Negotiating Egyptian Nationalism: Militant Islamist Confrontations with the State and the Fragmentation of Political Authority

  • Catherine Musekamp Simon Fraser University

Abstract

Since Egypt’s 1952 Free Officer coup d’état, Egypt has been governed by authoritarian regimes and nationalism has served as the central ideological basis for political authority. This paper explores the period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, when militant Islamist opposition toward the Sadat and Mubarak regimes was one of the most significant threats to state security and one of the biggest challenges to the ruling regimes’ hegemony over political authority. This paper argues that the negotiation of national identity was crucial to the Egyptian state’s confrontation with militant Islamist groups during the late Sadat presidency and the Mubarak era to the 1990s; however, the state’s endorsement of an “Islamized” Egyptian nationalism was co-opted by various state institutions and competing political groups, leading to a fragmentation of political authority.

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Author Biography

Catherine Musekamp, Simon Fraser University
Catherine Musekamp is a B.A. student at Simon Fraser University, majoring in political science and Middle East and Islamic history. Her key areas of interest include studies in civil society and Islamist
politics. In 2007, Catherine participated in SFU International’s student exchange program and studied at the American University in Cairo.
She also completed a paid internship at the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies in Cairo. She hopes to pursue graduate studies either in Middle East studies or international law.
Published
2011-07-23
How to Cite
Musekamp, Catherine. 2011. “Negotiating Egyptian Nationalism: Militant Islamist Confrontations With the State and the Fragmentation of Political Authority”. Illumine: Journal of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society 9 (1). Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 21-44. https://doi.org/10.18357/illumine9120107776.
Section
Articles