Egypt’s hybrid regime – stable, but challenged

Demonstrations against Egypt's authoritarian government are unlikely to spark regime change, a new study suggests (Credit: globalvoicesonline)

Egypt’s political evolution will “shape the timing, character, and success of democratization throughout the Arab world”, claims a new study. The country provides a particularly insightful case for understanding regional prospects for democracy, writes Bruce Rutherford, because of the relatively open and historically rooted rivalry between the “liberal, Islamic, and statist conceptions of political order that compete for preeminence in the Arab world.”

The current regime exhibits a growing contradiction: on one hand, it is a “classic example of stable authoritarianism“, controlling much of the media and political life, while suppressing opponents with legal and extra-legal instruments and monitoring and manipulating political parties and civil society groups; on the other hand, a vibrant judiciary, an assertive Judges’ Club, and a large and well-organized Islamist opposition are poised to take advantage of “a fundamental change in the character of Egyptian politics since the early 1990s”, namely the declining legitimacy and sustainability of the Nasserite statist order.

Egypt typifies the dilemma facing many of the region’s regimes, namely that a consequence of economic restructuring is that “the massive welfare states that enhanced regime legitimacy in many countries have proven financially unsustainable.” The region’s autocratic institutions are not threatened by color revolution-style transitions even if “the tools of centralized state power are gradually eroding,” Rutherford contends. The result is a hybrid regime that combines autocratic elements – a powerful and largely unchecked executive – and democratic institutions that constrain the state and increase accountability.

He notes the role played by the democracy assistance and human rights community in supporting indigenous demands for democratic reform:

These measures were reinforced by a growing network of transnational civil society groups that promoted democracy and human rights. These organizations included human rights groups, international party foundations, and media advocacy groups. They drew international attention to human rights abuses and lobbied Western governments to monitor and punish autocratic regimes. Some of the groups also sought to protect and strengthen pro-democracy forces through lobbying, funding, and training. In addition, international election observers became an important force for identifying and documenting electoral fraud. Their efforts led to substantial improvements in the fairness and transparency of elections.

Despite the challenges to the regime, Rutherford concludes, Egypt is “likely to remain a hybrid regime that contains some legal and institutional constraints on executive power, but which falls short of Western norms of democracy.”