Source: The Century Foundation
Author(s): Michael Wahid Hanna
Original Link: https://tcf.org/content/report/explaining-absence/
Snapshot:
Explanations for the absence of liberalism in contemporary Egypt continue to rely on simplistic analyses that present the Arab world as doomed by age-old traditions and rigid texts. With a detailed discussion of Egypt’s dynamic history, this chapter presents a more thorough and nuanced view of liberalism’s failures in Egypt. By extension, the report also lays the foundation for analyzing the absence of liberalism in the broader Arab world, as well as its near-term prospects. Egypt is a quintessential encapsulation of regional trends toward authoritarianism and Islamist militancy. Its political life remains static, polarized, and trapped between limited and unsatisfactory modes of governance. The country’s predicament has thus telegraphed a wider failing: it now functions as something of a negative indicator for a region that has often relied on it for intellectual, political, and cultural regeneration. This chapter is also intended as the start of a broader regional exploration of the weak performance of liberal political platforms in the Arab world…
Read the full report by following the original link.