Purging to Transform the Post-Colonial State: Evidence From the 1952 Egyptian Revolution

Abstract

The post-WWII era saw junior military officers launch revolutionary coups in a number of post-colonial states. How did these events transform colonial-era state elites? We theorize that the inexperienced leaders of revolutionary coups had to choose between purging threats and delivering ambitious projects of state-led transformation, leading to a threat-competence calculation that patterned elite turnover. To illustrate our argument, we trace the careers of 674 high-ranking officials in Egypt following the Free Officers’ seizure of power in July 1952. A multilevel survival analysis shows that officials connected to Egypt’s deposed monarch and very senior officials were most vulnerable to being purged. Experienced bureaucrats and those with university education were more likely to be retained. This threat-competence calculation also informed which ministries experienced more purging. Qualitative triangulation with biographies, memoirs, newspaper reports, and speeches corroborates the mechanism. The findings show why radical state-led change often requires a degree of elite-level continuity.