Land, food and water in Egypt : a history of the agrarian question and state power in Egypt.

Abstract

This study provides a historical, social and political context through which one can analyse land reclamation in Egypt. It highlights the importance of this synthesis between ecology, economics, and society when studying the Egyptian state and the elite struggles that take place within Egypt itself. It also takes into account the international dimension and the influence of external economic forces, such as the rise of global capitalism on Egypt’s domestic policy. The study starts by theorising the concept of the state. After an extensive theoretical discussion, this paper argues that the state should be conceptualized along the lines of Bob Jessop’s Strategic Relationship Approach with a strong ecological dimension. This paper, therefore, places itself in the tradition of academics such as Alex Loftus, Christian Parenti and to an increasing extent, Bob Jessop himself. Subsequently, this paper argues that by studying the agrarian question, one can analyse agricultural policy in Egypt and put it in its historical, ecological and global context. This paper then analysis Egypt's history through the lens of the Food Regime developed by McMichael and Harriette Friedmann. By incorporating critiques of Bernstein and Araghi the into the food regime analysis, this study widens the scope of a traditional food regime analysis and argues that Egypt's incorporation into the global world system started much earlier, then the conventional food regime analysis. This study finds that throughout its history, Egypt has had little to no room to maneuver with determining its own domestic policies. There were only two points in history, namely the rule of Mohammed Ali Pasha in the early half of the 19th century and the almost twenty-year rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser starting in 1952 in which Egypt had relative control over its domestic policy. These periods are both marked by mass reductions in poverty and rapid expansion of the domestic industry. However, in both cases, global forces, whether it was the rise of global im