Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks to illustrate and explain the fragile strength that has marked Egypt since independence. Egypt’s strengths and fragilities continued to mirror the historical processes that shaped its territory, population, and political regime - the triangle that de facto forms a state or a political entity. The book focuses on the political regime, politics, and policies other than those concerned with economic growth and the distribution of wealth. It discusses economic policies, including distributional policies that are often identified with social policies, as well as the material conditions in which they originated and the effects that they showed. The book examines exchanges between the successive Egyptian governments and other international actors.