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2. Climate Change in Egypt: Opportunities and Obstacles
- Author:
- Amr Hamzawy, Mohammad Al-Mailam, and Joy Arkeh
- Publication Date:
- 10-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Because of climate change, Egypt’s already arid climate will suffer from additional environmental stresses, including extreme temperatures, irregular precipitation, elevated sea levels and land subsidence, coastal flooding, shoreline erosion, deteriorating soil salinity, and persistent drought. These mutually reinforcing impacts will build on one another, worsening water scarcity, hindering food security, displacing exposed populations, and destabilizing the Egyptian economy. Climate change will therefore exert added pressures on already precarious populations and push still other groups to unprecedented levels of vulnerability. Efforts to adapt to a changing climate will also exact a steep price, exposing existing governance shortfalls and deepening deficits. As climate change escalates burdens on state capacity, it will become even more urgent for the country to take proactive measures. Egypt needs, therefore, to accelerate its climate governance efforts if it hopes to stabilize its economy and protect its vulnerable populations. Before evaluating the socioeconomic and political consequences of climate change, it is necessary to outline Egypt’s preexisting environmental challenges. This overview will establish a baseline for understanding the compounding impact of climate change, with a view to how climate change deepens existing vulnerabilities, aggravates governance challenges, and requires new public policy designs to address it.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Politics, Governance, and Reform
- Political Geography:
- North Africa and Egypt
3. Arab Peace Initiative II: How Arab Leadership Could Design a Peace Plan in Israel and Palestine
- Author:
- Amr Hamzawy and Nathan J. Brown
- Publication Date:
- 11-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Past peace processes in Israel and Palestine failed to offer long-term solutions to the conflict, but they showed what makes negotiations work. In the latest round of hostilities in Gaza, key Arab governments are uniquely positioned to leverage relationships with all parties to lay out the conditions that could broker a lasting peace. An Arab Peace Initiative II, with multilateral oversight, would have to offer real benefits for all parties. But for any lasting framework to take hold, these important conditions need to be met. Palestinian and Jewish national identities should be recognized as legitimate and in need of institutional expression. Individual human rights in both communities need to be protected. Antisemitic, Islamophobic, and racist rhetoric and actions must be explicitly and unconditionally repudiated by all actors. Any targeting of civilians should not be merely rejected but actively combated by all actors. Settlement activities in the Palestinian territories and forced displacement of Palestinians to Egypt, Jordan, or anywhere else should be considered outlawed actions that all actors commit to fight against. Full diplomatic, political, and economic relations among participating states should be an outcome of the negotiation process. No stateless people should be left behind at the conclusion of any set of agreements.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Politics, Treaties and Agreements, Reform, and Occupation
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North Africa, and Egypt
4. Egypt’s Consolidated Authoritarianism
- Author:
- Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Institution:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Abstract:
- The current Egyptian political scene reveals an important paradox: since its ascendancy to power in 2013, the military-led authoritarian government has not faced significant challenges from civil society despite systematic hu- man rights abuses and continuous societal crises. Apart from limited protests by labor activists, student movements, and members of syndicates, Egyptians have mostly refrained from protesting, instead hoping that the government will improve their living conditions despite a rising poverty rate of 33 percent, an inflation rate between 11 and 12 percent, and unemployment at eight percent.1 This popular reluctance to challenge the authoritarian government has continued to shape Egypt’s reality since the collapse of the short-lived democratization process from 2011–2013.2
- Topic:
- Corruption, Democratization, Politics, Authoritarianism, Protests, and Military
- Political Geography:
- North Africa and Egypt
5. Egypt’s Consolidated Authoritarianism
- Author:
- Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Abstract:
- The current Egyptian political scene reveals an important paradox: since its ascendancy to power in 2013, the military-led authoritarian government has not faced significant challenges from civil society despite systematic hu- man rights abuses and continuous societal crises. Apart from limited protests by labor activists, student movements, and members of syndicates, Egyptians have mostly refrained from protesting, instead hoping that the government will improve their living conditions despite a rising poverty rate of 33 percent, an inflation rate between 11 and 12 percent, and unemployment at eight percent. This popular reluctance to challenge the authoritarian government has continued to shape Egypt’s reality since the collapse of the short-lived democratization process from 2011–2013.
- Topic:
- Authoritarianism, Democracy, Rule of Law, Protests, and Dictatorship
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt
6. Egypt’s Secular Political Parties: A Struggle for Identity and Independence
- Author:
- Michele Dunne and Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 03-2017
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Secular political parties in Egypt have always been caught between an overbearing state and a largely Islamist opposition. The brief, chaotic political opening from 2011 to 2013 offered them unprecedented opportunities, but the violence and intense polarization that followed the military coup have put them under more pressure than ever. Formal politics in Egypt is now a tightly controlled game in which no real independence is allowed, but some secular parties might reemerge as contenders should there be another opportunity for free competition.
- Topic:
- Political Theory and Democracy
- Political Geography:
- Egypt
7. Legislating Authoritarianism: Egypt’s New Era of Repression
- Author:
- Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 03-2017
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Egypt’s new authoritarian regime is rapidly closing the public space—cracking down on autonomous civil society and independent political parties, asphyxiating the practice of pluralist politics, and thwarting citizens’ peaceful and active engagement in public affairs. The government’s primary strategy is to institute wide-scale repression through lawmaking and justify its behavior through conspiratorial and populist narratives. With unprecedented resolve, it has passed new protest and terrorism laws, introduced legal amendments targeting nongovernmental organizations, and extended the military court’s jurisdiction. Essentially, the regime is adapting lawmaking for its own purposes. To fight against the tide, those challenging the system need to fully understand how.
- Topic:
- Governance, Authoritarianism, and Democracy
- Political Geography:
- Egypt
8. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Islamist Participation in a Closing Political Environment
- Author:
- Nathan J. Brown and Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- The Muslim Brotherhood, the dynamic Islamist movement that has tried to navigate Egypt's semi-authoritarian system for over six decades, is facing a shrinking political space. For most of the past decade, the Brotherhood has expanded its political role, increasing from 17 to 88 members of Egypt's 620-member People's Assembly. Its success has brought increasing repression from the government. A range of measures have limited the Brotherhood's effective-ness in the People's Assembly, preventing it from forming a political party. This environment has led the movement to prioritize internal solidarity over parliamentary activities and refocus efforts on its traditional educational, religious, and social agenda. While the Brotherhood is unlikely to renounce politics altogether, the movement's center of gravity is shifting toward those who regard it as distracting, divisive, and even self-defeating.
- Topic:
- Islam and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Egypt
9. From Violence to Moderation: Al-Jama'a al-Islamiya and al-Jihad
- Author:
- Sarah Grebowski and Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Recognition by Egypt's leading Jihadists that violence has failed to achieve political change and in fact has been counterproductive has led them to a remarkable change of course.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Islam, Religion, and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Egypt
10. Between Government and Opposition: The Case of the Yemeni Congregation for Reform
- Author:
- Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Like Islamist parties across the Arab world, Yemen's Islamist Congregation for Reform (Islah) has a religious ideology and platform. Islah participates in legal politics in hopes of accomplishing constitutional and socioeconomic reforms, and over time it has committed itself to upholding democratic procedures internally as well as externally.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Islam, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Yemen, and Arabia