Governance and Revolution in Egypt

The sudden and unpredicted 2011 revolutions in Arab countries have been one of the most important socio-political phenomena in the Middle East. The Egyptian rebellion was at the centre of attention because of its national, regional, and political impacts and consequences. Therefore, understanding the drives behind the uprising will provide remarkable insight into the recent unrest in the Middle East. Raising the question of how has the bad governance prompted the Egyptian revolution? We consider the analysis of collected data corresponding to good governance indicators (voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, governance effectiveness, and regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption) to evaluate the Egyptian government’s performance on the eve of the revolution. Having investigated the indicators of good governance in Egypt, we support the hypothesis that the Egyptian revolution was linked to the absence or weakness of the above indicators. In our view, extensive corruption in the public sector, socioeconomic disparity, lack of transparency in the political system, inefficiency of public institutions, centralisation of power, resources and special authorities in the hands of a group associated with the ruling government, the government’s unresponsive attitude, and ultimately non-fulfilment of good governance principles as well as the increasing gap between the rich and poor led to the instability and vulnerability of the political system, which eventually resulted in the Egyptian revolution in January 2011.