Conclusion

Summary

The preceding chapters demonstrated the negative effects of liberalization and neoliberal restructuring on the social, economic and political order of Egypt over the past three and a half decades. The post-war order institutionalized a populist authoritarian bargain, in which workers and peasants accepted the authoritarianism of Nasser’s one-party state in return for job guarantees, employment protection, health care, pensions and tenure security. The Egyptian state assumed a leading role in the economy, first through import substitution industrialization and later through wide-ranging nationalizations and economic planning under the rubric of “Arab socialism.” In this context, the public sector grew dramatically because of an expanding (albeit patchy) welfare state and the need to fill the gaps left by Egyptian capital’s unwillingness to invest in the economy. Political Islam, in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, was repressed and reduced to insignificance as key aspects of its Islamic “moral economy” were pre-empted – and surpassed – by the Nasserist regime.