An Assessment of the Egyptian Revolution According to John Foran’s Theory of Third World Social Revolutions

Recent developments in the Arab World in general and in Egypt in particular have given rise to a torrent of theorizations and political analyses. This article seeks to apply an appropriate theory to analyze political developments in Egypt. The author has adopted John Foran’s theory of Third World social revolutions as the conceptual framework capable of analyzing those events. The question is as follows: Has the Egyptian revolution been able to present a successful example of social revolutions in the Third World according to John Foran’s theoretical approach? The hypothesis indicates that the developments leading to the Egyptian revolution have been consistent with Johan Foran’s theory of social revolutions. The findings of the research demonstrate that such factors as the dependent development, repressive government relying personally on Mubarak, formation of resistance political culture featured
in democratic and Islamist forms, economic depression and hardship and the impact of the world system are among the main parameters of Foran’s theory that paved the way for the advent of the revolution. The author concludes that the Egyptian revolution can be considered as one of the successful social revolutions in the Third World.