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In addition to its emphasis on the primacy of change and dynamics rather than static snapshots, this book looks critically at development studies and policies. Originally prepared as the tenth-anniversary volume of the UNDP's series of Arab Human Development Reports, Arab Human Development in the Twenty-first Century inventories existing knowledge to present an integrated and coherent report through the systematic application of its political-economy framework. It places empowerment at the center of human development in the Arab world, away from the dominant existing “securocracy” state. Empowerment is viewed not only from the vantage point of a more equitable distribution of economic resources but also of fundamental legal, educational, and political reform to promote state-society partnership. The book's ten chapters look back at what Arab countries have achieved since the early 2000s and forward to what remains to be done to reach equitable development. Supported by a wealth of statistical material, they cover the rule of law, the evolution of media, the persistence of corruption, the draining of resources through conflict mismanagement, the dominance and increase of poverty, the environment and its daily impact, and religious education and identity. The concluding chapter attempts a critical inventory of the world literature and different experiences of democratic transition to explore where the region could be heading. This critical and timely study is indispensable reading for Middle East scholars and students alike, as well as for anyone with an interest in the future trajectory of development analyses and policies in the global south.

This book tries to answer three questions: 1) A ‘why’ question: the reason we have been surprised by the arrival of the ‘Arab Spring.’ Do we have the right conceptual lenses to understand the region and its different political interactions? 2) A ‘who’ question: the number and type of different groups that launched the protests and occupied Al-Tahrir Square. 3) A ‘how’ question: the way these spontaneous groups coalesced together, overpowered police forces and finally forced former President Mubarak to resign after almost 30 years in power. In addition to the introduction, the book's 13 chapters are regrouped into four parts. These deal with the resistance and limits of authoritarian rule, group dynamics in Tahrir, an attempt to go beyond the immediate and looking ahead. The book has a general bibliography and some appendices of several historical documents of the period as well as a sample of Tahrir slogans.

Sustainable development and environmental change have become two of the watchwords of the new century. But what do they mean for ordinary people living in some of the harshest environments in the world, where survival is the driving force? This book sets out to examine these issues and how they affect, and are affected by, Bedouin communities living in the arid areas of the Nubian Desert in southeastern Egypt. Written by a joint Egyptian, Russian, and British research team, the book seeks to examine how the Bedouin of this area have coped with the environmental changes brought about after the construction of the Aswan High Dam and resulting formation of Lake Nasser. After documenting the nature of these changes, the chapters show the practical and strategic ways in which the Bedouin have responded by adapting both their use of environmental resources and the social and economic dimensions of their community. The book argues that people in these communities are active agents of change and must not be seen as passive victims. For them, sustainable development and environmental change are not abstract academic debates, but real-life, everyday issues around which they must organize their lives.

This cross-disciplinary, ethnographic, contextualized, and empirical book explores the meaning and significance of urban space, and maps the spatial inscription of power on the mega-city of Cairo. Suspicious of collective life and averse to power-sharing, Egyptian governance structures weaken but do not stop the public's role in the remaking of their city. What happens to a city where neo-liberalism has scaled back public services and encouraged the privatization of public goods, while the vast majority cannot afford the effects of such policies? Who wins and losses in the “march to the modern and the global” as the government transforms urban spaces and markets in the name of growth, security, tourism, and modernity? How do Cairenes struggle with an ambiguous and vulnerable legal and bureaucratic environment when legality is a privilege affordable only to the few or the connected? This companion to Cairo Cosmopolitan (AUC Press, 2006) further develops the central insights of the Cairo School of Urban Studies.

In the cities of the Arab world, while the media focus overwhelmingly on questions of religiosity and war, the future of urban modernity and political globalism is taking shape. As the Egyptian state reaches out to capture the apparent promises of neoliberalism, Cairenes struggle over and redefine their place, identity, and material welfare. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, this volume explores what happens when new forms of privatization meet collectivist pasts, public space is sold off to satisfy investor needs and tourist gazes, and the state plans for Egypt's future in desert cities while stigmatizing and neglecting Cairo's popular neighborhoods. These dynamics produce surprising contradictions and juxtapositions that are coming to define today's Middle East. Luxury malls owned by the military or foreign investors compete with flourishing but criminalized open-air markets; Nubian, Upper Egyptian, and labor-migrant identities confront a renaissance of Arab nationalism; and chic new coffee houses, crumbling movie palaces, and resurgent working-class cultures offer radically clashing versions of public and gender sociability. This volume launches the Cairo School of Urban Studies, committed to fusing political-economy and ethnographic methods and sensitive to ambivalence and contingency, to reveal the new contours and patterns of modern power emerging in the urban frame. Cairo shows us that divergent cosmopolitanisms—both elite and working-class—are emerging across a broad spectrum of the polity, making new claims for political space.

In the era of globalization, change is the order of the day, but the conventional view of the Arab Middle East is that of a rigid and even stagnant region. This book counters the static perception and focuses instead on regional dynamics. After first discussing types of change, identifying catalysts, and tracing the evolution of the region over the last sixty years, the team of contributors go on to evaluate the development of Arab civil society; examine the opportunities and challenges facing the Arab media; link the debates concerning Arab political thought to the evolving regional and international context; look at the transformation of armed Islamist movements into deradicalized factions; assess how and to what extent women's empowerment is breaking down patriarchy; and analyze the rise of non-state actors such as Hizbollah and Hamas that rival central political authority. The book concludes with data tables that provide a quantitative guide to some aspects of these regional dynamics.

In the light of the escalation of sectarian tensions during and after Mubarak’s reign, the predicament of the Arab world’s largest religious minority, the Copts, has come to the forefront. This book poses such questions as why there has been a mass exodus of Copts from Egypt, and how this relates to other religious minorities in the Arab region; why it is that sectarian violence increased during and after the 2011 Revolution, which epitomized the highest degree of national unity since 1919; and how the new configuration of power has influenced the extent to which a vision of a political order is being based on the principles of inclusive democracy. The book examines the relations among the state, the Church, Coptic citizenry, and political and civil society against the backdrop of the increasing diversification of actors, the change of political leadership in the country, protest and mobilization within Coptic communities, and the transformations occurring in the region. An informative historical background is provided, and new fieldwork and statistical data inform a thoughtful exploration of what it takes to build an inclusive democracy in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Dividing the Nile offers a new perspective on Anglo-Egyptian rule in the Sudan. Most scholarship has attributed Sudanese independence in 1956 to British dominance of the Condominium, historical animosity toward Egypt, or the emergence of Sudanese nationalism. Dividing the Nile counters that Egyptian entrepreneurs failed to develop a united economy or shared economic interests, guaranteeing Egypt's ‘loss’ of the Sudan. It argues that British dominance of the Condominium may have stymied initial Egyptian efforts, but that after the First World War Egypt became increasingly interested in and capable of economic ventures in the Sudan. However, early Egyptian financial assistance and the seemingly successful resolution of Nile water resources by the latter 1920s had actually divided the regions. With the signing of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and the easing of Depression-era conditions, Egyptians finally began concerted efforts to promote commerce and to acquire Sudanese lands. Egyptian entrepreneurs were never able to overcome British officials’ opposition to irrigated agricultural schemes in the Sudan, and merchants made inroads only in very limited local markets and only when international competitors were temporarily restricted. Solid Sudanese economic bonds to global markets that had been established in the first forty years of the Condominium administration could not be undone in its last decade and a half of existence. Egyptian nationalists had simply missed opportunities of aligning their economic future with that of their Sudanese brethren, resulting ultimately in two independent nations.

This work presents original research on cultural politics and battles in Egypt at the turn of the twenty-first century. It deconstructs the boundaries between “high” and “low” culture, drawing on conceptual tools in cultural studies, translation studies, and gender studies to analyze debates in the fields of literature, cinema, mass media, and the plastic arts. Anchored in the Egyptian historical and social contexts and inspired by the influential work of Pierre Bourdieu, it rigorously places these debates and battles within the larger framework of a set of questions about the relationship between the cultural and political fields in Egypt.

This new study deals with the unfolding of the great political and economic transformations of the modern Egyptian state from the appointment of Muhammad Ali as governor of Egypt in 1805 to the era of President Mubarak, with a special focus on the period 1990–2005, which witnessed a rigorous implementation of structural adjustment policies, the acceleration of economic privatization and liberalization, the emergence of a group of neoliberals within the ruling National Democratic Party, and the consolidation of business interests and representation in parliament and government. The book asserts that the modernization process in Egypt over the last two centuries has been determined by power relations and their articulation, and so it investigates in depth the impact of power relations on development strategies, on political liberalization, on politicized Islam as a hegemonic ideology adopted by the state since the beginning of the 1970s, and on gender relations in development.

The Egyptian economy has undergone several reforms since the early 1990s. However, it was not until recently that the reform process picked up speed and intensity. Key initiatives included shifting to a flexible exchange rate regime, liberalizing trade, revising and reducing the tariff structure, and improving the income tax system. Plans are underway to restructure the financial sector and privatize most state-owned enterprises. This volume aims to evaluate the impact of recent reform policies and highlight priority areas for further reform at the macroeconomic and institutional levels. Topics addressed include growth, distribution, and poverty reduction; monetary policy and the impact of exchange rate liberalization; unemployment and job creation; and the new pension system. The objective is to contribute to ongoing efforts to stimulate growth and employment, ensure fiscal sustainability, improve the external sector, and address issues related to poverty and income distribution. The book focuses on the health and energy sectors in Egypt, with the aim of assessing each sector in three areas—financing, organization, and policy management—in order to suggest ideas for reform in light of international experience.

This book is a follow-up to a 1998 publication by the Economic Research Forum (ERF). Its significance lies in the contributors' reliance on fresh data and solid analytical techniques used to examine a wide spectrum of issues concerning the labor market in Egypt. The range of topics includes labor supply, employment and unemployment, youth labor market school-to-work transition, internal and international migration, earnings and inequality, and gender and education. The papers in the book are based on data collected in the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey of 2006, a follow-up to the Egypt Labor Market Survey of 1998.

This book has become a standard textbook in Middle East studies curricula all over the world. This third edition, with new material reflecting the earth-shaking events at the end of the Cold War and the continuation of violence and terrorism, examines foreign policies of nine Arab states in the context of globalization. The chapters first establish an analytical framework for assessing foreign policy, which are applied chapter by chapter to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, and Iraq.

Persistent societal problems and wealth creation in the Arab region are driving a new generation of actors to commit their resources for the greater public welfare. Widely known as philanthropy, voluntary contributions to causes that serve a public good are a longstanding and important aspect of cultures in the Arab region. What is of particular interest today is the proliferation of ways in which this private giving is being channeled into new institutional forms. In significant ways, some local philanthropy is becoming more strategic in its aims—by which is meant utilizing resources effectively to address the underlying causes of important social problems. Through an examination of philanthropic trends in eight key Middle Eastern countries, this book seeks to shed light on the forms of institutionalized giving that currently exist, as well as to provide recommendations for how charitable contributions can be most effective as vehicles of future social change. Drawing on data collected from endowed corporate foundations, public–private partnerships between business leaders and governmental agencies, and small-scale community-based organizations, this study marks attempts to map the dynamic contemporary landscape of philanthropy in the Arab region.

An estimated 200 million people in the world suffer from schistosomiasis (bilharzia), and according to the World Health Organization it ranks second behind malaria in terms of socioeconomic and public health importance in tropical and subtropical areas. The disease was present in Egypt in the Old Kingdom (c. 2600 BCE), and in 1998 it was estimated that almost six million Egyptians— one fifth of the rural population— were infected. Thus it remains one of the most serious public health problems in rural Egypt. This study paints a broad picture of schistosomiasis in rural Egypt. The research in three Nile Delta villages between 1991 and 1997 provides an in-depth community-level view of patterns of transmission and strategies for control. An analysis of recent research and policy presents the national context for the study. Schistosomiasis is primarily a behavioral disease, associated with human behavior in relation to water, especially canals; strategies for disease control and treatment need to consider what people do, where, when, and why. This book stresses an area of particular concern to social scientists: gender issues are most fully revealed at the local level, where an infection such as schistosomiasis is transmitted, diagnosed, treated, and ultimately (it is hoped) prevented.

Most governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region use trade policy to protect certain industries, provide tax incentives to promote a particular type of investment, and make subsidized credit available to firms of a certain size. Such government intervention, known as industrial policy, is the topic of this book. The aim is to assess whether state intervention leads to net benefits to society, why policymakers intervene, and how to bring about a healthier balance between states and markets. Answers to these questions are given in six chapters based on research papers that were presented at a conference held in Cairo in November 2005, and include case studies on Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, and Jordan.

This title presents a wide-ranging review of the relationship between the Egyptian judiciary and the government. If justice in the Arab world is often marked by a lack of autonomy of the judiciary toward the executive power, one of the characteristic features of the Egyptian judiciary lies in its strength and activism in the defense of democratic values. Judges have been struggling for years to enhance their independence from the executive power and exercise full supervision of the electoral process to achieve transparent elections. Recent years have seen growing tensions in Egypt between the judiciary and the executive authority. In order to gain concessions, judges went as far as to threaten to boycott the supervision of the presidential and legislative elections in the fall of 2005 and to organize sit-ins in the streets. The struggle between the two powers was in full swing in the spring of 2006, when a conference convened in Cairo in early April on the theme of the role of judges in the process of political reform in Egypt and the Arab world. The conference was organized by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) in cooperation with the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD).

This is a retrospective look at a major investigation of the culture of a displaced people. In the 1960s, the construction of the Aswan High Dam occasioned the forced displacement of a large part of the Nubian population. Beginning in 1960, anthropologists at the American University in Cairo's Social Research Center undertook a survey of the Nubians to be moved and those already outside their historic homeland. The goal was to record and analyze Nubian culture and social organization, to create a record for the future, and to preserve a body of information on which scholars and officials could draw. This book chronicles the research carried out by an international team with the cooperation of many Nubians. Gathered here into one volume are chapters, which are reprinted, that provide a valuable resource of research data on the Nubian project, as well as photographs taken during the field study that document ways of life that have long since disappeared.

More than twenty years have passed since Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) concluded the Oslo Accords, or Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for Palestine. It was declared “a political breakthrough of immense importance.” Israel officially accepted the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO recognized the right of Israel to exist. Critical views were voiced at the time about how the self-government established under the leadership of Yasser Arafat created a Palestinian-administered Israeli occupation, rather than paving the way towards an independent Palestinian state with substantial economic funding from the international community. The years since the Oslo Accords are scrutinized from a wide range of perspectives in this book. The text asks: did the agreement have a reasonable chance of success? What went wrong, causing the treaty to derail and delay a real, workable solution? What are the recommendations today to show a way forward for the Israelis and the Palestinians?

This new study weaves anthropological detail with hard facts and analysis as it takes the reader to visit the community schools of Upper Egypt. It offers a historical understanding of the initiative whilst carefully embedding it in the political and economic global context of the late twentieth century. The book first introduces the movement approach to development and carefully develops the notion of learning as a countermovement to the disintegrating world of today. It then moves on to describe how a community schools movement developed in the most deprived areas of rural Egypt; how such a movement is planned, mobilized, and sustained; and details the strategies and activities of the initiative. In the third part of the work, the book describes the impact of the movement on people's lives. The last chapter places the community education movement within the political economy of Egypt's educational reform and attempts to forecast the movement's long-term impact on the educational system.