THE POLITICS OF NEGLECT THE EGYPTIAN STATE IN CAIRO, 1974-98 W. Judson Dorman A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PHD) SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES (SOAS) UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 2007 DECLARATION The work presented in this thesis is my own. All sources used are indicated in the footnotes and the References section, and all assistance received has been gratefully noted in the Acknowledgements. Any errors of fact, interpretation and presentation remain my own. W. Judson Dorman Date 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines state-society relations in Egypt, and the logic of durable authoritarianism since 1952. It does so, through an examination of the Egyptian state’s neglectful rule, from the 1970s through the 1990s, of its capital Cairo. In particular, the thesis focuses on state inaction vis-à-vis Cairo’s informal housing sector: those neighbourhoods established on land not officially sanctioned for urbanization. Since the early 1990s—when Islamist militants used them to launch attacks on the Mubarak government—such communities have been stigmatized in Egyptian public discourse as threats to the nation’s social, moral and political health. Western scholars, by contrast, have valorized them as exemplifying popular agency. The central research question of the thesis is to explain why the Egyptian state has been unable to intervene effectively in these informal neighbourhoods—despite the apparent challenges they pose, the authoritarian state’s considerable unilateral power and the availability of western assistance. The short answer to the question, is that the very factors which sustain the authoritarian political order constrain the Egyptian state’s ability to intervene in its capital. The autocratic post-1952 political order is intimately linked to a neglectful and indifferent style of rule. That this neglect is not simply the result of structural resource constraints, is demonstrated through the examination of externally funded donor projects—none of which were particularly successful or sustainable. Their failures can be plausibly explained in terms of the challenges they posed to the logic of autocratic rule. In other words, informal Cairo endures because it is, in part, a consequence of the post-1952 dispensation of power. The exigencies of authoritarian rule are a substantial part of its conditions of possibility and durability. Such linkages complicate Egyptian interpretations of informality as social pathology, as well as its valorization in western scholarship. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration................................................................................................................................2 Abstract .....................................................................................................................................3 Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................4 List of Maps ..............................................................................................................................11 List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................12 Note on Arabic Transliterations & Translations ...................................................................14 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................15 PART A: THE EGYPTIAN STATE IN CAIRO 1 AUTHORITARIANISM & NEGLECT IN EGYPT .................................................20 1.1 City of Disorder?..................................................................................................22 1.1.1 Urban Crisis .............................................................................................23 1.1.2 Naming & Taming the cAshwa’iyyat....................................................25 A. Languages of Social Menace ...........................................................25 B. Demolishing & Upgrading ..............................................................25 C. The Return of Indifference?.............................................................26 1.1.3 The Problematics of Neglect.................................................................27 1.2 The Egyptian State: Capacity vs. Autocracy?................................................28 1.2.1 A Hegemonic State? ...............................................................................29 1.2.2 The ‘Soft State’ & Durable Authoritarianism ...................................30 1.3 States, Regimes & Neglect .................................................................................30 1.3.1 State Capacity & Regime Type ............................................................31 1.3.2 Autocracy & Neglectful Rule ...............................................................33 A. State-Society Disengagement..........................................................33 B. Patrimonialism ...................................................................................35 C. Risk Avoidance ..................................................................................36 1.3.3 The International Dimension ...............................................................37 4 1.4 The Post-1952 Order............................................................................................39 1.4.1 Monopolizing the Political....................................................................39 A. The Removal of Rivals......................................................................40 B. The Instruments of Control..............................................................40 C. The Atomization of Society .............................................................41 1.4.2 Centres of Power.....................................................................................41 A. The Presidency...................................................................................42 B. The Military.........................................................................................42 C. The Political Elite ...............................................................................43 1.4.3 The Informality of Politics ....................................................................43 1.4.4 Façade Democracy ...................................................................................44 1.4.5 The Clientelization of Society ..............................................................45 A. The ‘Social Contract’ .........................................................................45 B. The Demise of Distribution?............................................................46 C. Clientelization by Other Means......................................................47 1.4.6 Developmentalism & ‘the Edifice Complex’ ....................................47 1.5 The Incapacities of the Egyptian State ............................................................48 1.5.1 State-Society Disengagement ...............................................................50 A. Rural Notables & Agrarian Stagnation.........................................51 B. The Urban Informal Sector...............................................................52 1.5.2 Patrimonialism & State Capacity ........................................................55 A. Political Logics ...................................................................................55 B. The Costs of Clientelizing Society ..................................................56 C. Space of Political Competition........................................................57 1.5.3 The Management of Discontent...........................................................58 A. Ameliorating Grievance...................................................................59 B. Pre-empting Discontent....................................................................59 C. The Plasticity of Authoritarianism.................................................61 1.6 International Rent & Aid Flows .......................................................................62 1.6.1 ‘Growth without Development’ ..........................................................63 1.6.2 Sustaining the Social Contract .............................................................63 1.7 Conclusion: Rule vs. Governance ....................................................................64 1.8 Thesis Parameters................................................................................................65 1.8.1 The View from the Middle ...................................................................65 1.8.2 Sources & Their Problematics .............................................................66 1.8.3 Cairo, the City Indefinable?..................................................................68 1.8.4 Time Frame ..............................................................................................69 2 INFORMAL CAIRO: BETWEEN MARGINALITY AND INDIFFERENCE .................................................................................................70 2.1 ‘Conquering the Beast’? .....................................................................................71 2.1.1 Political & Economic Centre.................................................................72 2.1.2 Securing the City.....................................................................................73 5 2.2 Coping With Growth ..........................................................................................76