Political Attitudes of the Egyptian Public in a Regional Context(1)

Special Feature (Article)／特集（論文） Political Orientations of the Egyptian Public Based on the Result of Egypt Opinion Survey 2008 Political Attitudes of the Egyptian Public in a Regional Context(1) INO Takeji, IWASAKI Erina, and KATO Hiroshi Ⅰ . Introduction Ⅱ . Egypt at the Crossroads Ⅲ . Regional Differences in Political Attitudes Ⅳ . Interaction between Political Attitudes and Socioeconomic Factors Ⅴ . Conclusion エジプト国民の政治態度地域比較を中心に伊能武次岩崎えり奈加藤博本稿は、エジプト国民の政治意識を定量的な分析により明らかにする。その際、焦点は政治態度とさまざまな社会経済的・文化的な要素との関係を検証することにおかれる。依拠するデータは、ニーズ対応型地域研究推進事業「アジアのなかの中東」（代表：加藤博）の一環として、「エジプト研究訓練センター」（所長：アブデルハミード・アブデラティーフ）により 2008年に実施されたアンケート調査から得られた。この調査は、 121 Political Attitudes of the Egyptian Public in a Regional Context (Ino, Iwasaki, Kato) 2011_27-1.indb 121 2011/06/30 17:05:51 18歳以上のエジプト国民1000人を対象とした、全国規模のアンケート調査である。本調査の独自性の一つは、地域的な比較が可能になるように設計されたことである。ここでの「地域」とは、都市県（カイロ県、ポート・サイド県）、下エジプト（メヌフィーヤ県、カフル・シェイフ県）、上エジプト（ベニー・スエフ県、ソハーグ県）のことである。本稿では、この調査から得られたデータに依拠し、地域的な違いを重視して、エジプト国民の政治態度とその社会経済的背景要因との関係を明らかにすることを目的とした。地域的な違いを重視するのは、これまでのエジプト政治研究では、地域的偏差が考慮されてこなかったからである。しかし、本稿では、今日のエジプト政治状況と今後のエジプト社会の展望するにあたって、地域的偏差を重視する必要があると考え、上記の３つの地域における政治態度の比較分析を試みた。分析の結果は、次の四つである。第 1 に、多重対応分析の結果から、エジプト国民の政治態度が地域によって異なることが確認された。第 2 に、因子分析の結果から、社会開発が政治態度を左右する重要な要因であることが判明した。なかでも学歴が重要である。第 3 に、社会開発が重要であるとはいえ、その重要性の度合いならびに社会開発の中身は地域によって異なる。したがって、社会経済環境と政治態度の関係は単線的ではなく、地域によって異なるパターンをとる。第4に、三つの地域に共通する傾向として、社会開発が必ずしも積極的な政治態度を助長するわけではない。通説に反して、社会開発は政治参加の促進力とはなっていない。実際、最も高い生活水準を享受し、学歴の高い都市県の住民は、最も社会的不満をかかえ、政治参加が低い。 I. Introduction A number of fault lines exist in modern-day Egypt. The country has shown strong macroeconomic performance, but it is faced with growing socioeconomic discontent. The sharp contrast between gated communities and areas of slum housing is an example of such a fault line. This economic fault line complicates the political situation, in which political reform and the problem of President Mubarak’s succession have been accentuated by opposition groups in the post-Iraq War period. In recent years, voices of socioeconomic discontent have emerged among the Egyptian public. This is a well- known fact but one that has not been empirically surveyed to any great extent. All of these voices appear to be saying that Egypt is now at a historical crossroads as a consequence of the far-reaching transformation of the Egyptian state and society since AJAMES no.27-1 2011 122 2011_27-1.indb 122 2011/06/30 17:05:51 the mid-1970s(2). To examine how this transformation is reflected in the political attitudes of the Egyptian public, an opinion survey, on which this paper is based, was carried out in 2008, two years before the national parliamentary elections of 2010, which would decide the future direction of Egypt(3). Using the data collected from the survey, this paper provides a quantitative analysis of and explanations for the voices of socioeconomic discontent among the Egyptian public by focusing on the relationships between political attitudes and various social, economic, and cultural factors. II. Egypt at the Crossroads 1. The Traditional Image of Egyptian Society Conventional wisdom holds that Egypt is historically a centralized state whose capital city Cairo plays a dominant role in every aspect of its inhabitants’ lives. Therefore, Cairo (Misr) is regarded as Egypt (Misr) herself; in other words, we only need look at Cairo if we wish to understand Egyptian society, since everything in Egypt is represented in Cairo. This traditional, predominant image of Cairo in Egyptian society was common from the beginning of the twentieth century, when more than 80% of the population lived in the countryside, up to the Second World War. This image has also been characterized by a prevailing dualism. The first dimension is center–local relations, that is, the contrasting description of the differences between Metropolitan Cairo and other local communities. This dimension may equally be regarded as an urban–rural dualism. The second is the Lower–Upper Egypt divide, that is, the socioeconomic and regional differences between Lower and Upper Egypt. These dualisms are deduced from the traditional image of Egypt, which can be summarized as follows. Egypt in the Nile Valley is composed administratively of two regions, the Lower and Upper regions(4). The Nile River is divided into two branches, which form the delta at Cairo. Lower Egypt is the northern part from Cairo to the Mediterranean. Upper Egypt is the southern part from Cairo to the border between Egypt and Sudan. Although it is well known that Egypt is a hydraulic society dependent on the Nile, this image of Egypt is clearly partial, because it only takes into consideration the 123 Political Attitudes of the Egyptian Public in a Regional Context (Ino, Iwasaki, Kato) 2011_27-1.indb 123 2011/06/30 17:05:51 oasis region where the different irrigation systems and the Nile Valley social structure have developed. However, this image is so dominant that it has been repeatedly reproduced. As such, an image of Egypt has emerged as a centralized society with two significant but seemingly contradicting corollaries, namely, the urban–rural dichotomy and the cultural uniformity in Egyptian society. The urban–rural dichotomy has influenced the literature on Egyptian society. For example, in the studies on poverty, migration, and employment, which have been key topics in studies of the Egyptian economy, the rural areas have been regarded as a space of poverty with limited job opportunities and out-migration. On the other hand, the urban areas have been perceived as a space of affluence with job opportunities and in-migration. Cultural uniformity has been emphasized in the lifestyle of Egyptian people across history, symbolized in the phrase “al-shakhsiya al-masriya” (Egyptian personality). In fact, it is well known that Egypt is an exception among Middle Eastern states̶almost all of which have artificial boundaries because they were established after the First World War by the European Great Powers̶in that it has historical boundaries and traditions that have helped instill a mature “national” consciousness in the population. The formation of the Egyptian “nation-state” begins with the “Egyptians,” that is, the people of the communities that grew up along the Nile River, and then moves to the political formation of the “Egyptian state.” The consequence of this traditional image of Egypt is the neglect of a regional perspective. Indeed, studies on Egypt generally use only one regional distinction: that between Lower and Upper Egypt. However, the adequacy of these regions as socioeconomic categories has not been examined, and explanations of regional differences have been limited to political and cultural descriptions. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to examine critically this simplistic view of Egyptian society as homogeneous [Iwasaki 2009b; Kato and Iwasaki 2011]. 2. Economic and Demographic Changes in Egyptian Society Prevailing descriptions of the regional divide in Egypt have been challenged by the political and socioeconomic transformations that have taken place since the mid- 1970s. The immediate impetus for these transformations was the introduction of new public policies oriented toward economic liberalization by the Sadat regime. Regarding center–local relations, the relative decline in the importance of AJAMES no.27-1 2011 124 2011_27-1.indb 124 2011/06/30 17:05:51 Metropolitan Cairo as the political center of Egypt has been an important trend. As the flow of migration into Cairo continued, it had to deal with enormous problems related to urban services such as housing, traffic, health, and sewage facilities, as well as the emerging religious radical opposition and sociopolitical unrest. On the other hand, regarding the Lower–Upper Egypt divide, a noteworthy trend emerged at the local level. Prominent families and rich peasants who were regarded as the main beneficiaries of the land reform process under the Nasser regime succeeded in maintaining and consolidating their influence under Sadat’s economic liberalization [Dyer 1997: 83–94]. This trend appears to have been accelerated under the Mubarak regime by the enactment in 1992 of a new law to liberalize the relations between landowners and tenants. After five years’ grace, in October 1997, tenant fees were predominantly placed under the control of market mechanisms. Therefore, tenants had to face serious situations where they might have lost their long-guaranteed rights to their lands and their tenant contracts might have been cancelled [El-Gawhary 1997: 41]. This new law has sensitive political implications for Upper Egypt, where, traditionally, the minority Coptic population is concentrated, and landowners were, in many cases, Copts, because landowner–tenant tensions could easily develop into sectarian conflict between Coptic landowners and Muslim tenants. As radical Islamic groups developed their bases in urban and rural localities in the 1970s, Upper Egypt became a focus of interest with the groups’ strong presence in Asyut and Minya Governorates, and Upper Egypt was paid particular attention to as a special problem area. Small-scale sporadic riots at the end of the 1990s and local unrest in the first decade of the 2000s need to be understood partly in this context. Among the government’s responses to the problems in Upper Egypt, several initiatives are worth mentioning. First, the government placed a priority on regional development to improve lagging economic development. Second, the government attempted to control localities

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