Local Ethics and Conflicts of Interest: Living Between Bottom-Up from Top-Down Peace in Provincial Egypt

Abstract

This article proposes and explores a fundamental difference between top-down and bottom-up understandings of peace and conflict. Set in the provincial Egyptian city of Beni Suef, the article first examines three major contemporary conflicts (revolutionary conflict, sectarian conflict, and economic conflict), which have most colored my interlocutors’ lives. Next, the article employs ethnographic data collected in Beni Suef between 2011 and 2018 in order to investigate how ordinary Egyptians have experienced the different conflicts in their day-to-day lives. I argue that, while the structural conflicts that most shape life in provincial Egypt are driven by overarching geopolitical, political, and economic interests, the majority of my interlocutors’ everyday lives centered on local ethics. The basic divergence between top-down interests and local ethics, I conclude, explains the inherent lack of scalability and inescapable disconnect between top-down and bottom-up approaches to peace and conflict.

Introduction

In recent years, scholars have engaged in extensive debate over top-down and bottom-up peace processes. Amidst this critical dialogue, however, the nature of the relationship between the two approaches to peace and conflict remains very much in question. The disconnect can be explained, in part, by the fact that studies of top-down or bottom-up peacebuilding typically wield different sources and methodologies which, in turn, often lead scholars to radically different perspectives and conclusions (Mac Ginty & Firchow, 2016, p. 308). Rather than striving to explicate an “ideal” relationship between the two approaches to peacebuilding, this article examines three processes of conflict, peace, and ordinary ethics in Provincial Egypt in order to instead elucidate why the two approaches are fundamentally disparate

Top-down approaches to peace (which emphasize the role of overarching political institutions in peacebuilding) have come under growing academic scrutiny in the last two decades. Scholars now criticize top-down approaches to peace for their exclusion of local actors, their tendency toward profit and corruption, their imperial character, and their outright failures in places like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Donais, 2013; Firchow, 2018; Terry, 2002). The inequities that sometimes mark top-down approaches to peace led to the so-called “local turn,” which explores ways in which local communities work for peace in their day-to-day lives. Moving away from the activities of large international organizations, these studies instead focus on local ownership of peacebuilding, developing local civil societies, and the mundane ways peace can manifest and endure in local settings (Brewer, 2010; Funk, 2012; Justino et al., 2013; Lederach, 1997; Lee, 2021; Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013; Van Iterson Scholten, 2020).

In reaction to the local turn, a number of scholars have recently formulated compelling criticisms of bottom-up peacebuilding frameworks. These works variably criticize the bottom-up approach for being more normative than analytical, for romanticizing ordinary and local actors, and for its relative neglect of the corruption and inequities that can exist at the local level (Hansen, 2013; Lefranc, 2011; Mac Ginty, 2011, pp. 2–3; McAuliffe, 2017). Meanwhile, other scholars have reasserted the altruistic, compassionate and functional nature of international peacebuilding and humanitarian action (Slim, 2015). Coursing through these critiques, is the important question of generalizability, since, in the words of Padraig McAuliffe, few bottom-up studies attempt to “concretely assess their aggregated impacts at subnational and national levels” (2017, p. 235).

In a recent dialogue on these matters between Mac Ginty and Kacowicz (2022), the two scholars appear in accord on at least one objective: the need to study the “necessary interaction between bottom-up and top-down peace processes” (Mac Ginty & Kacowicz, 2022, p. 296). Elsewhere, Mac Ginty (2010, 2011) critiques oversimplified binaries, proposing the concept of hybrid peace as a middle ground. Similarly, McAuliffe stresses the importance of establishing more connections between the two approaches, claiming that the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy is “unhelpful” (2017, p. 234). Ultimately, these assertions point to a fundamental tension which still hangs over discussions of bottom-up and top-down peacebuilding: how to connect, reconcile or understand the two approaches in tandem?

Building on these innovative perspectives, this paper considers the possibilities and limits of interaction between bottom-up and top-down peace processes. This article's basic argument is that interactions at the local level are typically driven by ordinary ethics, whereas broader politics, institutions, and conflicts are driven almost exclusively by interests. ¹ Meant as much to be an exercise in critical intellectual engagement as it is seamless social scientific theory, this article surveys conflict and peace in provincial Egypt in order to explicate why dichotomous understandings of bottom-up and top-down peacebuilding remain so inescapable. This article contends that the calculated and interested nature of most empires, states and supranational organizations (which drive most conflicts and subordinate most top-down peacebuilding efforts) is underappreciated in the peacebuilding literature. Raising key questions about the scalability of bottom-up peacebuilding initiatives (Heath, 2022), this article ultimately seeks to contribute to ongoing efforts (Amin, 1976, 1990; Bejarano et al., 2019; Reiter, 2021; Tuck & Yang, 2012) to decolonize social scientific understandings of peace and conflict in Egypt, and the Global South, generally.

The calculated and interested nature of most empires, states and supranational organizations (which drive most conflicts and subordinate most top-down peacebuilding efforts) is underappreciated in the peacebuilding literature.

This research is based on over four years of ethnographic research and INGO work in the provincial Egyptian capital of Beni Suef. It relies primarily on the research methods of participant observation and interviews, as well as secondary texts from a number of disciplines. During my ethnographic fieldwork (undertaken between 2011 and 2018), I led semi-structured interviews with key interlocutors and strangers alike at a host of different Beni Suef sites. In approaching and engaging interlocutors, I maintained an ongoing consent process, stressing to everyone that their participation was voluntary, and that they could completely rescind their involvement at any time. All names in this article are pseudonyms, and some interlocutors’ personal characteristics have been slightly altered in order to ensure anonymity.

In the first section of the article, I survey three major conflicts (revolution, sectarianism, and economic inequality) that have marked contemporary Egyptian life, and investigate top-down peacebuilding responses to each conflict. The next section of this article employs ethnography in order to illuminate how ordinary provincial Egyptians have experienced the aforementioned conflicts in their everyday lives. It documents how top-down peacebuilding efforts (such as statebuilding, securitization, democratization, and economic liberalization) have mostly failed to correspond to local needs. I conclude by engaging with the work of the late Egyptian economist Samir Amin in order to provide recommendations regarding how peacebuilders can best navigate the fundamental difference between the ethics that color everyday life in Beni Suef, and the politico-economic interests that drive the conflicts which overarch it.

Conflict and Top-Down Peacebuilding in Egypt

While Egypt has been periodically marked by armed struggle in recent decades (namely between the Egyptian Armed Forces and Islamist insurgents), the country's involvement in large scale conventional wars has been minimal since the 1973 October War (also known as the Yom Kippur War). Following Johan Galtung's understanding of positive peace (1969), however, one recognizes how Egypt remains host to an array of different conflicts today. Over the course of my years of fieldwork in Beni Suef, three conflicts emerged as particularly salient. These include: (a) the 2011 uprising and subsequent counterrevolution, (b) Muslim–Christian conflict, and (c) economic inequality and conflict. This section briefly surveys these three conflicts as well as the manner in which top-down peacebuilding efforts have sought to respond to them.

The 2011 Egyptian Uprising, Repression, and Counterrevolution

In early 2011, Egypt's longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, was overthrown by nonviolent protesters. This largely spontaneous event, seminal in contemporary world history, centered on ordinary Egyptians’ rising up in the face of decades of economic hardship, repression, and police abuse. It was no coincidence that the protests began on 25 January—National Police Day in Egypt. Months before Egyptian activists had even dreamed of a possible thawra (revolution), young activists organized a protest against police brutality (with the slogan “We Are All Khaled Said”—a reference to a young man beaten to death by security forces in June 2010—see Bayat, 2021, pp. 89–90). On 14 January, 2011, however, weeks-long protests in Tunisia finally led to the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Inspired by these events, the aims, scope, and manifestations of the Egyptian Police Day protest grew by the day, and on 11 February Mubarak was forced out amidst massive country-wide demonstrations (most iconically, in Cairo's Tahrir Square).

The years immediately subsequent to Mubarak's fall were marked by intense instability as competing factions struggled for power. A defining characteristic of the 2011 Uprising was the absence of a clear and identifiable revolutionary leader and hierarchy. The largely grassroots, horizontal nature of the protest movement meant that revolutionaries were hardly in position to take over the state (Pogodda, 2020, p. 348), and instead maintained their original emphasis on socioeconomic justice, freedom, and dignity (Bayat, 2017, 2021; Shenker, 2016). Consequently, it was the American-backed Egyptian military which guided the country through ostensible top-down peacebuilding processes of democratization and liberal statebuilding (Abul-Magd, 2017). Parliamentary and presidential elections, held between November 2011 and June 2012, were dominated by Islamist groups, resulting in the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi's rise to president (see Pargeter, 2016). Hence, at least on the surface, the 2011 Uprising bore the fruits of liberal statebuilding and democratization—both hallmarks of top-down liberal peacebuilding interventions (Pogodda, 2020, p. 348).

Any semblance of democracy, however, was short lived. In the summer of 2013, the well-connected Egyptian military seized upon popular protests to institute a coup d’état, illustrating how the politics of ordinary people are often subsumed by “savvy, connected, and resourced actors who maneuver in to steal the election, revolution or peace” (Berents & McEvoy-Levy, 2015, p. 124). The military has been in control of the country ever since. This post-revolutionary period, moreover, has been marked by an intense resurgence of repression and violence at the hands of Egypt's security forces (Kaldas, 2023b) in the name of stability, security, statebuilding, and countering terrorism.

Muslim–Christian Conflict

Needless to say, there is a long history of Islam and Christianity coexisting in the Nile Valley. At the same time, ordinary Egyptians, scholars and observers alike generally agree on the rise of inter-communal violence, exclusionary discourses, and a growing religious divide in Egyptian society since the 1970s. In the 1990s, especially, Coptic Christians became targets for Islamist militants engaged in a full-scale insurgency across Egypt—particularly in the region of Middle Egypt where Beni Suef lies (Elsässer, 2014, pp. 95–96).

Sectarian violence would again crescendo in 2011. These attacks on Christians, however, were generally connected to Egyptian state actors (such as the Alexandria Church Bombing and the Maspero Massacre—see Wahba, 2023) rather than manifesting at the communal level. As for the fateful year of Mohamed Morsi's 2012–2013 aforementioned presidency: while my Coptic interlocutors were almost uniformly critical of the Muslim Brotherhood, overt sectarian conflict under Morsi's rule was, by all accounts, minimal. Following Morsi's 2013 ouster, the Egyptian state again became resolutely focused on securitization, surveillance and policing. Untold numbers of political activists (including many Islamists) have since been detained in the name of peace and stability (Pargeter, 2016).

Because the Coptic Church's leadership formally and vocally supported the new military president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the counterrevolutionary period saw ordinary Copts become targets of an unprecedented wave of Islamist attacks. This violence peaked with three large church bombings in Cairo, Alexandria, and Tanta, and the murder of 29 Coptic pilgrims in Minya (all between December 2016 and May 2017—when I was undertaking research on the Muslim attendance of Coptic spaces in Beni Suef). In response, the Western-backed Egyptian state employed a top-down peacebuilding approach which relied on the further securitization of society, a renewed material and discursive emphasis on countering terrorism, as well as the amplification of official statements and gestures in the name of Muslim-Christian unity (see, for instance, Ahmed, 2018).

Economic Conflict and Inequality

Much like the long and varied history of Muslim-Christian relations in Egyptian history, economic disparities and inequities in Egypt have taken many different forms in recent centuries. A crucial shift in the economic lifeworlds of ordinary Egyptians, however, occurred in the nineteenth century, when Egypt was incorporated into the Western-dominated global economy. This early economic transformation coincided with the British Empire maneuvering to crush both Egypt's army and its nascent industries in 1840 (Fahmy, 1997; Marsot, 1984). From then on, Egypt—like many colonized states in the Global South—became heavily indebted to Western powers, and the British eventually occupied the country in 1882 in the name of liberal economic development, statebuilding, and fiscal responsibility (Tignor, 1966).

British politico-economic influence remained in the country until the Egyptian Free Officers’ purging of it in the early 1950s. Egypt's new postcolonial leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser, sought to finally address economic inequities by investing in education, government institutions, and the redistribution of wealth (Hinnebusch, 2015; Waterbury, 1983). Nasser's reforms, however, were marked by numerous structural flaws and inefficiencies, as well as the Western powers’ constant efforts to undermine his domestic and foreign policies (Yaqub, 2004). With the fall of the postcolonial state's nationalist and Arab Nationalist projects, Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat, instead liberalized his country's economy through a number of capitalist, neoliberal policies known as the infitāḥ (opening). At the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank's encouragement, Sadat's reforms cut government subsidies and spending, while opening Egypt's economy to Western economic interests—a dynamic which changed little under Hosni Mubarak. Many of these reforms were instituted in the name of liberal economic development and statebuilding—both hallmarks of top-down peacebuilding.

In many respects, the aforementioned 2011 uprising was driven by economic alienation and hardship, and the revolution seemingly offered ordinary Egyptians an opportunity for greater economic justice (Beinin, 2015). However, as mentioned, the current Sisi regime has pursued top-down economic policies that conform to the ones pursued by Sadat and Mubarak. And, most importantly, these policies are being undertaken under the direction of Western powers and International Financial Institutions (IFIs)—all in the name of austerity, development and economic growth (Kaldas, 2023a).

Provincial Life Amidst Conflict and Peace

The provincial Egyptian city of Beni Suef lies 120 km south of Cairo, at the northern edges of the ṣ‘aīd or Upper Egypt. Primarily an agricultural area in the past, Beni Suef's social and economic life has been increasingly colored by industry in recent decades. That said, the governorate is consistently ranked among the poorest in a country where 60% of the population lives near or under the poverty line (World Bank, 2019). Religious demographics in the city are reflective of national averages, with Christians composing about 10% of the city's 300,000 people and Muslims forming the other 90%.

Crucially, my initial 2011 arrival to Beni Suef coincided, almost exactly, with the country's entering into the throes of the 2011–2013 revolutionary period. Indeed, during my early fieldwork, the effects of the 25 January uprising were everywhere in the city; from the charred remnants of the recently-ousted National Democratic Party's local headquarters to the near-complete absence of security forces in Beni Suef's streets. In those early revolutionary days, many of my younger interlocutors expressed great relief and satisfaction at the apparent retreat of the state's henchmen: the police. I heard story after story about police corruption, arbitrary detention, torture, and the pervading sense of suspicion state security forces engendered in the population (on this suspicion, see al-Rigal, 2020). On the other hand, concerns about fawḍa (chaos) and the lack of ‘amn (security) became frequent discourses on the state and corporate news channels. And my older interlocutors, especially, detailed their desire for a return of the law, order, and general stability provided by the security state. In the police's absence, however, social and economic relationships largely continued in a normal fashion in local neighborhoods, markets, and workplaces. Indeed, many of my interlocutors across a wide range of Beni Suef sites told me they felt as safe and secure as ever during this unique revolutionary window.

The relative calm and quiet in Beni Suef, amidst the ostensible revolutionary fawḍa, also made it an important vantage point from which to judge the top-down process of democratization in the country. ² Between 2011 and 2013, election days in Beni Suef were marked by massive lines of people waiting to vote. My elderly interlocutors, many of whom were voting for the first time in their entire lives, proudly displayed the election ink on their fingers to me. In terms of partisanship: people often claimed that, for better or worse, Beni Suef was balad ikhwānī (Brotherhood country)—a view corroborated by the governorate providing the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi with one of his highest rates of support in the 2012 presidential election. The parliamentary and presidential elections, however, were also highly contentious and divisive events, and the Muslim Brotherhood's detractors, among my interlocutors, increasingly asserted that democracy was not suitable for a country like Egypt. These latter voices were satisfied by the 2013 coup d’état which reinstated military dictatorship in Egypt.

Throughout all these processes of revolution and democratization, my interlocutors expressed skepticism and cynicism about Egyptian political elites’ ability to treat inequities in the country. For example, in June 2011, I interviewed a 65-year-old rural Egyptian man named Bishoy about his experience of the ongoing revolutionary period. Sitting in a dusty school courtyard after an evening adult language class, the man rolled his eyes at any talk of revolutionary change.

“The revolution was ghalṭa kibīra (a big mistake). A big mistake.”

“Why do you say that,” I asked, as the call to prayer suddenly rang out into the night.

“Because,” he replied with a grin, “Hosni Mubarak had many years to accumulate his wealth. The next leader will have to steal much, much more in order to catch up.”

The rural man's prescient words, which I regularly heard from interlocutors in one form or another, illuminate how little faith ordinary Egyptians had in the individuals and institutions, which composed the country's upper echelons of power. For most of my interlocutors, the fact that Egypt's leaders were compromised or corrupted in some way almost went without saying. Moreover, most Egyptians I spoke to were not partisan, and expressed little hope that any particular governmental movement or figure would be coming to save them. ³ Indeed, the majority of my interlocutors viewed national and global politics as pure charade—a veneer for national and global elites’ dogged pursuit of profit and power. These views were seemingly confirmed by the aforementioned 2013 military coup, as well as the Western-backed government's policies ever since. The bottom line is that top-down political change, democratization and liberal statebuilding bore few fruits for my provincial interlocutors. Worse still, the reinstitution of a heavy-handed security state ushered in a wave of political and sectarian violence, convincing many of my interlocutors that political change at the top had resulted in many more steps backwards than forwards.

Suspicion of state elite's interests and intentions was even more glaring when I spoke to Beni Suef residents about the supposed conflict between Muslims and Christians in the country. It was not that my interlocutors narrated a perfect coexistence between religious groups in the country: my Coptic interlocutors frequently complained to me about the discrimination Christians faced (and, as it happened, it was during my 2017 fieldwork at Beni Suef Coptic sites that sectarian violence reached a level unprecedented in Egyptian history). Mainstream media—Egyptian and Western alike—narrated this violence as part of an ongoing “war on terror” between legitimate state actors and illegitimate nonstate ones. In effort to resolve the conflict, the state ramped up its securitization of Coptic sites in the form of road closures, checkpoints and routine searches. While many of my Coptic interlocutors regarded these changes as a temporary necessity, they also regretted both the material and intangible sense of separation and suspicion the securitization brought.

Amidst this wave of ostensibly sectarian conflict, however, Beni Suef Muslims and Christians continued to move about their daily lives as usual: going to work and places of worship, spending time with friends and neighbors, or engaging in the involvements that composed their daily lives, such as parenting, playing football, cooking or walking along the city's long Nile-side corniche. Christians visited Muslim-owned shops and restaurants and vice versa. Even more remarkable was the sustained Muslim attendance of church events and programs, such as church-run hospitals, services, and language programs. Interactions at these sites were typically marked by an ordinary ethical spirit of trust, friendship and respect which manifested and was propelled through immediate, face-to-face interactions rather than state securitization. ⁴ Far from seeing each other as distant pawns on a chessboard (as, I will argue, most policymakers do), there was a recognition of shared humanity and a resultant ethical desire for mutual care.

Far from seeing each other as distant pawns on a chessboard (as, I will argue, most policymakers do), there was a recognition of shared humanity and a resultant ethical desire for mutual care.

Rather than worrying about terrorism or sectarianism, the majority of my interlocutors’ most pressing day-to-day concerns centered on inflation, the high cost of living, the dearth of viable employment opportunities, and inequality (echoing Mac Ginty & Firchow, 2016). During my 2015–2018 fieldwork, Beni Suef residents’ main issue was economic. In November 2016, the Egyptian government had floated the country's currency and imposed wide-ranging austerity measures—a move which came in response to sustained pressure from Western-linked IFIs. By the spring of 2017, Egyptians had seen the value of their savings plummet and their wages stagnate, all while the prices of consumer goods skyrocketed. Many of my middle-class interlocutors were forced to work two or three jobs at a time to support themselves and their families. Even these earnings, however, were increasingly insufficient to afford the cost of marriage, child rearing, home appliances or decent schooling and health care. In effect, the IMF-mandated reforms had made both the state and ordinary Egyptians much, much poorer (Kaldas, 2023a).

In the summer of 2017, I interviewed a Muslim woman named Asmaa about different conflicts in the country. Asmaa detailed how, although most Egyptians blamed their government for the current state of affairs, they did not feel safe engaging politically at the national level. “We have to be very careful what we say whenever other people are around,” Asmaa, who worked as a pharmacist, explained in a low voice, “this repression is connected to the economic situation. I think the government spends more on weapons and prisons than they do on government employees. They are not here to help us. And the IMF and America do not want to help us either, and they are the ones who really control our government. It is all about filūs (money)… filūs wa sayṭara (money and domination).”

Asmaa's words point to the tensions and inequities inherent to a global economy which first emerged, as discussed, in a context of Western imperialism. And as peripheral as Beni Suef was to global flows of power, it was inextricably linked to transnational economic ones. For instance, in recent years the city had become the site of a number of new factories for large multinational corporations such as Samsung and Siemens, as well as numerous smaller domestic and foreign-owned factories. Many educated young adults I knew, especially engineers, excitedly submitted their applications when Samsung hiring opened, and some were successful in the highly competitive process. However, in time, this enthusiasm waned as the realities of work materialized.

“There is a reason these companies come to Egypt in the first place,” Kyrollis, a Samsung engineer and officer conscript in Egypt's armed forces, explained during a church-run adult English language class in the summer of 2018. “The first thing Samsung, Siemens, or any other foreign company does when it builds a factory here is it hires Egyptian managers. As a result, it is just like working for an Egyptian company. The foreign companies then earn their profit and take it out of the country.”

While most students in the class nodded in agreement as Kyrollis spoke, a young university student named Mahmoud raised his hand in disagreement. “Samsung and Siemens workers have it very easy,” Mahmoud declared, before switching from English to Arabic, “many Egyptian men have to leave their families and homes for 11 months of the year, and even with what they send back, their families are still ‘ashīn yawm-bi-yawm (living from day to day).” What Mahmoud was referring to are the millions of Egyptian migrant workers who work long hours for low pay in countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Libya in order to send remittances to their families. Mahmoud's comments seemed to give Kyrollis brief pause, before the latter responded in Arabic “ṣāḥ (that's true).”

On the point of displacement, however, Kyrollis could at least somewhat relate. As it happened, he would be temporarily leaving his job at Samsung in order to serve as an officer in a North Sinai military operation in October. Having known me since 2011, Kyrollis was comfortable confiding that he had no faith in the legitimacy or utility of that supposedly “licit” military state project. However, Kyrollis was at the complete mercy of his country's ruling elites and would be pulled away from his family, neighborhood and local life to fight in a relatively distant conflict. Kyrollis assured me, moreover, that the Sinai operations were more in the interests of Israel than Egypt, and that the Sinai conflict was merely an extension of Western efforts to divide and destabilize Egypt and the Levant, while further isolating the Palestinians in Gaza. All this calls to mind Mac Ginty's discussion of the “geo-strategic” conditions that often drive conflict (2011, p. 7).

Of course, Kyrollis could not know exactly what backroom deals motivated Egyptian state policy in Sinai or elsewhere. What is clear is that the national and international politics that sent him to Sinai were a world away from the ordinary life he, Bishoy, Asmaa, and most others lived out in their local setting of Beni Suef. At the end of the day, local life for them centered on the immediacy of horizontal, ethical, face-to-face relationships between family members, friends, co-workers, shopkeepers, and neighbors. As for the three primary conflicts examined in this article; my interlocutors perspectives reveal how top-down securitization, liberal statebuilding, democratization, and economic liberalization resulted in Egyptians climbing out of a naqara (hole) only to have fallen down a daḥdīra (slope). ⁵ My interlocutors’ great skepticism about the willingness and ability of state and international actors to treat political, religious and economic conflict in the country, in turn, raises significant questions about the relationship between different scales of peace and conflict in the world today.

Discussion: Local Ethics and Conflicts of Interest

In the scholarly debate over top-down and bottom-up approaches to peacebuilding, there remains a tendency among proponents of the former to presume benevolent aims on the part of powerful institutions, such as the state and international organizations. For instance, in The Unintended Consequences of Peace: Peaceful Borders and Illicit Transnational Flows (2021), Arie Marcelo Kacowicz et al. make a basic distinction between the ostensibly “legitimate” projects of the state and the “illegitimate” schemes of nonstate actors. The authors repeatedly decry the illicit trafficking of goods, while downplaying, as Mac Ginty notes, the fact that licit arms dealers are responsible for the vast majority of the global arms trade (Mac Ginty & Kacowicz, 2022, p. 293). Kacowicz et al. also portray the state as primarily interested in law and security, writing: “in the post-9/11 world, transnational terrorism is considered one of the daunting global security challenges of our century” (2021, p. 21).

The problem with any framing which reifies state narratives around security, terrorism and liberal statebuilding (which, as mentioned, is very much the case in Egypt) and distinguishes between “legitimate” powerful actors and “illegitimate” peripheral ones, is that it completely obfuscates the oftentimes pragmatically interested and calculated nature of “legitimate” top-down politics. The contemporary historical record in Egypt, as well as the ethnographic perspectives offered in the previous section, demonstrates that “legitimate” elites have constantly acted in ways that undermine ordinary people's prospects for peace, prosperity and security. For instance, there is ample evidence to support the view of my provincial interlocutors that the contemporary Egyptian state has engaged in violent political repression, incited sectarian conflict, and adopted economic policies to the detriment of the wider populace—all while under the influence of neocolonial Western and regional powers (see Abul-Magd, 2017; Pogodda, 2020, p. 352). ⁶

At the same time, the cynical, interested nature of “legitimate” top-down politics provides one explanation as to why top-down peacebuilding is so difficult, and lends credence to McAuliffe's conclusion (2017) that the transformation of relationships does not equate to the transformation of structures. Because the upper echelons of national and international power center, almost completely, on elite political and economic interests, grassroots movements looking to make change at the macro level are almost always corrupted, co-opted, or, most frequently, crushed. The rise and fall of the Arab Spring, where a popular bottom-up movement was first contained and then destroyed, is proof enough of this trend (see Fraihat & Yaseen, 2020; Pogodda, 2020). In her illuminating 2020 article, Sandra Pogodda elucidates how “statebuilding with its neglect of the state's redistributive function appears as a distinctly counterrevolutionary type of intervention” (p. 351)—a helpful framing that strongly corroborates my interlocutors’ skeptical views of political and economic conflict in Egypt. The situation also calls to mind Laura Ring's concept of “playing with peace” (Ring, 2006; Ware et al., 2022)—where legitimate elites manipulate various conflicts in order to further their own interests (Roll, 2013). ⁷ The bottom line is that history shows, time and time again, how “legitimate” national and international politics are driven by elite interests.

The bottom line is that history shows, time and time again, how “legitimate” national and international politics are driven by elite interests.

My interlocutors also routinely insisted on the influence of international actors in ongoing political, economic and sectarian conflicts in their country, and modern world history shows how top-down peacebuilding and humanitarian efforts have frequently been tied to global processes such as colonialism and capitalism. Western empire, from its earliest inception, has marketed itself as a force of social, cultural and economic uplift (see Abu-Lughod, 2002; Lester, 2002; Spivak, 1988). Today, the tendency of top-down peacebuilding efforts to conform to geopolitical interests arguably remains as strong as ever (Feldman, 2015; Madokoro, 2012; Peterson, 2012; Slim, 2015), and the preeminent “legitimate” states of the world are clearly the cause of most current major armed conflicts. ⁸ The exploitative economies that emerge from ostensibly altruistic interventions (termed by some scholars as “Aidland” [Slim, 2015, p. 11]), raise questions about the political effects of top-down peacebuilding and humanitarian interventions. And even if a top-down humanitarian intervention was motivated by altruism, existing research demonstrates how seemingly well-intentioned humanitarian and peacebuilding interventions can lead to very negative unintended consequences (Bradel, 2004; Fassin & d’Halluin, 2005; Terry, 2002). Indeed, my discussion of turbulent processes of revolution, liberalization and democratization in Egypt—where ordinary people's ethical and altruistic desire for political, social and economic justice simply did not translate up the scales of power—is a clear case study of this reality.

The fundamental disconnect between different causes, experiences, and responses to conflict in Egypt ultimately raises basic questions about scalability. In a recent text on cooperation, the Canadian philosopher, Joseph Heath, details how the embedded morals, ethics and practices found in small-scale communities cannot be reproduced on a greater scale, such as further up hierarchies of power (2022, pp. 13–33). Heath argues that, because “non-cooperation is the default mode of social interaction” (2022, p. 5), cooperation is inherently “a fragile accomplishment” (2022, p. 7). In one small regard, my framework diverges from the first part of Heath's premise, in that I have shown how cooperation across religious, political and socioeconomic lines is very much the norm in provincial Egyptian society. ⁹ Aside from this qualification, however, my argument corroborates Heath's views completely. My transdisciplinary analysis has shown how, following Heath, “one cannot posit normative ideals that are independent of the particular scale at which they are to be realized” (2022, p. 8). ¹⁰

In the end, the case study of peace and conflict in Beni Suef expounds how local processes of coexistence and cooperation are inextricably linked to wider national, international, and neocolonial contexts of political and economic conflict, constraint and hardship. At the same time, I have demonstrated how this local ethical life is clearly and inherently distinct from those same national, international and imperial flows of power.

Conclusion: Escaping Global Interests

While most scholars in peace and conflict studies, history and anthropology stress the need to downplay neat dichotomies between the local and the global, this paper's aim has been to clarify and crystallize the division. In broadly portraying the local as ethical and the national/global as interested, I am not advocating for one peacebuilding approach over the other, or that, for instance, bottom-up peacebuilding processes can replace truth commissions and reparations programs. If anything, the heterogeneity of conflict means that the two approaches are incommensurable, and need not be the subject of mutually exclusive choice (Lambek, 2015).

My conclusion's key implication for governmental and international nongovernmental organizations is that they operate with an awareness of the basic difference between (a) the ordinary ethics that usually guide people's lives in local settings, and (b) the politico-economic interests that typically drive national and international politics and conflicts. With this distinction in mind, INGOs might not judge sites of conflict as “accidents,” “disasters,” or centering on technical or logistical shortcomings (Ferguson, 1994; Malkki, 1996). Instead, INGOs should historicize and analyze the upper echelon politics of a given conflict in order to make their top-down peacebuilding efforts most effective. In Egypt, that would mean advocating in the media and lobbying neocolonial Western governments (and supranational institutions) about their substantial ties to each conflict. While directing government policy is easier said than done, the interested nature of national and global politics necessitates recognizing the true power brokers of a given conflict, and the fortitude to pressure those power brokers for peace. Such recognition will help continue essential projects of decolonization (Bejarano et al., 2019; Kvangraven & Kesar, 2022; Reiter, 2021).

INGOs should historicize and analyze the upper echelon politics of a given conflict in order to make their top-down peacebuilding efforts most effective.

On the other hand, how might Western INGOs help support bottom-up peace processes? Ultimately, because structures of power (such as empire, the global economy, and neoliberalism) tend to upend local life and cause conflict in a myriad of ways, the local might best find peace by escaping from corrupt or exploitative national and international networks. Echoing the late Egyptian economist, Samir Amin's, concept of delinking (1990), such a separation is a potential way for local communities to break free from the exploitation and inequities of a global economic system that has been created and perpetuated according to the interests of global (mostly Western) political and economic elites. ¹¹ Bottom-up peace would therefore center on maintaining the integrity and agency of local life—be it through the cultivation of local production and consumption patterns, political non-alignment, or even the rejection of toxic chemical farming practices. The main role Western INGOs can play in this regard is material and financial support. The utility of imported ethical, ideological, and even logistical guidance and instruction is less clear.

These recommendations, consequently, corroborate Padraig McAuliffe's claim that most bottom-up peace processes “occur organically… regardless of either international/state support or opposition” (2017, p. 258). Indeed, ordinary people in their respective local milieus (such as the students, neighbors and family members discussed in this article) are by far best positioned to work for peace precisely because they understand their communities, are invested in them, and, accordingly, often live their lives along local ethical lines. My argument, in turn, supports the view that the wider influence of bottom-up peacebuilding (horizontal or vertical) tends to be limited at best. Because of the corrupting influence of provincial, national and global networks of power, the impact of local ethical life will often remain in the local—lest it be transformed into something completely different (Heath, 2022).

Far from a defeatist view, my framework elucidates the way ordinary people exercise resilience, integrity and control amidst the inevitable blur of different hardships and conflicts in their lives. Putting local ethics, local concerns and local narratives at the center (Mac Ginty & Firchow, 2016), rather than the interests of “the nation” or “the international community,” in turn, is precisely the limited (but very meaningful) generalizability bottom-up peacebuilders should strive for. Top-down peacebuilders, meanwhile, must work to best recognize where the true power and interests in each particular conflict lie.