11 - Egypt

Summary

Egypt is the most populous state in the Arab world, with just over 100 million citizens residing in the country, and Egyptian nationals have long looked abroad for opportunities. This chapter examines the evolution of the country’s policies toward its diaspora and seeks to understand how the Egyptian government has attempted to protect, assist, and cultivate loyalty among its citizens abroad, as well as how it has sought to exert further control over this population. Beginning with targeted secondment policies that aimed to spread pan-Arabist ideology in the 1950s and 1960s, and broadening to mass labor exportation agreements directed primarily toward other Arab nations in the 1970s, Egypt sought to address demographic concerns of overpopulation and an overburdened and underfinanced public sector, and to reap the benefit of remittances as a major contribution to the country’s GDP. But the chapter also addresses Egypt’s failure to establish effective governance of, and engagement with, its diaspora. This includes the overlapping responsibilities of the numerous ministries in charge of emigration, an unwillingness to resolve domestic economic issues in order to prevent further brain drain and to incentivize the return of Egyptians abroad, and the state’s continued use of transnational repression toward its citizenry.