Tamir Moustafa. “Mobilising the Law in an Authoritarian State: The Legal Complex in Contemporary Egypt.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism. Edited by Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley, pp. 193-218, Oxford, U.K: Hart Publishing, 2007. This chapter examines the Egyptian legal profession as …
A coalition of 22 human rights organizations has called on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to take decisive action following its recent review of Egypt’s human rights record. Rights groups argue that both Egypt’s official report (2019–2024) and the Commission’s rapporteur minimized or ignored extensive abuses—including the imprisonment of journalists, political critics, …
Khalil, H. M. (2024). “This Country has Laws”: Legalism as a Tool of Entrenching Autocracy in Egypt. American Behavioral Scientist, 68(12), 1597-1615. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642241267936 (Original work published 2024) This article investigates the role of legalism and legal processes in entrenching autocratic rule in post-revolution Egypt. In the aftermath of the spectacular street protests that swept Egypt, …
Heba M. Khalil, “ ‘This Country has Laws’ ”: Legalism as a Tool of Entrenching Autocracy in Egypt.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 68, no. 12 (2024): 1597-1615. Summary: This article investigates the role of legalism and legal processes in entrenching autocratic rule in post-revolution Egypt. In the aftermath of the spectacular street protests that swept Egypt, …
Mahmoud Hamad. Judges and Generals in the Making of Modern Egypt: How Institutions Sustain and Undermine Authoritarian Regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Summary: Why do authoritarian regimes survive? How do dictators fail? What role do political institutions play in these two processes? Many of the answers to these questions can be traced to the same …
Tamir Moustafa, The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Summary: This book examines how judicial reform can both support and destabilize authoritarian regimes, using Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court as a case study. It investigates the paradox of a regime that created a relatively independent court to …
Steven D Schaff, “Contentious Politics in the Courthouse: Law as a Tool for Resisting Authoritarian States in the Middle East.” Law & Society Review, vol. 55, no. 1 (2021): 139-176 Summary: Under what conditions will individuals mobilize law to resist states that operate above the law? In authoritarian countries, particularly in the Middle East, law is …
Tamir Moustafa. “The Politics of Domination: Law and Resistance in Authoritarian States,” Chapter. In The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt. 19–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Summary: The thought of judicial institutions in authoritarian states typically conjures up the image of state security courts with no standards of due process, handpicked …
Tamir Moustafa. “Introduction: Law versus the State,” In The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt. 1-18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Summary: The article explores why an entrenched authoritarian regime would establish an independent constitutional court through a case study of Egypt. Although the ruling regime exerts its influence on all facets …
This chapter argues that in authoritarian and transitional contexts like Egypt, the evolving precarity of the legal profession transforms cause lawyers into adaptive, embedded actors who blend legal advocacy with grassroots activism to resist repression and support social movements.