Abstract
The study reported in the article below tried to examine partisans’ and civil elites’ role in military interventions and coups. The 2013 Egyptian coup d'état that took place on 3 July 2013 was used as a model of analysis. Concisely, this study sought to identify the defining characteristics of the partisans and civil elites who supported that military coup in Egypt, including their social origins, their level of education, their views of democracy and constitutional legitimacy as well as the nature of their allegied tie-up with the armed forces. In order to do just this, the study used Samuel Huntington's hypothesis as a theoretical framework of analysis. Accordingly, elites’ support for military coups underlies weakness (and therefore ineffectiveness) of the country’s civil institutions as well as absence of institutional political channels that regulate competition and conflict between parties with differing interests and resources. An immediate outcome of such a state of affairs was that partisans and civil elites had demonstrated their superiority over the army as they possessed the means of power that enabled them to impose their control. The findings of the study showed that those partisans and civil elites, formed by mechanisms based on mutual interests and wealth, are only theoretically oriented in the sense that they only accept the principles of democracy and constitutional legitimacy in the event that they lead to their arrival to power. However, if that legitimacy comes from other political currents, (e.g. The Muslim Brotherhood), they soon turn against it.
Highlights
The increasingly widespread political interference of military personnel in Third-World societies has stimulated the interest of researchers in social and political sciences as well as scholars in various fields of knowledge
2) To know the characteristics and features of the civil and partisan elites that supported the military coup in Egypt who extracted political power from civilians
2) Positions approach: The ruling political elites can be identified through the Functional Mean, where the elite is determined by occupying strategic positions in the political decision-making process and by enjoying great influence in the state and society
Summary
The increasingly widespread political interference of military personnel in Third-World societies has stimulated the interest of researchers in social and political sciences as well as scholars in various fields of knowledge (such as language, anthropology, education, media, to mention but a few). By dedicating chapters in their publications about the subject matters, researchers try to study, analyze, and interpret this phenomenon from their own scholarly theoretical perspectives The interpretations of these interventions have ranged from one extreme (namely, acceptance of certain economic and political goals) to the other extreme (namely, refusal of the spread of this political interference with other economic and political interests). The interpretations were generally influenced by two competing doctrines: militarism or “military rule” on the one hand and anti-militarism on the other Whereas the former view advocates military coups as a driving force for political stability by preventing the disintegration of the political system, the latter maximizes the values of democracy and peaceful transfer of power (Mutter 1977). Be that as it may, we reckon that support of ‘political stability’ and ‘economic development’ as used by both parties is no more than a thought-terminating cliché that would distract attention away from the underling lines of thought that each party tries to advocate
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