages

File Size : 37,39 MB

Release : 2010

Category :

ISBN :

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Book Description

Ever since the military takeover of 1952, the post-monarchic political system of Egypt has been dependent upon a variety of mechanisms and structures to establish and further consolidate its powerbase. Among those, an intertwined web of what could be described as 'patronage politics' emerged as one of the main foundations of these tools and was utilized by the regime to establish the fundamentals of its rule. Throughout the post-1952 era, political patrons and respective clients were existent in Egyptian politics, shaping, to a great extent, the policies implemented by Egypt's rulers at the apex of the political system, as well as the tactics orchestrated by the populace within the middle and lower echelons of the polity. This study aims at analyzing the factors that ensured the durability of patronage networks within the Egyptian polity, primarily focusing on the sort of social structural reconfiguration that has been taking place in the popular communities of Egypt in the beginning of the 21st Century. Dissecting the area of Misr Al Qadima as an exemplar case study of Cairo's popular quarters, the research mainly focuses on examining the role of the lesser notables, those middle patrons and clients that exist on the lower levels of the Egyptian polity within the ranks of the National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood. Henceforth, the sociopolitical agency of these lesser notabilities shall constitute the prime concern of the writing and, in doing so; this research also attempts to draw some linkage between the micro-level features of the popular polities of Cairo and the macro-level realities of the Egyptian polity at large, in the contemporary period.



Patronage Politics in Egypt

Author : Mohamed Fahmy Menza

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 201 pages

File Size : 27,19 MB

Release : 2013

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 0415686237

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Book Description

Between the military takeover of 1952 and the collapse of the Mubarak regime in 2011, the political system of Egypt depended upon a variety of mechanisms and structures to establish and consolidate its powerbase. Among those, an intricate web of what could be described as ‘patronage politics’ emerged as one of the main foundations of these tools. Throughout the post-1952 era, political patrons and respective clients were influential in Egyptian politics, shaping the policies implemented by Egypt's rulers, as well as the tactics orchestrated by the wider population. On a macro level Patronage Politics in Egypt examines the activities of the NDP (ruling party from 1978-2011) and its opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood. On a micro level, the book uses the area of Misr Al Qadima as a case study to examine the factors that ensured the durability of patronage networks within the Egyptian polity. By examining how the local links into macro-level politics, this book portrays the socio-economic and political contexts that set the stage for the January 25 Revolution. This topical study will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars and researchers of the Middle East and Islam as well as those with a more general interest in politics.



Clientelism and Patronage in the Middle East and North Africa

Author : Laura Ruiz de Elvira

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 257 pages

File Size : 28,39 MB

Release : 2018-07-17

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 135116922X

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Book Description

One common demand in the 2011 uprisings in the MENA region was the call for ‘freedom, dignity, and social justice.’ Citizens rallied against corruption and clientelism, which for many protesters were deeply linked to political tyranny. This book takes the phenomenon of the 2011 uprisings as a point of departure for reassessing clientelism and patronage across the entire MENA region. Using case studies covering Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the Gulf monarchies, it looks at how the relationships within and between clientelist and patronage networks changed before 2011. The book assesses how these changes contributed to the destabilization of the established political and social order, and how they affected less visible political processes. It then turns to look at how the political transformations since 2011 have in turn reconfigured these networks in terms of strategies and dynamics, and concomitantly, what implications this has had for the inclusion or exclusion of new actors. Are specific networks expanding or shrinking in the post-2011 contexts? Do these networks reproduce established forms of patron-client relations or do they translate into new modes and mechanisms? As the first book to systematically discuss clientelism, patronage and corruption against the background of the 2011 uprisings, it will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle Eastern Studies. The book also addresses major debates in comparative politics and political sociology by offering ‘networks of dependency’ as an interdisciplinary conceptual approach that can ‘travel’ across place and time.



Winning Hearts and Votes

Author : Steven Brooke

Publisher : Cornell University Press

Page : 230 pages

File Size : 30,50 MB

Release : 2019-01-15

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1501730630

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Book Description

In non-democratic regimes around the world, non-state organizations provide millions of citizens with medical care, schooling, childrearing, and other critical social services. Why would any authoritarian countenance this type of activism? Under what conditions does the private provision of social services generate political mobilization? And in those cases, what linkage does the provision of social services forge between the provider and recipient? In Winning Hearts and Votes, Steven Brooke argues that authoritarians often seek to manage moments of economic crisis by offloading social welfare responsibilities to non-state providers. But providers who serve poorer citizens, motivated by either charity of clientelism, will be constrained in their ability to mobilize voters because the poor depend on the state for many different goods. Organizations that serve paying customers, in contrast, may produce high quality, consistent, and effective services. This type of provision generates powerful, reputation-based linkages with a middle-class constituency more likely to support the provider on election day. Brooke backs up his novel argument with an in-depth examination of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the archetypal organization that combines social service provision with electoral success. With a fascinating array of historical, qualitative, spatial, and experimental data he traces the Brotherhood’s provision of medical services from its origins in the 1970s, through its maturation under the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak, to its apogee during the country’s brief democratic interlude, 2011–2013. In addition to generating new insights into authoritarian regimes, party-voter linkages and clientelism, and the relationship between political parties and social movements, Winning Hearts and Votes details the history, operations, and political effects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s much discussed but little understood social service network.



The Redeployment of State Power in the Southern Mediterranean

Author : Sylvia I. Bergh

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 231 pages

File Size : 32,71 MB

Release : 2016-04-08

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 113492724X

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Book Description

The effects of neoliberal economic reforms in the Southern Mediterranean are now widely regarded as a main underlying cause of the Arab uprisings. An often neglected dimension is that of the reforms’ implications for local governance. The contributions to this edited volume examine how state power is being re-articulated but also challenged at sub-national levels in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey. They explore the effects of neoliberal economic and local governance reforms such as decentralization, public-private partnerships, and outsourcing in the area of public service delivery, poverty alleviation, and labor market reforms on local patronage networks, public accountability, and state-society relations. The findings show that such reforms are often subordinated to established patterns of political contestation among actors who seize on the opportunities that reforms offer to advance their political agendas, thereby illustrating the local specificity of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’. The book thus fills an important knowledge gap by combining public policy and management theories with those on patron-client networks and public accountability at the local level, and situating them within the critical literature on neoliberalism. This book was published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.



Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco

Author : Janine A. Clark

Publisher : Columbia University Press

Page : 402 pages

File Size : 43,1 MB

Release : 2018-04-03

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 0231545010

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Book Description

In recent years, authoritarian states in the Middle East and North Africa have faced increasing international pressure to decentralize political power. Decentralization is presented as a panacea that will foster good governance and civil society, helping citizens procure basic services and fight corruption. Two of these states, Jordan and Morocco, are monarchies with elected parliaments and recent experiences of liberalization. Morocco began devolving certain responsibilities to municipal councils decades ago, while Jordan has consistently followed a path of greater centralization. Their experiences test such assumptions about the benefits of localism. Janine A. Clark examines why Morocco decentralized while Jordan did not and evaluates the impact of their divergent paths, ultimately explaining how authoritarian regimes can use decentralization reforms to consolidate power. Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco argues that decentralization is a tactic authoritarian regimes employ based on their coalition strategies to expand their base of support and strengthen patron-client ties. Clark analyzes the opportunities that decentralization presents to local actors to pursue their interests and lays out how municipal-level figures find ways to use reforms to their advantage. In Morocco, decentralization has resulted not in greater political inclusivity or improved services, but rather in the entrenchment of pro-regime elites in power. The main Islamist political party has also taken advantage of these reforms. In Jordan, decentralization would undermine the networks that benefit elites and their supporters. Based on extensive fieldwork, Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco is an important contribution to Middle East studies and political science that challenges our understanding of authoritarian regimes’ survival strategies and resilience.





Inside Inequality in the Arab Republic of Egypt

Author : Paolo Verme

Publisher : World Bank Publications

Page : 155 pages

File Size : 21,42 MB

Release : 2014-04-08

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 1464801983

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Book Description

Inside Inequality in the Arab Republic of Egypt: Facts and Perceptions Across People, Time, and Space comprises four papers prepared in the framework of the Egypt inequality study financed by the World Bank. The first paper, by Sherine Al-Shawarby, reviews the studies on inequality in Egypt since the 1950s with the double objective of illustrating the importance attributed to inequality through time and of presenting and compare the main published statistics on inequality. The second paper, by Branko Milanovic, turns to the global and spatial dimensions of inequality. The Egyptian society remains deeply divided across space and in terms of welfare, and this study unveils some of the hidden features of this inequality. The third paper, by Paolo Verme, studies facts and perceptions of inequality during the 2000-2009 period, which preceded the Egyptian revolution. The fourth paper, by Sahar El Tawila, May Gadallah, and Enas Ali A.El-Majeed, assesses the state of poverty and inequality among the poorest villages of Egypt. The paper attempts to explain the level of inequality in an effort to disentangle those factors that derive from household abilities from those factors that derive from local opportunities. Inside Inequality in the Arab Republic of Egypt provides some initial elements that could explain the apparent mismatch between inequality measured with household surveys and inequality aversion measured by values surveys. This is a particularly important and timely topic to address in light of the unfolding developments in the Arab region. The book should be of interest to any observer of the political and economic evolution of the Arab region in the past few years and to poverty and inequality specialists interested in a deeper understanding of the distribution of incomes in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. World Bank Studies are available individually or on standing order. The World Bank Studies series is also available online through the Open Knowledge Repository (https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/) and the World Bank e-Library (www.worldbank.org/elibrary). Book jacket.



The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem

Author : Jane Hathaway

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 341 pages

File Size : 17,21 MB

Release : 2018-08-30

Category : History

ISBN : 1108572332

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Book Description

Eunuchs were a common feature of pre- and early modern societies that are now poorly understood. Here, Jane Hathaway offers an in-depth study of the chief of the African eunuchs who guarded the harem of the Ottoman Empire. A wide range of primary sources are used to analyze the Chief Eunuch's origins in East Africa and his political, economic, and religious role from the inception of his office in the late sixteenth century through the dismantling of the palace harem in the early twentieth century. Hathaway highlights the origins of the institution and how the role of eunuchs developed in East Africa, as well as exploring the Chief Eunuch's connections to Egypt and Medina. By tracing the evolution of the office, we see how the Chief Eunuch's functions changed in response to transformations in Ottoman society, from the generalized crisis of the seventeenth century to the westernizing reforms of the nineteenth century.



Cairo

Author : Nezar AlSayyad

Publisher : Harvard University Press

Page : 349 pages

File Size : 41,93 MB

Release : 2011-05-02

Category : Architecture

ISBN : 0674047869

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Book Description

From its earliest days as a royal settlement fronting the pyramids of Giza to its current manifestation as the largest metropolis in Africa, Cairo has forever captured the urban pulse of the Middle East. In Cairo: Histories of a City, Nezar AlSayyad narrates the many Cairos that have existed throughout time, offering a panoramic view of the city’s history unmatched in temporal and geographic scope, through an in-depth examination of its architecture and urban form. In twelve vignettes, accompanied by drawings, photographs, and maps, AlSayyad details the shifts in Cairo’s built environment through stories of important figures who marked the cityscape with their personal ambitions and their political ideologies. The city is visually reconstructed and brought to life not only as a physical fabric but also as a social and political order—a city built within, upon, and over, resulting in a present-day richly layered urban environment. Each chapter attempts to capture a defining moment in the life trajectory of a city loved for all of its evocations and contradictions. Throughout, AlSayyad illuminates not only the spaces that make up Cairo but also the figures that shaped them, including its chroniclers, from Herodotus to Mahfouz, who recorded the deeds of great and ordinary Cairenes alike. He pays particular attention to how the imperatives of Egypt's various rulers and regimes—from the pharaohs to Sadat and beyond—have inscribed themselves in the city that residents navigate today.