| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article I argue that the Egyptian state emerged as a welfare provider in the mid-20th century, first by depending on the services of charitable societies to feed, educate, and provide medical assistance to the poor, and later by imitating and harnessing the activities of charitable societies. Drawing on correspondence between the state and service societies from the 1880s to 1945, when King Faruq (r. 1936-52) granted the Egyptian Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) the authority to define and to circumscribe the activities of social welfare organizations, the article illustrates the interactions of and the similarities between private and state-sponsored charity. The article further suggests that the establishment of MOSA helped to consolidate the hegemony of the Egyptian state over society and, at the same time, exemplified a dialectical process of state formation engaged in by Egyptian heads of state, service organizations, and the Egyptians whose needs they served.
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