Authoritarian Government, Neoliberalism and Everyday Civilities in Egypt

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 32, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 845-862

  Ismail, Salwa ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTHORITARIANISM; CIVIL SOCIETY; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; NEOLIBERALISM; POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY; STATE ROLE; STATE-LOCAL RELATIONS;

EGYPT;

EID: 79960897898     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2011.578957     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. In Norbert Elias's account of civility, the disposition of 'self-restraint' develops with increased social differentiation among the upper echelons of society, namely the nobility and the bourgeoisie, as an element of social distinction. With increased social complexity and greater differentiation, self-restraint develops among other social strata, including the working classes and eventually it is also generalised into the colonised countries. Regardless of the merits of the order of progression outlined, Elias's account is relevant here to the extent that it underscores the importance of the government of the self for the government of the state and elucidates the interplay between internal and external government. N Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
2. In this regard Elias's propositions prefigure the argument-put forward in the governmentality literature-that capacities of self-government are harnessed to liberal techniques of government, allowing for government at a distance. See M Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, London: Sage Publications, 1999.
3. and B Hindess, 'Divide and govern', in RV Ericson & N Steher (eds), Governing Modern Societies, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000, pp 118-140. By extension, the account anticipates the distinction made in Michel Foucault's genealogy of government between the liberal project of government and the police project of government.
4. A Mbembe, On the Postcolony, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001, p 38.
5. A Mbembe, 'Prosaics of servitude and authoritarian civilities', Public Culture, 5(1), 1992, p 130.
6. Dean, Governmentality.
7. M Foucault, 'Governmentality', in C Gordon & P Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp 87-104.
8. The early phase of this field research was conducted in Bulaq al-Dakrur, a new popular quarter of Cairo, and was published in S Ismail, Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. I draw also on a more recent phase of fieldwork in Cairo conducted in 2010 in the old quarter of Gammaliyya and in the popular markets of El-Moski and Harat al-Yahud. This later research is part of a wider project on the political economy of economic liberalisation and Islamisation. It is funded by an award from the Economic and Social Research Council (RES-062-23-2283).
9. See B Hindess, 'Divide and govern'.
10. For a genealogy of the apparatus of police as an effort of regulation whose field of intervention was the whole of society, see P Pasquino, 'Theatrium politicum: the genealogy of capital-police and the state of prosperity', in Burchell et al, The Foucault Effect, pp 105-118.
11. See also M Foucault, "'Omnes et singulatim": toward a critique of political reason', in P Rabinow & N Rose (eds), The Essential Foucault: Selections from Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, New York: New Press, 2003, pp 180-201.
12. P Brass, 'Foucault steals political science', Annual Review of Political Science, 3, 2000, p 317.
13. For a discussion of neoliberalism as an encompassing project that involves more than assigning the market the driving force of all economic decisions and which entails a remake of culture and organises all aspects of collective life, see H Giroux, 'The terror of neo-liberalism: rethinking the significance of cultural politics', College Literature, 32(1), 2005, pp 1-19.
14. On neoliberal governmentality and its global unfolding, see B Hindess, 'Neo-liberal citizenship', Citizenship Studies, 6(2), 2002, pp 127-143.
15. and Dean, Governmentality.
16. For an exploration of neoliberalism as the sign of evolving facets of global violence, see E Balibar, 'Outlines of a topography of cruelty: citizenship and civility in the era of global violence', Constellations, 8(1), 2001, pp 15-29.
17. In these regimes, Barry Hindess argues, international agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF play a leading role in implementing the neoliberal project of reform.
18. D Rodgers, OldWines in NewBottles or NewWine in OldBottles? Theorising Violence and Governmentality in Latin America, Crisis States Discussion Paper, London: Crisis States Research Centre, 2005.
19. D Rodgers, OldWines in NewBottles or NewWine in OldBottles? Theorising Violence and Governmentality in Latin America, Crisis States Discussion Paper, London: Crisis States Research Centre, 2005. pp 11-12.
20. A Mbembe & J Roitman, 'Figures of the subject in times of crisis', Public Culture, 7, 1995, pp 323-352.
21. S Ismail, Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters.
22. J Butler, The Psychic Life of Power, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
23. Cases of ishtibah wa tahari are discussed in Ismail, Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters.
24. See S Soliman, Al-Nizam al-Qawi wal Dawla al-Da'ifa (The Strong Regime and the Weak State), Cairo: Merit Publishers, 2005.
25. Syrian philosopher Tayeb Tizini contends that the security state's corruption of citizens by implicating them in illegal activities is a matter of policy. Tizini, Min Thulathiyat al-Fasad Ila Qadaya al-Mujtam 'al-Madani (From the Trinity of Corruption to the Questions of Civil Society), Damascus: Jafra House for Research and Publication, 2002, p 140. My observations on citizens' ensnarement in both Egypt and Syria support Tizini's contention.
26. This discussion draws on S Ismail, 'Authoritarian civilities and Syria's stalled political transition', paper presented to the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, 31 August-2 September 2006.
27. These narratives draw on Ismail, Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters.
28. These narratives draw on Ismail, Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters.
29. These narratives draw on Ismail, Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters.
30. Mbembe, On the Postcolony.
31. V Das & D Poole, 'State and its margins: comparative ethnographies', in Das & Poole (eds), Anthropology in the Margins of the State, Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2005, p 14.
32. F Klaits, 'Postcolonial civility', Journal of Southern African Studies, 31(3), 2005, p 649.
33. Prominent businessmen such as Muhammad Abu al-'Inayn and the late Mustafa al-Sallab, who entered politics and rose in the ranks of the ruling National Democratic Party, succeeded in building constituency bases and winning seats in the National Assembly using charitable works and institutions. Parliamentary elections in the past 15 years saw the rise of independent candidates who are able to secure seats without the support of the ruling party, relying primarily on their clientelist networks and their role as local notables. These independents are most often incorporated by the ruling party following their success in the elections.
34. See Giroux, 'The terror of neo-liberalism'.
35. and Hindess, 'Neo-liberal citizenship', for a discussion that illuminates this aspect of neoliberal government. Ellison discusses how, under neoliberal conditions, Ethiopian farmers rework traditional categories of relations of ascription to ground emergent social relations. This allows them to accede to the market and assume the subjectivities encouraged by neoliberalism.
36. See J Ellison, 'Governmentality and the family: neo-liberal choices and emergent kin relations in southern Ethiopia', American Anthropologist, 111(1), 2009, pp 81-92.
37. Ellison, 'Governmentality and the family', p 83.
38. Drawing on F Klaits, 'Postcolonial civility'.
39. S Ismail, 'Piety, profit and the market: a political economy of liberalisation and Islamisation', forthcoming.