Introduction: The Social Contract as History

Summary

In the aftermath of the 1977 Food Uprising – which had shocked Egyptian politicians and the public – an official call for a new social contract, a new agreement between citizens and their state, emerged. First appearing in Egypt's Development Plan for the years 1978–82, this new social contract (ʿaqd ijtimaʿi), if implemented, would set Egypt on a new intertwined economic and political course. It would also partly liberalise the economy and, in tandem, democratise politics. In 2008, some four decades later, the newly established Social Contract Advisory, Monitoring and Coordination Centre was a joint project between the Egyptian government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), whose purpose was, yet again, to promote this new social contract. During the intervening years, there was a broad consensus in Egypt that the old social contract had been broken, and various state economic and political reforms that were to replace it were put in place. As the 2011 Egyptian Uprising clearly demonstrated, the new social contract had barely materialised, and the reforms associated with it hardly constituted a wilful agreement between citizens and their state.

The Egyptian Social Contract sets out to explore the intricacies of the making, partial breaking and persistence of the old social contract, from the time that the semi-independent state was established (1922) until the 2011 Egyptian Uprising. It offers a history of the social contract that centres on analysis of state–middle class relations in Egypt and how these relations have shaped the social contract and Egyptian society over time. In particular the book probes the circumstances in which these relations brought about the intertwining of socio-economic development and governance in this contract. In this political economy, state-led socio-economic development took precedence over the political participation of citizens, or democracy. Later, economic and political reforms scarcely unfolded as planned, because Egypt's ruling elite, but equally its middle-class society, did not consider a new social contract desirable – each for their own reasons. The book therefore attempts a more nuanced analysis of the ‘authoritarian bargain’, as it is often portrayed in the literature on authoritarianism in Egypt and the Middle East. Such analysis sheds light on a central conundrum that preoccupies many regarding Egypt and the region today: how to promote a just and sustainable social contract in the region.