The building of the modern Egyptian State: tradition versus modernization

Abstract

This essay focuses on the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and the state apparatus that it created in Egypt. The essay presents the theories that examine the failure of the Arab states as a result of the preservation of the colonial structures of nation-state post-colonially by the Arab elites and considers the reasons why the colonial structures were preserved in Egypt after the 1952 revolution. The first main argument of this essay is that nuclei of nation-like organisation laid in Egypt for almost a century before the British took control. The author believes that the post-revolution government maintained the state-like structures that were taking form in the region since the 19th century, as we trace down the borders, administration and national consciousness of the period of Muhammed Ali. The second argument is that the Egyptian nation-state was the response to the popular demand of modernization and progress, forced by the Arab nationalism, the main anti-colonial ideology of the era inspired by the Western thought.