Kings, Pharaohs, and neoliberalism: passive revolution and resistance in Egypt and Morocco

Our paper investigates the dialectic of the historical impact of neoliberal reform and the development of workers’ and other protest movements in Morocco and Egypt. We conceptualize neoliberalism as a political project based on particular class strategies and characterized by “accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey, 2003). "Accumulation by dispossession" is conceived of as the main strategy within neo-liberal class-projects that emerged from the 1970s onward and which focused on increasing the rate of profit through a process of expropriation of public assets (e.g. through privatizations) and small-scale economic activities (e.g. through a concentration of land holdings). These accumulation strategies constituted new class alliances and a transformation of state policies towards labor. Of course, the introduction of neoliberal reforms are not subject to a unitary set of principles. Neoliberalism is not just this “one size fits all” model. This would be to neglect the crucial implication of local political agency and the constitution of differentiated forms of “actually existing neoliberalism” in different parts of the world (Brenner & Theodore, 2002). Over the past four decades, political and economic transformations took on different shapes in Morocco and Egypt, and, in turn, interpellated divergent projects of resistance from workers in the formal and informal sectors. This paper (1) integrates the particular history of neoliberal reform in Morocco and Egypt within a broader worldwide historical shift from a Fordist or developmentalist towards neo-liberal class-projects; (2) explains the different trajectories of both countries in adopting the new accumulation strategies; (3) relates these universal and particular elements of "neoliberalism" in Morocco and Egypt to the specific development of workers' struggles and protest movements. Although we focus on a broad comparative narrative, archetypical case-studies are highlighted to illustrate the argument.Our paper investigates the dialectic of the historical impact of neoliberal reform and the development of workers’ and other protest movements in Morocco and Egypt. We conceptualize neoliberalism as a political project based on particular class strategies and characterized by “accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey, 2003). "Accumulation by dispossession" is conceived of as the main strategy within neo-liberal class-projects that emerged from the 1970s onward and which focused on increasing the rate of profit through a process of expropriation of public assets (e.g. through privatizations) and small-scale economic activities (e.g. through a concentration of land holdings). These accumulation strategies constituted new class alliances and a transformation of state policies towards labor. Of course, the introduction of neoliberal reforms are not subject to a unitary set of principles. Neoliberalism is not just this “one size fits all” model. This would be to neglect the crucial implication of local political agency and the constitution of differentiated forms of “actually existing neoliberalism” in different parts of the world (Brenner & Theodore, 2002). Over the past four decades, political and economic transformations took on different shapes in Morocco and Egypt, and, in turn, interpellated divergent projects of resistance from workers in the formal and informal sectors. This paper (1) integrates the particular history of neoliberal reform in Morocco and Egypt within a broader worldwide historical shift from a Fordist or developmentalist towards neo-liberal class-projects; (2) explains the different trajectories of both countries in adopting the new accumulation strategies; (3) relates these universal and particular elements of "neoliberalism" in Morocco and Egypt to the specific development of workers' struggles and protest movements. Although we focus on a broad comparative narrative, archetypical case-studies are highlighted to illustrate the argument.C