The Political Left in Egypt

Covering Sadat, Mubarak, and the post-revolution periods, this book presents a contemporary intellectual history of the Egyptian secular left in politics since 1970.

It covers a timeframe which witnessed cycles of repression and inclusion and explores how leftist parties which lack mobilization capacity respond behaviourally and ideologically to political openings, evaluate political opportunities, and assess the feasibility of elections. The author tells the story of two secular parties that fairly represent the secular spectrum, examining the options the leftist parties chose in order to survive the competition with strong Islamist and state-led parties. These are the Tagammu Party, a leftist opposition which shifted towards statism by political liberalization in the 1980s, and the Revolutionary Socialists, an opposition that diverted in an anti-institutional direction after democratization in 2011–2013. These opposing pathways seem to challenge the inclusion-moderation hypothesis. Introducing the Moderation Theory to secular actors opens a broad spectrum in which to comprehend the under-studied field of Arab secularism and rethinking, and, at the same time, the scope of moderation hypotheses. Consequently, the author argues that democratization can lead to de-moderation.

The Political Left in Egypt will appeal to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in Middle Eastern politics, and especially Egyptian politics and secular left politics.