The impact of external actors on the distribution of power in the Middle East: the case of Egypt

Both formally and rhetorically, the policy position of the United States and the European Union is to support movement towards democratic political change in the Middle East. This article examines the democracy-promotion polices of both actors in relation to Egypt, with particular reference to the political changes that have taken place in that country since 2005. It concludes that, far from promoting democratic change in Egypt, Western policies have had the apparently paradoxical, and unintended, effect of supporting the entrenchment of an authoritarian political order, and offers an analysis of how and why this is so.