Mohamed Sabry

Monday, 15 June 2015, 3.00 pm - 4.30 pm |
Forum Transregionale Studien, Wallotstr. 14, 14193 Berlin

State-Business Networks in Egypt on the Eve of the January 2011 Revolution


Mohamed Sabry
(Cairo / Berlin / Affiliated EUME Fellow 2014-15)

Chair: Saleem Al-Bahloly
(University of California, Berkeley / EUME Fellow 2014-15)

Abstract
The Arab Spring has revealed the black side of close state business relations (SBR). The high observed levels of cronyism resulting from these relations in these countries played a big role in fomenting public anger. Generally speaking, enough relevant data is not available for the Arab Spring countries; but observations, reports and studies indicate that such connections were so intense and influential that they invoked public discontent providing one of the major reasons for the 2011 Revolutions especially in Egypt and Tunisia. According to the findings of Sabry's PhD thesis, a number of institutional factors seem to affect the outcomes of close SBR. The considered outcomes are economic growth and cronyism. The study, however, doesn’t provide case studies for examining the empirical findings it has reached and the theoretical justifications it has given. In this context the proposed work try to address this concern using as case studies three of the Arab Spring countries for which relatively more data is available, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria. The addressed research question would be: in the countries of the Arab Spring, where observed close state-business relations has resulted in high levels of cronyism and varying economic growth performances, what are the institutional factors that seem to have caused these outcomes? Are certain forms of SBR more responsible than others for such outcomes? Does this seem to conform to the empirical findings and theoretical justifications of Sabry (2013) or not? And why?

Mohamed Ismail Sabry is an Honrary Lecturer at the German University in Cairo campus of Berlin.  He had received his PhD in Economics at the University of Marburg. His BA and MA were obtained from the American University in Cairo in Economics and Professional Development respectively. His PhD thesis was focusing on state-business relations (SBR) and the institutional settings (e.g.: government regulations and legal, cultural and political factors) affecting the outcome of these relations. The studied outcomes were economic growth and cronyism. His list of published works include his PhD thesis "State Business Relations: Networks, institutions and their effect on growth and cronyism" (2013). It also includes a book written in Arabic: "Ideological Confrontation in the 20th Century: Communism's confrontation with Capitalism" (2009). Moreover, a novel, a short stories collection and a number of short stories published in different literary magazines, all written in Arabic, are among his non-academic published works. Other than Academia, his working experience includes working in development, research, banking and business development. He is intending to use his time at EUME in extending the PhD thesis work by discussing in more details state-business relations in the Arab Spring countries, as case studies. He would try to find out how the unique institutional settings of these countries shaped the outcomes of these relations.