Assessing Middle Eastern trajectories: Egypt after Mubarak

Abstract

This article assesses Egypt's chances of democratization. A parallel is drawn between the processes of civil society mobilization that led to the overthrow of the authoritarian regimes of Zhan Videnov in Bulgaria and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In the latter case, democratic, secular civil society has to compete with the larger, better organized and more efficient Islamic civil society. The internal dynamics of the Muslim Brotherhood, secular civil society, Egyptian military and international factors will probably moderate Islamist trends. However, this moderation does not necessarily imply genuine democratization. More likely, the future Egyptian regime will be a hybrid one accommodating both Islamist and democratic systems of values within a relatively stable and balanced political construct.

Keywords:

• Egypt
• Bulgaria
• civil society
• Islamism
• democratization

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to an anonymous reviewer for his/her helpful suggestions.

Notes

Freedom House uses a one-to-seven scale, with one representing the highest degree of freedom and seven the lowest. 3.0 is the limit for ‘partly free’ states and 5.5 for ‘not free’ ones (for further details see Freedom House 2010a).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Theodor Tudoroiu

Dr Theodor Tudoroiu is an Associate Researcher at the Montreal Centre for International Peace and Security Studies. He works mainly on subjects related to authoritarian regimes and democratization.