Economic liberalization and changes in fundamentalism: The case of Egypt

Middle East Policy

Volumn 12, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 133-144

  Ates, Davut ^a  

^a Department of Foreign Trade ^*  (Turkey)

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EID: 31144441559     PISSN: 10611924     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4967.2005.00230.x     Document Type: Review

References (78)

1. The terms "radicals" and "militants" are used interchangeably to refer to the extreme wings of the fundamentalist movements.
2. use the term "rapprochement" to refer to compromise between the Brothers and the regimes, and the permission of the regimes for the legal existence of the Brothers. I call "tension" the conflictual relations between the Brothers and the regimes. The term "disintegration" is used to refer to the internal schism within the Brothers. The term "organization" is used to refer to the Muslim Brotherhood.
3. Bent Hansen, Egypt and Turkey (World Bank, 1991), pp. 111-28.
4. Bent Hansen, Egypt and Turkey, 1991, Ibid., p. 110.
5. Bent Hansen, Egypt and Turkey, 1991, Ibid., p. 119.
6. N. Nazih Ayubi, The State and Public Policies in Egypt since Sadat (UK, Ithaca Press, 1991), pp. 222-3.
7. Hansen (1991), p. 129.
8. Ayubi (1991), p.224.
9. Hansen, pp. 149-63.
10. Egypt Economic Profile (1996), pp. 99-100
11. Egypt's Perspective (1995), p. 38.
12. Hansen, p. 200.
13. Egypt Economic Profile (1996), p. 6.
14. EFG-Hermes Research, "Egypt, Economic Review," October 1996
15. MEED, 4 October 1996.
16. Hansen, pp. 204-18.
17. Marvin G Weinbaum, "Egypt's Infitah and the Politics of USA Economic Assistance," Middle East Studies, Vol. 21, April 1985, pp. 212-5.
18. The growing role of the private sector in the economy is indicated by changes in its share of gross fixed investments. In the 1960s and early 1970s this share was less than 10 percent, for the period 1977-82 it was 19 percent and for 1982-87, 26 percent. See Haba Handoussa, "Egypt's Investment Strategy, Policies and Performance Since Infitah" in Investment Policies in the Arab World by Said El Naggar (ed), (Washington D. C., 1990), pp. 156-7.
19. Economist Intelligence Unit, "Egypt: A Country Profile 1990-91," p. 17.
20. Hans Löfgren, "Economic Policy in Egypt: A Breakdown in Reform Resistance?" International journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 25, 1993, p. 407.
21. Löfgren, p. 409;
22. MEED, 17 May 1991, p. 7.
23. Cassandra, "The Impeding Crisis in Egypt," Middle East Journal, Vol. 49, Winter 1995, p. 11.
24. EFG-Hermes Research, "Egypt, Economic Review," October 1996.
25. Cassandra, p. 19.
26. Josh Martin, "One Step at a Time," The Middle East, Issue 226, September, 1993.
27. MEED, 17 June 1991.
28. EFG-Hermes Research, "Egypt, Economic Review," October 1996.
29. MEED, 4 October 1996.
30. EFG-Hermes Research, "Egypt, Economic Review," October 1996.
31. Denis J. Sullivan, "The Political Economy of Reform in Egypt," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 22, 1990, p. 327.
32. Derek Hopwood, Egypt: Politics and Society (London, Routledge, 1991), p. 193;
33. Brian Scudder, "Keeping a Steady Course," The Middle East, Issue 231, February 1994.
34. Hamied Ansari, Egypt: The Stalled Society (State University of New York Press, 1986), p. 237.
35. Shukrallah (1989), p. 99.
36. Attainment of specific data covering the economic activities of the members of the Muslim Brothers is a crucial and difficult problem due to the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has neither a legal existence nor did its members establish a businessmen's union with that name. Rather, there are some sample cases in which some businessmen and Islamic companies have close relations with the unofficial leadership of the organization. But I think this problem is easier to tackle in the case of Turkey, for example, where there is a more liberal political and economic system in which fundamentalist-oriented businessmen reveal their political preferences more clearly. For that reason, the integration of the Turkish economy with the world after the 1980s provided a convenient circumstance for middle class members of the fundamentalist movements, who were deprived of economic fruits under a command economy. Many so-called Islamic holdings and companies emerged under the liberalized economy. For members of the middle class, the political party strategy is one of the most important tools to reach more economic means, where the public sector is still controlled by the party in power.
37. Abd al-Monein Said Aly, and M. Manfred Wenner, "Modern Islamic Reform Movements: The Muslim Brotherhood in Contemporary Egypt," Middle East Journal, Vol. 36, Summer 1982, p. 353.
38. See "Egypt's Islamic Group: Regional Revenge?" by Mamoun Fandy, Middle East Journal, vol.48, Autumn 1994, pp. 607-625. Fandy draws attention to the regional diversification in Egypt's Islamic groups, mainly to the northern and southern groups, where the former is culturally and economically more developed and in which the Brotherhood is a party, while the latter displays rural characteristics and radical groups are present dominantly.
39. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, "Egypt's Islamic Militants," Merip Reports, February 1982, p. 11.
40. Mamoun Fandy, "Egypt's Islamic Group: Regional Revenge?" Middle East Journal, Vol. 48, Autumn 1994, p. 616.
41. Hani Shukrallah, "Political Crisis and Political Conflict in Post-1967 Egypt," in Egypt Under Mubarak, by Roger Owen and Charles Tripp (eds.) (London, Routledge, 1989), p. 94.
42. Fandy (1994), p. 617.
43. Mamoun Fandy, "The Tensions behind the Violence in Egypt," Middle East Policy, Vol. 2, 1993, pp. 25-34. Fandy argues that the class prejudice and class favoritism that operate at the universities become obstacles when the young graduates try to find employment in Cairo. He also sees the necessity of a reform program of equitable distribution of goods and services between the rich and the poor and between the regions.
44. In Ibrahim (1982), p. 13
45. Saad Eddin Ibrahim states that young leftists and young radical Islamists have similar social profiles. He claims that the key factor that shapes their different ideologies is that the former have an urban background while the latter a rural background.
46. Ann Mosely Lesch, "Contrasting Reactions to the Persian Gulf Crisis: Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians," Middle East Journal, Vol. 45, Winter 1991, p. 201. The economic view of the radicals is that excessive wealth and excessive poverty have no place in a Muslim society, they reject both capitalism and socialism;
47. Ibrahim (1982), p. 7.
48. Sana Abed-Kotob, "The Accommodationists Speak: Goals and Strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 27, 1995, p. 327;
49. Lesch, p. 203. For effects of economic liberalization on the moderation of violence in Egypt
50. see "Egypt Faces its Moment of Economic Truth" by Adnrew Album, The Middle East, Issue 247, July 1995.
51. Janine A. Clark, "Democratisation and Social Islam: A Case Study of the Islamic Health Clinics in Cairo," in Political Liberalization and Democratisation in the Arab World, Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble (eds.), (Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 167-186.
52. Ayubi (1991), p. 233.
53. Ibid., p. 246.
54. Clement H. Moore, "Islamic Banks and Competitive Politics in the Arab World and Turkey," Middle East Journal, Vol. 44, Spring 1990, pp. 251-3.
55. Simon Brindle and Amin, Nadia, "Banking and Finance in Egypt," The Middle East, Issue 213, July 1992, pp. 35-37.
56. Moore, p. 254.
57. Ibid., pp. 236-7.
58. MEED, July 7 1989.
59. For informal banking in Egypt, see "Informal Finance in Egypt: Banks within Banks" by Mayada M. Baydas, Zakaria Bahloul and Dale W. Adams, World Development, Volume 23, 1995, pp. 651-61.
60. Moore, p. 242. In Turkey under the framework of governmental policy to detach the Islamists from the extreme wings, the establishment and operations of Islamic banks were encouraged in 1980s.
61. Delwin Roy, "The Hidden Economy in Egypt," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 28, October 1992, pp. 689-93.
62. See, for example, Abdel Rezzak Abdel Meguid, former minister of planning and minister of economy under the Sadat regime, is a consultant to the Rayyan Group;
63. Roy, p. 694.
64. Roy, p. 695.
65. Sullivan, p. 329.
66. Roy, p. 708.
67. Galal A. Amin claims that infitah was one of the important factors of social mobility in Egypt, in "Migration, Inflation and Social Mobility: A Sociological Interpretation of Egypt's Current Economic and Political Crisis", in Egypt Under Mubarak by Charles Tripp and Roger Owen (eds), (London, Routledge, 1989), pp. 103-21.
68. Gilles Kepel, "Islamists versus the State in Egypt and Algeria," Deadalus, Vol. 124, 1995, pp. 109-27.
69. Cassandra, p. 20.
70. Nazih Ayoubi, "Government and State in Egypt Today," in Egypt Under Mubarak, Charles Tripp and Roger Owen (eds.), (London, Routledge, 1989), pp. 1-20.
71. Fandy (1994), p. 606.
72. Weinbaum, p. 219.
73. Shukrallah, p. 98.
74. Abed-Kotob, p.336.
75. The Middle East, Issue 224, June 1993.
76. The role of the middle class in such a country resembles the role played by the bourgeoisie on the eve of French revolution in 1789. See The Bourgeoisie in 18th Century France by Elinor G Barber (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1955)
77. The Watchdogs of Established Order, by Paul Fittinoff, translated into English by Paul Nizan, (Monthly Review Press, 1971)
78. Robert Springborg, "State-Society Relations in Egypt: The Debate over Owner-Tenant Relations," Middle East Journal, Vol. 45, Spring 1991, p. 242.