University:
University of Wyoming
Course:
POLS3270 | Governments and Politics of the Middle East
Academic year:

2023
Views:

138

Pages:

1
Author:

Allison B.

Allison Brown Government and Politics of the Middle East Eric Nigh April 11, 2022 Reading Response #11: Government and Politics of MENA (Egypt) Chapter #11 in Gasiorowski/Yom’s Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa examines the relationships, politics, and government of Egypt. The chapter then goes on to discuss how the relationship with Egypt changed post 9/11 with Mubarak supporting the U.S. and President Bush’s war on terror and subsequent invasion of Iraq, which led to growing discussion and discontent of the general public in Egypt (415). In the span of 2006 to 2009, over two million workers in Egypt participated in strikes that showed frustration and disconnect of the labor sector. Morsi was elected in 2011 after the Arab uprisings as the first independently elected president in Egypt. As a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, this caused significant political unity inside the country, but disconnect and frustrations externally. Qatar with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood continued to support and fund Egypt, but the rest of the Arab world was ideologically opposed and unsupportive of Morsi’s presidency (417). Looking at the religious makeup, Egypt has “one of the most homogenous populations in the Middle East” with around 89% of the population being Sunni Muslim (420). Arab nationalistic sentiments grew between 1952 and 1970 with “the system primarily producing a culture of Arab nationalism that was also anticommunist … the principal targets of Nasser’s repression were leftist movements and Islamists” (421). In 2011 prior to and during the Arab uprisings, economic turmoil existed as well with the Egyptian economy contracting 4.2% during the first quart of 2011 (424). Stacher starts the chapter with descriptions of the Arab Uprisings in 2011, with the “critical mass of people” gathering In Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Syria (407). They go on to explain that for over sixty years there was a “centralized executive wielded control over Egypt’s governing institutions of the state. While the president consulted with other leading elites, the state bureaucratic agencies existed to implement his policies rather than participate independently” (407). Their choice to start the Egypt chapter with descriptions of the Arab uprisings is indicative of the tone they set in their chapter on Egypt being changed political and governmentally during this period. Stacher writes of the political dynamics in Egypt with “the state loosening political restrictions, cooperation improves and development occurs among the citizens and the policy” (428). Stacher writes also that during the 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood and that “many Christians willingly support al-Sisi because they viewed the Muslim Brotherhood and its Salafi affiliate as far as more threatening than a military dictatorship” and that “the church and the military dismissed the dissent at the time as ‘special interest’ concerns and that it represents the reality that the current system does not work for the Coptic Christians” (431). The critical breakdown of Stacher with religious differences of Egypt and how they impact the politics of the nation that is still 89% Sunni Muslim.