Egyptians' Translating Democracy: A Model in the Making

This book tackles the question of Egyptians’ (still in the making) translational model of democratic development and transition. This model challenges the notion of ‘Arab exceptionalism’ with its normative narratives of legitimacy and changing compatibility claims. The latter are structured in tune with America’s conception of democracy, which according to Ido Oren “are products, more than determinants of America’s… foreign political relations” (Oren 147). More specifically, this model exposes the bias and theoretical lacuna in constitutional and political science theories, whose usage of ahistorical and decontextualized paradigm of civil-military relations demonizes the role of military in democratic transition and development, and disregards the specific history of Egyptian military and its role in state-building and preservation.