ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role secular intellectuals and political of the 1940s played in the transition from the pluralist political system of the monarchy to the authoritarian regime of the Nasserist era. The main dilemma, between authoritarian and democratic reform, however, was largely muted and contained under the monarchy because the state was basically in the hands of the conservative elite. It was not until after the failure of the Wafds internal reforms in 1950—1952 and the popular revolution that these intellectuals were tempted by more authoritarian modes of reform. A true authoritarian modernist, Rashid al-Barrawi pinned his hopes on massive industrialization, land reform, and the capacity of the state bureaucracy to transform Egypt into a modern society. The difference was that in the 1960s state control became complete, so that the state dominated the ideological debates that supported authoritarian modernism.
