Politics from above, Politics from Below : The Middle East in the Age of Economic Reform

by Edited by Eberhard Kienle

• ISBN13: 9780863569494
• ISBN10: 0863569498
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2004-04-03
• Publisher: Saqi Books

Summary

Even today, economic liberalization is widely supposed to replace the tyranny of the state with the freedom of the individual, and, therefore, the uniformity of politics from above with the liveliness and color of politics from below. This book analyzes developments in the Middle East, arriving at far less reassuring conclusions: that economic liberalization has failed to entail the continuous growth and widespread welfare gains expected by its proponents. By emphasizing privatization and crony capitalism rather than markets, it has also failed to decentralize and democratize the allocation of resources, be they material or symbolic, to enable individuals to participate meaningfully in the production of social norms.

Author Biography

Eberhard Kienle teaches Middle Eastern politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London and is currently director of the Institut de recherches et d'études sur le monde arabe et musulman (IREMAM-CNRS) in Aix-en-Provence.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	7	(1)
Note on Transliteration	8	(1)
Introduction	9	(12)
ONE Capitalism, Democracy, the 'Public Sphere' and Globalization	21	(12)
Sami Zubaida
TWO Liberalizing Economies and Organizing Women: Changing Norms and Resource Allocations in the Arab Mediterranean	33	(28)
Valentine M. Moghadam
THREE Entering the 'Virtuous Circle': The Strength of Democratic Designs in Egypt and Morocco	61	(16)
Jean-Noël Ferrié
FOUR Norms and Distributive Processes in Egypt's New Regime of Capitalist Accumulation	77	(21)
Enid Hill
FIVE Meso-level Structures as Preconditions for Collective Action and Social Integration	98	(20)
Ulrich G. Wurzel
SIX Modernizing Agriculture or Underdeveloping the Countryside? Competing Views on Policy and Farming in Egypt	118	(26)
Ray Bush
SEVEN Domesticating Economic Liberalization: Controlled Market-building in Contemporary Egypt	144	(13)
Eberhard Kienle
EIGHT What Constitutes Business Rationality in Egypt at the End of the Twentieth Century: A Political Economy Approach	157	(10)
Roger Owen
NINE A Liberal Interpretation of a Socialist Constitution: The Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court and Privatization of the Public Sector	167	(24)
Baudouin Dupret
TEN The Informal Social Pact: The State and the Urban Poor in Cairo	191	(23)
Cilja Harders
ELEVEN Decentring Social Services and Recentring Normative Authority: Mustafa Mahmud's Social and Public Islam	214	(15)
Armando Salvatore
TWELVE A Moral Order Reversed? Agricultural Land Changes Hands, Again	229	(13)
Reem Saud
THIRTEEN A Mirror of Political Culture in Contemporary Egypt: Divisions and Debates Among Women Activists	242	(24)
Nadje Sadig al-Ali
FOURTEEN The Local Deconstruction of Global Events, News and Discourses: Case Studies From Egypt	266	(18)
Amr Hamzawi
FIFTEEN How the Centre Sees the Muhajirin of Knowledge: Normative Processes vs Demographic Evidence	284	(20)
Fanny Colonna
SIXTEEN Public Means to Private Ends: State Building and Power in Post-war Lebanon	304	(32)
Reinoud Leenders
Index	336