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Political Opposition and Authoritarian Rule in Egypt

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Political Opposition and Authoritarian Rule in Egypt Holger Albrecht Political Opposition and Authoritarian Rule in Egypt Dissertation Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktor der Sozialwissenschaften in der Fakultät für Sozial- und Verhaltenswissenschaften der Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen 2008 Promotionserklärung Hiermit erkläre ich, dass ich diese Dissertation nicht bereits früher als Prüfungsarbeit bei einer akademischen oder staatlichen Prüfung verwendet habe oder mit ihr oder einer anderen Dissertation bereits einen Promotionsversuch unternommen habe. Tübingen, 29. Oktober 2007 (Holger Albrecht) Urheberschaftserklärung Hiermit erkläre ich, dass ich diese Dissertation selbständig verfasst, nur die angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel benutzt und wörtlich oder inhaltlich übernommene Stellen als solche gekennzeichnet habe. Tübingen, 29. Oktober 2007 (Holger Albrecht) Contents Note on Transliteration 1 List of Abbreviations 2 Acknowledgements 3 Introduction 7 Chapter 1: The Authoritarian State in the Middle East 13 1.1. Authoritarian vs. Patrimonial Regimes 14 1.2. ‘Liberalized Authoritarianism’ Reconsidered 27 1.3. Regime Stability and the Dynamics of Authoritarian Power Maintenance 34 Chapter 2: Political Participation in the Middle East: Authoritarianism from Below 41 2.1. Concept Traveling: Political Participation under Authoritarianism 41 2.2. Channels of Political Participation in the Middle East 49 2.3. Contentious Political Participation: The Civil Society Argument and Social Movement Theory 59 Social Movement Theory 59 The Civil Society Argument 63 1 Chapter 3: Political Opposition under Authoritarianism 71 3.1. Towards a Concept of Political Opposition 72 3.2. The Systemic Context: Opposition under Democracy vs. Authoritarianism 79 3.3. Patterns of Opposition under Authoritarianism in the Middle East 89 The Representation Function 93 The Legitimacy Function 93 The Channeling Function 94 The Moderation Function 94 Chapter 4: Mapping the Landscape of Contentious Politics in Egypt 97 4.1. Challengers in Elections: The Opposition Party Cartel 97 4.2. The ‘Civil Society Business’ 111 4.3. Street Politics: The “Pocket Protest” of Kifaya and the Workers’ Movement 117 ‘Kifaya’ – Enough of Mubarak! 118 An Emerging Workers’ Movement 125 4.4. The Islamist Movement 132 Chapter 5: Political Institutions in Egypt: Between Contention and Control 149 5.1. Parliament and Elections 150 5.2. Labor Unions, Professional Syndicates, and the ‘Dialogue Organizations’ 157 5.3. The Judiciary 166 5.4. Al-Azhar 170 Chapter 6: The Dynamics of Contentious Politics in Egypt 175 6.1. The Challenge towards the Egyptian Regime 179 6.2. The Support of Authoritarianism in Egypt 181 6.3. Struggles about Public Space 184 Bibliography 187 2 Note on Transliteration In order to render the proceedings of this study more accessible to the non-Arabic speaking reader, I have used, throughout the text, the spellings of Arabic names (of persons, geographic locations, organizations) and terms (e.g. ulema, sunni, etc.) that are commonly found in the English-speaking media and publications. 1 List of Abbreviations ACPSS Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies ADNP Arab Democratic Nasserist Party APEO Anti-Political Establishment Opposition APHRA Arab Program for Human Rights Activists ASU Arab Socialist Union CC Court of Cassation CCR Coordinating Committee for the Rights and Freedoms of the Syndicates and Labor CEDEJ Centre d’Études et de Documentation Économiques et Sociales CIJLP Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession CLAC Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee CSPI Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada CSS Center for Socialist Studies CTUWS Center for Trade Union and Worker Studies EOHR Egyptian Organization for Human Rights FSCP Free Social Constitutional Party GFTU General Federation of Trade Unions HMLC Hisham Mubarak Law Center IKC Ibn Khaldoun Center LCAC Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee LCHR Land Center for Human Rights LP Liberal Party MB Muslim Brotherhood MENA Middle East and North Africa MP Member of Parliament NCDWR National Committee for the Defense of Workers Rights NCHR National Council on Human Rights NFC National Front for Change NGO Non-Governmental Organization NDP National Democratic Party NPUP National Progressive Unionist Party PA People’s Assemply PPC Political Parties Committee PVA Private Voluntary Association SAC Supreme Administrative Court SCC Supreme Constitutional Court SLP Socialist Labor Party SJC Supreme Judicial Council SMT Social Movement Theory 2 Acknowledgements Not long ago, I was invited to a topping-out ceremony. Listening to my friend’s acknowledgment of people who supported him in his house-building adventure that took over two years to be accomplished, I was close to panic for three reasons: Firstly, I am still living in a rented flat; secondly, my own ‘grand project,’ the results of which have materialized in this study, spread over an embarrassingly long period of almost five years; and thirdly, so many people have supported this project that undue omissions are hardly avoidable. What first comes to my mind is the place where I have lived in the past 14 years and where this project came into being. After having worked for many years in the Middle East Department at Tübingen’s Political Science Institute, in several positi- ons during my graduate and post-graduate studies, my first thoughts go to the gui- dance, trust, and patience that I was fortunate to receive from my PhD supervisor Peter Pawelka. I am deeply indebted to him for giving me ample freedoms to deve- lop my personal ideas, as bizarre as they may have sounded once in a while. Among the Tübingen people who can, due to their useful comments, critique, and encouragement, claim a major stake in this study, the collaboration with Oliver Schlumberger stands out as particularly useful and impressive. Other colleagues and students out of the Tübingen research seminar “Forschungsforum Moderner Orient” and the Political Science Institute include André Bank, Rolf Frankenberger, Patricia Graf, Roy Karadag, Markus Loewe, Debby Rice, Thomas Richter, Rolf Schwarz, Irmtraud Seebold, and Thomas Stehnken. Some students who attended the seminars that I had to teach deserve credit for having challenged me to the extent that I was forced to think over some of my arguments; I will keep in mind, representing many others, Julius Kirchenbauer, Kevin Köhler, Fritz Matthäus, Marion Siebold, and Ja- na Warkotsch who joined me on a two-months long research mission to Cairo in 2005. Kevin Köhler’s support to this thesis as a research assistant is substantial and it will be hard in the future to get around without his dedication and competence. Accordingly, Kelly Neudorfer, by proof-reading the following chapters, spared me from the embarrassing concession that English remains still somewhat cumbrous a means of communication. While Tübingen – and the above people who I will always associate with this nice little Swabian town – owns by far the greatest share in the genesis of this PhD pro- ject, I am grateful that I was given the chance to travel in order to learn more about my subject. Traveling has had two main purposes: acquiring empirical knowledge about the subject that I decided to write about; and spreading some ideas and hypo- theses that came to my mind in the development of this PhD project with the aim of receiving criticism and support from what is nicely dubbed the ‘academic communi- ty’ (basically all those people who I met outside of Tübingen). As to the first purpo- se, several research missions led me to Cairo where I approached numerous people 3 with the intention of conducting interviews and lured them into conversations that proved immensely useful for my own understanding of the issue. Most of them are listed in the bibliography at the end of this manuscript. I am greatly indebted to them for sharing with me their knowledge about Egyptian politics. Among my ‘Cairo connections,’ I am especially grateful, for various reasons, to Alexander Haridi, Mohammed Farid Hassanein, Maye Kassem, Florian Kohstall, Emil Lieser, Ivesa Lübben, Iman Mandour, Vicky Reichl, Ahmed Saif al-Islam, Emad Shahin, Sabri Abdel-Mordy Zaki, and Walid. The purposes of my travelling history are ambivalent in that, on the one hand, trips led me to Cairo to learn new things and, on the other hand, other journeys had the aim of attending a number of conferences where I had the chance to present some results of my work even though the whole project was still in the making. Some of these presentations – and the generous input spent by a number of people – are reflected in distinct parts of this study. In March 2003, I was invited, together with Oliver Schlumberger, to participate at the 4th Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting (MSPRM) at the European University Institute in Florence & Montecatini Terme. Our contribution “’Waiting for Godot:’ Regime Change Without Democratization in the Middle East” was published in the International Political Science Review (2004) and influenced my reflections on the authoritarian state in the Middle East in chapter 1 of this study. In the following year, I came back to Montecatini Terme to attend the 5th Meeting and presented a paper that was later published in Democratization (2005). This piece of research, titled “How Can Opposition Support Authoritarianism?” can be grasped as an early ‘outline’ of my PhD project and the core hypotheses developed in much greater depth in this study. In the same year, my
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