Counting Islam Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt

Why does Islam seem to dominate Egyptian politics, especially when the country's endemic poverty and deep economic inequality would seem to render it promising terrain for a politics of radical redistribution rather than one of religious conservativism? This book argues that the answer lies not in the political unsophistication of voters, the subordination of economic interests to spiritual ones, or the ineptitude of secular and leftist politicians, but in organizational and social factors that shape the opportunities of parties in authoritarian and democratizing systems to reach potential voters. Tracing the performance of Islamists and their rivals in Egyptian elections over the course of almost forty years, this book not only explains why Islamists win elections, but illuminates the possibilities for the emergence in Egypt of the kind of political pluralism that is at the heart of what we expect from democracy.

Introduction: Islam's steady march; 1. Explaining Islamist dominion; Part I. Elections under Authoritarianism: 2. Clientelism and class: the tragedy of leftist opposition in Mubarak's Egypt; 3. The Islamic machine?; 4. Winning in the 'well-run casino'; Part II. After the 'Arab Spring': 5. God, mammon, and transition; 6. Islam's organizational advantage?; 7. Conclusion; Epilogue: requiescat in pace?

Tarek Masoud is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His writings on political Islam, Egyptian politics, and US foreign policy have appeared in the Journal of Democracy, the Washington Quarterly, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. He is the co-editor of Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics (Cambridge, 2004) and Order, Conflict, and Violence (Cambridge, 2008). He was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and received the 2009 Aaron Wildavsky Prize for best dissertation in religion and politics from the American Political Science Association. He is a recipient of grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation, and the Harvard Medical School, and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a PhD from Yale University and an AH from Brown University, both in political science.