The Character of Democracy in Contemporary Egypt
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This paper assesses the character of democracy in contemporary Egypt. Most governments in the world claim to be democratic, and the extent to which they are democratic depends largely on how democracy is defined, and on the dichotomy between the de jure and the de facto characteristics of the political and economic environments within a country. In this assessment, democracy is defined as the political and economic equality of the citizens of a state in the context of the opportunity to participate in society. This definition of democracy infers that the government is controlled by the people and not vice versa. For a finding that democracy prevails in contemporary Egypt, it is also posited that the characteristics of political and economic equality, and the supreme power of the people over the government must be actual (de facto) as opposed to only constitutional or legal (de jure).The government in contemporary Egypt led by Hosni Mubarak is the direct successor of the government established in the wake of the 1952 revolution.1 After an interim period, in which a government headed by General Mohammed Neguib (a figurehead selected by the Society of Free Officers that overthrew the government of King Farouk) exercised temporary control, the government of Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser (the real leader of the 1Arthur Goldschmidt, Modern Egypt: The Formation of A Nation State )Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1988), 90 93.
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the secular and the religious. Islam holds that political stability within an Islamic state derives from the ideological incorporation of Islamic values into the political system.26 The instability in Islamic states is attributed by Islamic scholars to the failure of Muslim elites "to draw inspiration from Islam for political development . . . ."27 In this context, some blame for political instability is attached to efforts by the elites in some Islamic countries to introduce "western ideologies of secularism, democracy, socialism and
26Z. R. Khan, "Political Science: Development and the Internal Dynamics of the Muslim State," in Islam and Development, 3rd ed. (Plainfield, Indiana: The Association of Muslim Social Scientists, 1987), 51.
27Ibid, 52.
nationalism . . . ."28 It is contended that, without Islamic values as an ideological basis, these concepts will fail in Islamic countries.29
The goal of Islamic development is to promote growth in human life in "all directions, to the maximum extent possible whether for the individual or society."30 Islamic political development is expected to occur in stages. The first stage is the spiritual development of the individual Muslim.31 Individual spiritual development
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Approximate Word count = 7842
Approximate Pages = 31 (250 words per page)
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