shechter

The Egyptian Social Contract explores the intricacies of the relationship between the state and its citizens, from the establishment of the semi-independent Egyptian nation in 1922 until the 2011 Uprising. The book studies how and why a social contract that had been reformed in the aftermath of World War II became the core of state-citizen relations under President Nasser. It further explores the long and tortuous search for a new social contract in Egypt since the 1970s.

Relli Shechter looks at how this social contract channelled socioeconomic development over time, creating an Egyptian middle-class society. Shechter probes a political economy in which class vision and interests in development intertwined with the rise and entrenchment of authoritarianism. The perseverance of this social contract has mostly inhibited socioeconomic and political reforms, or the making of a new social contract, in Egypt. Such reforms would have challenged Egypt’s ruling elite, and no less so its middle-class society.

Relli Shechter is an Associate Professor and Chair, The Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He received his PhD from Harvard University. His most recent book is The Rise of the Egyptian Middle Class: Socio-Economic Mobility and Public Discontent from Nasser to Sadat (Cambridge University Press, 2018).