The Emergence of Parliamentarism in Egypt, 1866‒1882

Egypt has more than 150 years of parliamentary history, however embedded in contexts of an autocratic regime and, at times, democratization. In functionalist approaches, the institution is often reduced to an instrument for regime stabilization, be it by window-dressing or cooptation. Yet, making use of historical institutionalism reveals that the institution and the actors integrated always possessed agency making use of their intermediary position between the executive on the one hand and different elite groups and the wider public on the other hand for pursuing their aims. Depending on the context and the development of these relations, the parliament often expanded its power in the fields of legislation and government control. In the paper, I will present results from an analysis of Egypt’s first parliamentary period from 1866 on when a purely consultative chamber of notables was introduced, but developed into a parliament with wide powers in legislation and embedded in a system of checks and balances. This development however found an end with the British occupation in 1882. I argue that the wealthy and administrative powerful rural notables who dominated the national representative assembly learned how to use and develop the existing parliamentary instruments (such as free speech, committee work). They ceased the moment for extending their power when the monarch, Khedive Ismail, promoted the chamber as a counterweight to the increasing political interference of the French and British. This created windows of opportunity the delegates used to struggle for the oversight over the budget and the power to tax in 1879 and even against the will of the monarch in 1882. Only the British occupation of Egypt could stop the parliament from establishing itself as a liberal institution that tried to safeguard Egypt’s – and by that the delegates’ own – autonomy.