No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The politics of public land dispossession in Egypt: 1975–2011 and beyond
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2020
Abstract
This article examines changes in the allocation of urban land in Egypt between 1975–2011 with the rise and incorporation of state authoritarianism and neoliberal economics in what I call ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’. Authoritarian neoliberalism in Egypt transferred ownership of urban lands from public wealth to an affluent class of local and foreign capitalists – often in a non-transparent fashion. The article focuses on the government's legally sanctioned practices of subsidisations, privatisations and evictions as they relate to what I call, inspired by David Harvey's formulation, the accumulation of wealth by dispossession. Dispossession of public urban land, I maintain, generated widespread resentment that played a vital, but inadequately discussed, role in the series of revolts that culminated in the 2011 uprising in Egypt. Social tensions engendered in this authoritarian neoliberal regime, I argue, endure under the administration of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who continues to transfer public urban lands, from lower to higher socioeconomic classes, at an even faster pace than his predecessor.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020
References
REFERENCES
Ababsa, M., Dupret, B. & Dennis, E., eds. 2012. Popular Housing and Urban Land Tenure in the Middle East: case studies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abaza, M. 2006. The Changing Consumer Cultures of Modern Egypt: Cairo's urban reshaping. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Abdelrahman, M. 2017. ‘Policing neoliberalism in Egypt: the continuing rise of the ‘securocratic’ state', Third World Quarterly 38: 185–202.Google Scholar
Adham, K. 2005. ‘Globalisation, neoliberalism, and new spaces of capital in Cairo’, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 17: 19–32.Google Scholar
Alexander, A. & Bassiouny, M.. 2014. Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: workers and the Egyptian revolution. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Alianak, S. 2007. Middle Eastern Leaders and Islam: a precarious equilibrium. Vol. 2. New York, NY: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Alianak, S.L. 2014. Transition Towards Revolution and Reform: the Arab Spring realised? Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aliwa, M. 2007. (9–1) مصر أراضى نهب . [Looting the lands of Egypt (1–9)]. الواقع <http://alwakei.com/news/6877/index.html>..>Google Scholar
Amin, S. 2016. The Reawakening of the Arab World: challenge and change in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. New York, NY: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Amnesty International. 2009. Buried Alive: trapped by poverty and neglect in Cairo's informal settlements. London: Amnesty International Publications. <https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/MDE12/009/2009/en/>..>Google Scholar
Amnesty International. 2011. Egypt: broken promises. Egypt's military rulers erode human rights. London: Amnesty International Publications. <https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/MDE12/053/2011/en>>Google Scholar
Arendt, H. 1973. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Vol. 244. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar
Armbrust, W. 2011. ‘Egypt: A Revolution against Neoliberalism?', AlJazeera, 24 February.Google Scholar
Bassiouni, M.C. 2017. Chronicles of the Egyptian Revolution and its Aftermath: 2011–2016. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beinin, J. 2009. ‘Workers’ struggles under ‘socialism’ and neoliberalism', in ElMahdi, R. & Marfleet, P., eds. Egypt: a moment of change. London: Zed Books, 68–86.Google Scholar
Beinin, J. 2015. Workers and Thieves: labor movements and popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beinin, J. 2016. ‘Political economy and social movement theory perspectives on the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of 2011.’ LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series No. 14. London: LSE.Google Scholar
Bond, P. 2011. ‘Neoliberal threats to North Africa', Review of African Political Economy 38: 481–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, C. 2007. ‘Property and constitutional order: land tenure reform and the future of the African state', African Affairs 106: 557–86.Google Scholar
Bridoux, J. 2019. ‘Shaking off the neoliberal shackles: “democratic emergence” and the negotiation of democratic knowledge in the Middle East North Africa context', Democratisation 26: 796–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Büscher, B. 2013. Transforming the Frontier: peace parks and the politics of neoliberal conservation in Southern Africa. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, R. 2011. ‘Coalitions for dispossession and networks of resistance? Land, politics and agrarian reform in Egypt', British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 38: 391–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carr, S. 2008. ‘Families under eviction by the army.’ HIC [Housing and Land Rights Network]. <http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=14762>..>Google Scholar
Chalfin, B. 2010. Neoliberal Frontiers: an ethnography of sovereignty in West Africa. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, S.A. 2011. The struggle for Egypt: from Nasser to Tahrir square. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deinlnger, K. & Binswanger, H.. 1999. ‘The evolution of the World Bank's land policy: principles, experience, and future challenges', The World Bank Research Observer 14: 247–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denis, É. 2006. ‘Cairo as neo-liberal capital? From walled city to gated communities’, in Singerman, D. & Amar, P., eds. Cairo Cosmopolitan: politics, culture, and urban space: in the new globalised Middle East. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 47–72.Google Scholar
Denis, É. 2011. ‘Financing land in Egyptian and Indian megacities', Revue Tiers Monde 2: 139–58.Google Scholar
Durac, V. & Cavatorta, F.. 2015. Politics and Governance in the Middle East. London: Macmillan International Higher Education.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El Nour, S. 2015. ‘Small farmers and the revolution in Egypt: the forgotten actors', Contemporary Arab Affairs 8: 198–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elasrag, H. 2016. ‘Revolution and the economic human rights in Egypt.’ Create Space Independent Publishing Platform.Google Scholar
Elyachar, J. 2005. Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, economic development, and the state in Cairo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faruq, A. 2011. Iqtisadiyyat al-Fasad fi Misr: Kayfa Jara Ifsad Misr wal-Misriyyin 1974–2010 [Corruption in Egypt: how Egypt and Egyptians were corrupted 1974–2010]. Cairo: Maktabat al-Shuruq al-Dawliyya.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. 2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the neoliberal world order. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Gamal, W. 2019. ‘Lost capital: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's neoliberal transformation.’ Beirut: Carnegie Middle East Center – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Ghonimi, I. et al. 2012. Identification of Gated Communities in Egypt. <http://www.bu.edu.eg/portal/uploads/Engineering,%20Shoubra/Architectural%20Engineering/659/publications/Islam%20Ghnemi%20Ibrahim%20Ghnemi_Identification_of_Gated_Communities_in_Egypt.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Gillespie, T. 2016. ‘Accumulation by urban dispossession: struggles over urban space in Accra, Ghana', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41: 66–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gribbon, L. & Hawas, S.. 2012. ‘Signs and signifiers: visual translations of revolt', in Translating Egypt's Revolution: the language of Tahrir, 103–42. doi: 10.5743/cairo/9789774165337.003.0003.Google Scholar
Guazzone, L. & Pioppi, D., eds. 2009. The Arab state and neo-liberal globalization: the restructuring of state power in the Middle East. New York, NY: Ithaca Press.Google Scholar
Gunning, J. & Baron, I.Z.. 2014. Why Occupy a Square? People, protests and movements in the Egyptian revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, N., Kardoush, D., Ansari, M., Hutchison, M., Jamil, R., Alsweel, F., Vericat, J. & Saleem Farooqi, M.. 2012. ‘Land, legitimacy and governance in revolutionary Cairo', in Proceedings of a Workshop for the Institute for Research and Debate on Governance IRG, Paris (March 2012).Google Scholar
Hanieh, A. 2013. Lineages of Revolt: issues of contemporary capitalism in the Middle East. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.Google Scholar
Hanieh, A. 2015. ‘Re-scaling Egypt's political economy: neoliberalism and the transformation of the regional space’, in Abou-El-Fadl, R., Reem, ed. Revolutionary Egypt: connecting domestic and international struggles. London: Routledge, 156–76.Google Scholar
Hanieh, A. 2019. Money, Markets, and Monarchies: the Gulf Cooperation Council and the political economy of the contemporary Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harms, H. 2017. ‘Challenges for sustainable development of informal settlements and of desert new towns in Cairo’, in Abouelfadl, H., ElKerdany, D. & Wessling, C., eds. Cairo's Revitalising City Districts: transformation partnership for urban design and architecture in historic city districts. Cham: Springer, 147–69.Google Scholar
Hartwell, R.M. 1995. A History of the Mont Pelerin Society. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. 2007. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hecan, M. 2016. ‘Comparative political economy of the IMF arrangements after the Arab uprisings: Egypt and Tunisia', Journal of North African Studies 21: 765–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horii, S. 2011. ‘Pre-emption and private land ownership in modern Egypt: no revival of Islamic legal tradition', Islamic Law and Society 18: 177–218.Google Scholar
Issa, A. 2011. الشوادفى عمر اللواء : 100 الدولة أراضى بيع حصيلة جنيه مليار. [Major General Omar al-Shawadvi: LE 100 billion proceeds from the sale of state land]. مصرس . <http://www.masress.com/october/111438>..>Google Scholar
Joya, A. 2011. ‘The Egyptian revolution: crisis of neoliberalism and the potential for democratic politics', Review of African Political Economy 38: 367–86.Google Scholar
Joya, A. 2013. ‘Accumulation by dispossession and the transformation of property relations in Egypt: housing policy under neoliberalism.’ PhD thesis, York University, CA, USA.Google Scholar
Khalifa, M.A. 2011. ‘Redefining slums in Egypt: unplanned versus unsafe areas', Habitat International 35: 40–9.Google Scholar
Khalifa, M.A. 2015. ‘Evolution of informal settlements upgrading strategies in Egypt: from negligence to participatory development', Ain Shams Engineering Journal 6: 1151–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khasnabish, D.A. 2013. Zapatistas: rebellion from the grassroots to the global. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, P. 1995. The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kuppinger, P. 2004. ‘Exclusive greenery: new gated communities in Cairo', City & Society 16: 35–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuppinger, P. 2006. ‘Pyramids and alleys: global dynamics and local strategies in Giza,’ in Singerman, D. & Amar, P., eds. Cairo Cosmopolitan: politics, culture, and urban space in the new globalized Middle East, 313–44. doi: 10.5743/cairo/9789774162893.003.0012.Google Scholar
Levien, M. 2011. ‘Special economic zones and accumulation by dispossession in India', Journal of Agrarian Change 11: 454–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mada Masr. 2017. ‘Battle over the Nile.’ <https://madamasr.com/en/2017/07/16/feature/politics/battle-over-the-nile/>..>Google Scholar
Martiniello, G. 2013. ‘Accumulation by dispossession, agrarian change and resistance in northern Uganda.’ Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University.Google Scholar
Marx, K. 1867. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I, Book One: The Process of Production of Capital. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Masri, A. 2012. يكتب عامر عادل المصري الحكومة من المنهوبة الأوقاف [Adel Amer writes: Endowments looted from the Egyptian government]. البلد صدى <http://www.elbalad.news/260581.aspx>..>Google Scholar
McMahon, S.F. 2017. Crisis and Class War in Egypt: social reproduction, factional realignments and the global political economy. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Mitchell, T. 1999. ‘Dreamland: the neoliberalism of your desires', Middle East Report 29(1; ISSU 210): 28–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosha, A.C., ed. 1995. ‘A reappraisal of the urban planning process.’ Nairobi: United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat).Google Scholar
Neimark, B., Toulmin, C. & Batterbury, S.. 2018. 'Peri-urban land grabbing? Dilemmas of formalising tenure and land acquisitions around the cities of Bamako and Ségou, Mali', Journal of Land Use Science 13: 319–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, R. 2015. ‘Disaggregating primitive accumulation', Radical Philosophy 194: 18–28.Google Scholar
Osman, T. 2010. Egypt on the Brink: from Nasser to Mubarak. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ottaway, M. & Hamzawy, A.. 2011. Protest Movements and Political Change in the Arab World, Vol. 28. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Peterson, G.E. 2009. ‘Unlocking land values to finance urban infrastructure.’ Washington, DC: World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, M.A. 2011. Connected in Cairo: growing up cosmopolitan in the modern Middle East. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Plehwe, D., Walpen, B.J.A. & Neunhöffer, G., eds. 2007. Neoliberal Hegemony: a global critique. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powelson, J.P. 1988. The Story of Land: a world history of land tenure and agrarian reform. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.Google Scholar
Powelson, J.P. & Stock, R.. 1988. The Peasant Betrayed: agriculture and land reform in the Third World. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.Google Scholar
Prempeh, E.O.K. 2017. Against Global Capitalism: African social movements confront neoliberal globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Richards, A., Waterbury, J., Cammett, M. & Diwan, I.. 2013. A Political Economy of the Middle East. Third edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Riedel, E., Giacca, G. & Golay, C., eds. 2014. Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in International Law: contemporary issues and challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roccu, R. 2013 a. ‘David Harvey in Tahrir Square: the dispossessed, the discontented and the Egyptian revolution', Third World Quarterly 34: 423–40.Google Scholar
Roccu, R. 2013 b. The Political Economy of the Egyptian Revolution: Mubarak, economic reforms and failed hegemony. Cham: Springer.Google Scholar
Rutherford, B.K. & Sowers, J.. 2018. Modern Egypt: what everyone needs to know. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schechla, J. 2014. ‘Land, resistance, human rights and new forms of statecraft for MENA.’ <https://www.academia.edu/7926284/Land_Resistance_Human_Rights_and_New_Forms_of_Statecraft_for_MENA>, accessed 12.6.2018.,+accessed+12.6.2018.>Google Scholar
Shawkat, Y. 2016 a. ‘Property market deregulation and informal tenure in Egypt: a diabolical threat to millions', Architecture, Media, Politics, Society 9: 1–18. doi: 10.14324/111.444.amps.2016v9i4.001.Google Scholar
Shawkat, Y. 2016 b. 'State-led commodification and insecure tenure: a pattern of targeting vulnerable communities in Egypt', in AMPS Conference 5: Housed by Choice –Housed by Force: Home, Conflicts and Conflicting Interests. University of Cyprus/The Cyprus Institute, 117–25.Google Scholar
Shelley, F.M. 2014. The World's Population: an encyclopedia of critical issues, crises, and ever-growing countries. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.Google Scholar
Shenker, J. 2017. The Egyptians: a radical history of Egypt's unfinished revolution. New York, NY: The New Press.Google Scholar
Simcik Arese, N. 2018 a. ‘Seeing like a city-state: behavioural planning and governance in Egypt's first affordable gated community', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 42: 461–82.Google Scholar
Simcik Arese, N. 2018 b. ‘Urbanism as Craft: Practicing Informality and Property in Cairo's Gated Suburbs, from Theft to Virtue', Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108: 620–37.Google Scholar
Sims, D. 2012. Understanding Cairo: the logic of a city out of control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sims, D. 2015. Egypt's desert dreams: development or disaster? Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinno, M. 2017. 'The Gulf's takeover of Cairo's real estate megaprojects', Egypte/Monde Arabe 2: 125–41.Google Scholar
Smith, A. 1977. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spronk, S. & Webber, J.R.. 2007. ‘Struggles against accumulation by dispossession in Bolivia: the political economy of natural resource contention', Latin American Perspectives 34: 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steel, G., Van Noorloos, F. & Otsuki, K.. 2019. ‘Urban land grabs in Africa?', Built Environment 44: 389–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stork, J. 2019. ‘Transitional Injustice: Egypt's Human Rights Reversals after the Uprising', Social Research: An International Quarterly 86: 337–64.Google Scholar
Sweet, R. 2019. ‘Dreamland: a critical assessment of Egypt's plan for a brand new capital', Construction Research and Innovation 10: 18–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarbush, N. 2012. ‘Cairo 2050: urban dream or modernist delusion?', Journal of International Affairs 65: 171–86.Google Scholar
Trofimov, Y. 2017. ‘Egypt's Leader Makes a Risky Bet on the Healing Power of Economic Pain.’ The Wall Street Journal, 6 August.Google Scholar
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat). 1993. Metropolitan Planning and Management in the Developing World: spatial decentralization policy in Bombay and Cairo. International government publication.Google Scholar
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat). 2006. Compilation of Selected Adjudication on Housing Rights. International government publication.Google Scholar
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) 2003. Concluding Observations on the Combined Second to Fourth Periodic Reports of Egypt. Egypt: United Nations.Google Scholar
Wiegratz, J. & Cesnulyte, E.. 2016. ‘Money talks: moral economies of earning a living in neoliberal East Africa', New Political Economy 21: 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winegar, J. 2018. ‘Dissenting bodies: the performance art of Adham Hafez', Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 11: 123–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank. 2006 a. ‘The Arab Republic of Egypt. Egypt public land management strategy.’ Volume I: Policy note. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2006 b. ‘The Arab Republic of Egypt. Egypt public land management strategy.’ Volume 2: Policy note. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2008. 'Arab Republic of Egypt urban sector note: Volume 1. Urban Sector update.’ Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2009. ‘From privilege to competition: unlocking private-led growth in the Middle East and North Africa.’ Washington, DC: World BankGoogle Scholar
Zapatistas. 2011. Zapatista Encuentro: documents from the 1996 Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism. Second edition. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.Google Scholar