Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Short-term solutions to more profound, long-term problems are not sufficient to safeguard United States interests in the Middle East. This paper challenges the current US policy towards Egypt and its underlying assumption that regime stability supercedes a U.S. interest in true political development. The key question in this paper queries why the status quo policy towards Egypt is no longer fulfilling U.S. objectives when it has been a successful pillar for U.S. Middle East policy in the past. In the wake of terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001 leading to the U.S. war on terror, along with the continued violence between the Palestinians and Israelis, the potential for acute political violence within Egypt is high. This study will present two scenario-driven U.S. policy options and recommend a realpolitik view of democratization for Egypt. The U.S. can no longer afford to be timid about the power of democracy. For the United States, pushing for political systems that are accountable to their populations should not be viewed in an idealistic, normative sense, but rather in a strategic context. This paper contends that democracy is a security imperative for the post-9/11 world.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study is part of an emerging research program on the forces sustaining and reproducing authoritarian rule in the world today. It is also a contribution to an older research program focused specifically on authoritarian rule in Egypt, and the larger Arab world. It seeks to focus attention on a previously neglected dimension which I will argue has partly contributed to reinforcing authoritarian rule and inhibiting genuine political change in the Egyptian context: Peace making with Israel.
The literature on authoritarian rule in Egypt has traditionally focused on the origins of authoritarian rule, attributing it either to the specific requirements of late and dependent development, or to specific cultural attributes of the Arab-Islamic region. Often the origins of authoritarian rule are conflated with its persistence, with both phenomena being attributed to the same reasons. The literature which does discuss the persistence of authoritarian rule as a distinct political process tends to focus either on the rising challenge of political Islam or on the requisites of neo-liberal economic reforms. Overall, very little attention is given to the international dimensions of authoritarian rule, specifically to the impact of the peace process on Egyptian domestic politics, and more exactly on the longevity of authoritarian governance in this nation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Liberal scholars have made the case that information technology (IT) will advance democratization in authoritarian political systems. How good is this claim? Not very good, I suggest. In this paper I will present the case of Egypt, in which IT enhanced the authoritarian state's ability to perpetuate its grip on power in the face of increasing external pressure for trade liberalization. To do this, I will examine IT not simply as hardware that is detached from the social actors that developed and deployed it. Instead, I will analyze it as a complex process of technological development, standardization, deployment and justification, and I will refer to this process as “IT revolution.” My goal is to demonstrate that the IT revolution can very well serve anti-democratic purposes and that the connection between IT and democratization is more tenuous than liberal common sense suggests. My negative, perhaps even counter-intuitive, finding suggests that to evaluate IT ‘s impact on state-society relations we should move away from approaches that simply count nodes. Instead we must study these technologies as the results of a complex process of negotiation that is embedded in the larger process of globalization.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper looks at the disconnect between interviews with internet cafe users in Jordan and Egypt who tout the Internet as a life changing technology, and the overt persistance of authoritarianism. If the Internet aids mobilization, then why don't we see more of it in the Arab world, given the rapid diffusion of the technology. This paper looks at a series of potential answers.