This thesis examines the management of change in bureaucracies, with a study focus on the Egyptian civil service sector. The main research aims are to identify what are the main problems of the Egyptian civil service sector, identify the main barriers against the current change programmes undertaken by the Government of Egypt (GOE) and suggest ways to develop civil servants’ commitment towards those changes. Interview data was triangulated with archival documents and non-participant observation and were drawn from a sample of 33 civil servants working in the Egyptian Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD) which is the civil service entity acting as the change agent responsible for managing the government administrative reforms plan in the civil service sector. All study participants were actually working in one of the change projects/programmes and had a minimum of 12 months of service in the civil service. Interviews were digitally-recorded and transcribed in the form of MS-Word documents, and data transcripts were analysed manually using MS-Excel worksheets and main research themes were developed and statistics drawn using those Excel worksheets. The main research findings suggested that the main problems of the Egyptian civil service sector are (1) the absence of a Reward and Punishment system, (2) the absence of a firm system of governance and control and (3) the current negative civil service culture. The research findings suggested that developing civil servants’ commitment towards change may be achieved by employee involvement and participation in the change process and the careful selection of inspirational change agents. The findings also suggested that change agents play an important role in inspiring civil servants to support change and that middle management is another crucial factor in the change move as it should act as liaison between change agents and employees.

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Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis discusses the sources of royal power in the kingdoms of Argead Makedonia and early Ptolemaic Egypt. The overarching aim is to assess the degree of change and continuity between the structures and networks that framed Argead and Ptolemaic royal power. Viewing power not as an abstraction but as the outcome of the real and observable interrelations between individuals and groups, this thesis builds upon the historical sociology of Michael Mann in order to identify four main sources of royal power: dynastic, courtly, military and economic. In their capacity to enhance or limit royal power, the social networks that are formed between the king and representatives of these groups in each context, as well as the structures that produce and reproduce their behaviour, form the focal points of this research. As such, this thesis distances itself from that segment of socio-historical tradition, which grants ultimate primacy to human agency. The Introduction presents the main scholarly debates surrounding the nature of Ptolemaic and Argead kingship and highlights the fact that although both have received considerable attention separately, they have not yet been the focus of a systematic, comparative analysis. At the same time, this chapter brings in the theoretical and methodological framework employed in the thesis. Chapter One discusses the structural organisation of the dynasty, focusing on patterns of marriage and succession, and the manipulation of dynastic connections, real or constructed, as instruments of legitimation. It is argued that the colonial circumstances in early Ptolemaic Egypt led to an amplification of the importance of the dynasty as a source of power. Chapter Two examines the interrelations of the ruler with his extended circle of friends and associates, i.e. the courtiers. A discussion of the physical and social structure of the courts in Aigai, Pella and Alexandria in the early Ptolemaic period confirms that administration at the highest level continued to be organised around personal relations. Chapter Three identifies the enabling mechanisms, which sustained the military power of the Makedonian king. It is argued that royal military leadership and the integration of facets of military organisation (e.g. the institution of klerouchia) and values (through education) in society remained integral to the social organisation of early Ptolemaic Egypt. Finally, Chapter Four examines the economic power of the ruler, as revealed by the organisation of property rights. The absence of the Makedones and the prominence of temples as economically significant groups in early Ptolemaic Egypt underline the structural discontinuities that arise from the necessary adaptation to different local conditions. This thesis concludes that the structures that framed Argead royal power were in their majority remembered and instantiated in the organisational practices of the early Ptolemaic rulers. Deviations from the Argead paradigm occurred when pragmatism led to the introduction of corrective practices, such as the co-regency principle aimed at eradicating the dynastic instability that had plagued the Argead monarchy, and when ecological and political considerations, such as the needs of their non-Hellenic, non-Makedonian audience, dictated a greater degree of accommodation to local conditions, especially in the field of economic organisation. Even there, however, one can discern the influence of the flexible, all-inclusive model of Argead administration of its New Lands as an organisational template.

This dissertation examines how transnationalism can affect Islamists’ moderation in both Egypt and Morocco. In this dissertation, I do an in-depth comparative case study analysis to assess the prospects of moderation of two Islamists political entities, the Muslim Brotherhood as a transnational social movement and the Morocco Party of Justice and Development (JDP), which has no transnational ties. Both the Muslim Brotherhood and PJD came to power after the Arab uprising in 2011 and were key players in the democratic transitions in both countries; however, the entities are not related. Further, the dissertation will explore the moderation level of the Muslim Brotherhood and PJD. Current literature on Islamists and moderation theory focuses on political inclusion, political learning and repression as factors that would affect the moderation of an Islamist group. Looking at Islamists as a transnational social movement is a new aspect in the study of Islamism. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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This PhD thesis compares Egypt and Syria’s authoritarian political systems. While the tendency in social science political research treats Egypt and Syria as similarly authoritarian, this research emphasizes differences between the two systems with special reference to institutions and co-optation. Rather than reducibly understanding Egypt and Syria as sharing similar histories, institutional arrangements, or ascribing to the oft-repeated convention that “Syria is Egypt but 10 years behind,” this thesis focuses on how events and individual histories shaped each states current institutional strengthens and weaknesses. Specifically, it explains the how varying institutional politicization or de-politicization affects each state’s capabilities for co-opting elite and non-elite individuals. Beginning with a theoretical framework that considers the limited utility of democratization and transition theoretical approaches, the work underscores the persistence and durability of authoritarianism. Chapter two details the politicized institutional divergence between Egypt and Syria that began in the 1970s. Chapter three and four examines how institutional politicization or de-politicization affects elite and non-elite individual co-optation in Egypt and Syria. Chapter five discusses the study’s general conclusions and theoretical implications. This thesis’s argument is that Egypt and Syria co-opt elites and non-elites differently because of the varying degrees of institutional politicization in each governance system. Rather than view one country as more politically developed than the other, this work argues that Syria’s political institutions are more politicized than their Egyptian counterparts. Syria’s political arena is, thus, described as politicized-patrimonialism. Syria’s politicized-patrimonial arena produces uneven co-optation of elites and non-elites as they are diffused through competing institutions. Conversely, the Egyptian political arena remains highly personalized as weak institutions and individuals are manipulated and molded according to the president’s ruling clique. This is referred to as personalized-patrimonialism. As a consequence, Egypt’s political establishment demonstrates more flexibility in ad hoc altering and adapting its arena depending on the emergence of crises. This study’s theoretical implications suggest that, contrary to modernization and democratization theory’s adage that institutions lead to a political development, politicized institutions within a patrimonial order actually hinder regime adaptation because consensus is harder to achieve and maintain. It is within this context that Egypt’s de-politicized institutional framework advantages its top political elite. In this reading of Egyptian and Syrian politics, Egypt’s personalized political arena is more adaptable than Syria’s. These conclusions do not indicate that political reform is a process underway in either state.

"Inclusion" in the broad sense of access to, and participation in, public policy and services has been lacking in the majority of developing countries---whether authoritarian or democratic---due to highly skewed political, social and economic power structures. To understand why this tends to be the case, the dissertation provides a political economy model for understanding civil society, arguing that the evolution of civil society and its potential as a vehicle for inclusion are conditioned by the economic imperatives in place and the state prerogatives. More specifically, I question the extent to which the neoliberal model allows civil society to fulfill this role, by examining the impact of Social Funds (SFs), a key social policy institution created and promoted solely under the neoliberal model, on civil society in Egypt and Bolivia. / I argue that neoliberalism severely limits the possibility of: citizenship construction, achieving development synergy between the state and civil society, or strengthening the latter. These limitations are structural, inherent to the neoliberal development model and the changes it has brought about economically and politically. The research shows how these changes have manifestations within the state, the economy and civil society and more specifically social policy. Just as important, there are limitations intrinsically grounded in the structures found in many developing countries, pre-neoliberal changes. Such structures, I argue, do not allow new institutions like SFs to push forward such an ideal three-way relationship among the economy, state and civil society. Rather than strengthening civil society and creating development synergy, SFs are shown to be just an attempt to give neoliberal policies a human face and subdue any potential for structural changes. / More generally, by contrasting the dynamics of civil society under neoliberalism in a developing country with a democratic regime (Bolivia) with those of a soft authoritarian regime (Egypt). I argue that a dichotomous framework, which sees democracy as antithetically opposed to authoritarianism is not necessarily appropriate to the analysis of developing countries. The cases illustrate that the state and civil society, under two-different regime types, continue to share a number of similarities.

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