Rethinking Political Culture in Egypt: Secular Frames, Religious Values and Contentious Discourse

• In Event: 415 - Regular Session. Political Culture

Abstract

The central discursive tension in modern Egyptian society has been that of secularism versus anti-secularism. Religious values constrain or channel engagement in the public sphere, but this engagement must contend with secular value orientations and navigate tensions between the two. Attention to how power operates through discourse shifts analytical priority from matters of state co-optation or repression of opponents to how religious values influence political mobilization along with perceptions of secular authority. The question of how secular and religious forces appropriate or resist longstanding contentious discourses in politics will determine trajectories in Egypt’s political culture during a period of protracted social upheaval. Through ethnographic content analysis of news articles and interviews with a broad range of political, civil society, and religious groups, this study investigates contentious discourse around religious and secular values in Egypt. Framing secularism as a “problem space” within which the limits of religious influence are debated and contested, it adopts Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality to examine how particular discourses operate as techniques of power. It also draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of “field” and symbolic power to explain how religious values shape political mobilization and invest religious discourse with power to facilitate or impede political legitimacy.

Author

• Martin Timothy Rowe, Boston University