Politics, power and poverty: twenty years of agricultural reform and market liberalisation in Egypt

This article examines the character of economic liberalisation in Egypt's countryside. It focuses on the impact that reform has had on historic struggles for rights and security for Egypt's fellahin. The erosion of rights, the hiking of land prices and the failure to promote rural development that embraces the knowledge, skills and expertise of Egypt's smallholders is an indictment of Mubarak's five terms as president: it will leave a heritage of a subordinated agrarian capitalism shaped by attempts to further incorporate Egypt into the world system.