Egyptians’ translating democracy a model in the making

Abstract EN

This paper tackles the question of Egyptians’ (still in the making) translational model of democratic development and transition.

This model challenges the notion of ‘Arab exceptionalism’ with its normative narratives of legitimacy and changing compatibility claims.

The latter are structured in tunc with America’s conception of democracy, which according to Ido Oren “are products, more than determinants of America’s...

foreign political relations" (Oren 147).

More specifically.

This model exposes the bias and theoretical lacuna in constitutional and political science theories, whose usage of ahistorical and deconie.xtualized paradigm of civil-military relations demonizes the role of military in democratic transition and development, and disregards the specific history of Egyptian military and its role in state-building and preservation.

The paper is divided into three parts.

The first part deals with the fluctuating discourse of Arab exceptionalism and its disparity with Egypt’s statehood experience.

The second part utilizes the critical insights of Chantel Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau into Discourse theory to argue for Morsi's discursive coup d’etat that called for a counter-coup.

The third part examines Egyptians’ patriotic hit, Boshret Kheir, to highlight the paradoxical effect of the corporatization of Egyptian political culture.

Tfie paper argues for Egyptians’ changing and evolving political culture.