Power competition in Nasser´s Egypt

Abstract

El presente artículo tiene un doble objetivo: primero, presentar brevemente los principales aspectos teóricos de la “Sociología del poder”; segundo, exponer los resultados obtenidos por la aplicación de este marco teórico al análisis de Egipto durante los años 1952-1970. En la primera parte se presentan los conceptos principales del marco teórico: actores, elites, relaciones circulares, acumulación diferencial del poder, y recursos. Se argumenta también la utilidad de la “Sociología del poder en el estudio de las relaciones entre actores que sobrepasan las fronteras nacionales, y por tanto para la disciplina de las Relaciones Internacionales. La segunda parte está dedicada al caso egipcio, en el periodo del mandato de Nasser. A este propósito se revisan las políticas adoptadas bajo el prisma de la “Sociología del poder

The present paper has a double aim. First, to present briefly part of the basic theoretical aspects of ‘sociology of power’ approach and, second, to expose the results obtained by its application on the case of Egypt during the years 1952-1970. This paper is based on a previous research, published under the title “Nasser’s National Interest. A ‘Sociology of Power’ Analysis”. For the purposes of this paper, we develop a part of the theoretical framework of the previous work, we skip its application on the case of Egypt and we present directly in the second part the conclusions we have obtained from the theory’s application in the case study of Egypt during the former research. The first part, the theoretical one, is analysing four main concepts of our approach: actors, elites, circular relations and differential accumulation of power and resources of power. A short reference follows to the pushing need for the international relations’ discipline to study the relations between actors, crossing the national boarders, in accordance to the theoretical framework previously exposed. After the theoretical part, the second part focuses on the empirical case, with the purpose to present the conclusions from the application of the theoretical framework on Nasser’s Egypt