Egypt's President Husni Mubarak is one of the Arab world's longest-serving rulers. What direction will Egyptian politics take once he is gone? Rather than speculating about likely successors or analyzing the dynamics of personal rule, Bruce K. Rutherford develops a historical institutionalist approach to the complexities of Egyptian politics. Stressing the importance of both institutions and ideas, Egypt after Mubarak argues that the authoritarian statist order is weak and in decline, but we should not expect state collapse, a radical Islamist takeover, or a rapid transition to democratic rule. Rather, Egypt has become a “hybrid regime” where democratic institutions and ideas coexist with well-entrenched authoritarian ones.

As a guide to future developments, Rutherford delineates what he sees as the major alternative conceptions of political order that compete for prominence. The text's two central chapters outline what he refers to as “liberal constitutionalism,” promoted by Egypt's lawyers and judges, and “Islamic constitutionalism,” articulated by the “new Islamist” trend of moderate Islamic scholars and supported by the younger generation of Muslim Brotherhood activists. In short, he argues that the agendas of all major competing trends—including the “new thinking” within the ruling National Democratic Party (NPD) and the increasingly autonomous private sector—have converged around “a core set of reforms that embody the key features of classical liberalism, including constraints on state power, strengthening the rule of law, and protecting some basic rights” (p. 2). Thus, he concludes, “Egypt's political future may include a steady deepening of liberalism and, possibly, democracy” (p. 2).

The strongest and most valuable feature of the book is its effort to integrate statist and societal approaches in order to present a synthetic analysis of Egyptian politics and political development. Rutherford should also be applauded for smoothly incorporating insights and drawing on literatures ranging across legal theory, political economy, Islamic law, and political theory, as well as the politics of state building and democratization. Moreover, with its portrayal of liberal constitutionalism and Islamic constitutionalism, the book provides well-researched, up-to-date overviews of these two critical forces in Egyptian politics.

These accounts draw on existing academic literature and a rich array of Arabic-language primary sources generally unfamiliar to scholars outside of Middle East studies. In particular, the author provides an excellent corrective to those who view Shari'a, or Islamic law, as a rigid, backward code. Instead, he suggests that Shari'a is better thought of as similar to notions of natural law in Western traditions, and outlines how a new wave of (mostly lay) scholars and thinkers have promoted a reformist and pragmatic style of jurisprudence that is guided by the goal of promoting a fair and just society. He explains that most advocates for Shari'a in Egypt are not interested in ridding Egypt of laws developed through Western- and secular-oriented institutions and forms of authority, but, rather, seek to transform the processes of law making and jurisprudence so that they are informed by advice from religious scholars and promote Islamic notions of justice and the public interest. That said, the synthesis offered by Rutherford of the diverse Islamist perspectives is at times smoother than is warranted, such as when he quotes the arguments of the highly independent new Islamist scholars to delineate trends and tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood

While the author is careful to accurately qualify and hedge his claims, the book's central conclusion about the steady deepening of liberalism seems a bit forced, often relying on less than robust associations and claims, and it is not clear if and how preferences for limits to state power will become institutionalized. That all major political forces—including reformists inside the regime—advocate constraints on arbitrary state power and a strengthening of the rule of law seems hardly striking. The key question regards the different rationales underlying this pressure to limit state power. Here, Rutherford seems to conflate support for market liberalism with trends toward political liberalism, thereby missing what might be the most critical trends defining the configuration of political power in Egypt. For example, in viewing both the emergence of Gamal Mubarak (the president's son, often viewed as a possible successor, and a leading advocate for market reform within the NDP) and the trend of giving wealthy businessmen cabinet positions as indictors of progress toward liberalism, Rutherford avoids considering how regime-tied political and economic elites may be reorganizing the bases of their domination. Oddly, the political influence of the military and security services is also barely addressed, although he acknowledges that recent moves by the regime suggest the possibility of a turn toward harsher authoritarianism.

By organizing the argument around the claim of convergence, Rutherford fails to highlight and build from some of the book's most interesting and insightful observations. He instructively specifies how each competing conception of political order differs from classical liberalism. These deviations are far more interesting and telling for future political trends and conflicts than an oversimplified focus on convergence. Rival political trends in Egypt, to various degrees, show an endorsement of the notion of the state as a moral actor that should serve the collective interest of the nation. Most also show qualms about unguided democracy and unrestricted popular political participation, though the Muslim Brotherhood is the strongest backer of inclusive politics and social mobilization and, along with the labor movement, generally a critic of market liberalism. Rutherford might have provided a richer framework for understanding Egyptian politics by discarding the yardstick of classical liberalism (with its very weak local roots), and perhaps instead framing the discussion around civic republicanism or communitarianism, discourses with greater resonance in Egypt. He might also have engaged Leonard Binder's reading of “Islamic liberalism” or addressed notions of Islamic political theory that privilege the role of the ulema—the community of Islamic scholars—in bestowing legitimacy to just rulers and guarding against tyranny.

Yet these criticisms should not deter readers from appreciating Egypt after Mubarak's sophisticated and theoretically rich mapping of Egyptian politics, for pitfalls are endemic to any such ambitious project. Perhaps the most disappointing feature is that while its title speaks about political change “in the Arab world,” the book itself fails to draw comparisons or contrasts with other Arab states, and its implications for other Arab states thus remains unclear. That said, it clearly offers both an insightful account of Egyptian politics and a potentially fruitful framework for future comparative research on political change in the Arab world.