The role of bureaucratic politics in Egypt’s Africa policies under Mubarak. Part two

Conclusion

The paper analyzed the Nile Waters issue under President Mubarak given the geographic fact that the Nile River the main water source for Egypt and that waters originate entirely from outside the Egyptian territory. The question raised is: what was the role of national institutions with regard to Nile Waters issue decisions? It appears that, unlike other foreign policy issues in Egypt, national policy towards the Nile Waters issue was the outcome of a comprehensive discourse among multiple national institutions, and that there was a consensus among these institutions about the general direction of Egyptian policy. The policy outlines emphasized that the Nile Waters issue was directly related to Egypt's national security and that the country was already suffering from a water scarcity situation. The situation would require immediate action to increase water resources, and to ensure there is no shortage in the current water share of 55 BCM. However, the decision-making process has another story to tell, for it was concentrated mainly in the hands of the president. This answers the above-mentioned question. Among various national institutions, such as the Ministry of Irrigation, the foreign ministry and the intelligence service, it is evident that President Mubarak's decisions regarding the Nile Waters issue depended largely on the vision adopted by the Ministry of Irrigation, particularly during the last decade of his presidency, which coincided with the Nile Basin Initiative talks. The development of each institution supports this analysis: the most important of these factors was Mubarak's tendency to diminish the role of the foreign ministry after the appointment of Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, on the one hand, and some personality factors which led him to confide in the Minister of Irrigation, Mahmud Abu Zaid, who became his key advisor on Egypt's water policy, on the other.

In this context, throughout the different phases of the Cooperative Framework Agreement negotiations under the Nile Basin Initiative (from 2003 to 2010) the paper examined the role national institutions played regarding foreign policy-making during the given period. The analysis examined a number of elements regarding the foreign policy decisionmaking process in Egypt, and the degree to which the president was responsible for the final policy outcomes. It also highlighted the fact that Egypt's foreign policy diplomatic instrument suffer from clear deficiencies that did not enable the Egyptian state to achieve the water policy objectives, no matter how rational the foreign policy decisions were. Accordingly, the concluding section will attempt to abstract from this specific issue (Egyptian policy towards the Nile Waters issue) a number of general remarks relating to Egypt's African foreign policy-making under President Mubarak and the role of the bureaucracy:

First, the one-to-one approach adopted by President Mubarak in decision-making (considering each minister his principal advisor while neutralizing the role of other national institutions) gave the opportunity to some senior officials to play more influential roles than others relating to certain foreign policy issues that should not have been subject to institutional monopoly because of the multi-dimensional nature of these issues. In the Nile Waters issue, this explains some minsters' refrainment (including that of the foreign minister and perhaps the chief of intelligence) to provide the president with opinions differing from those of Minister Abu Zeid (Mubarak's advisor on the Nile Waters issue), as they knew that Mubarak was convinced of Abu Zeid's view.

Second, the president's weak health, which even affected his ability to make rational assessments during the last five years of his rule, left the door open to the inner circle (the President's men) to separate him from other political advisors. In the absence of the decision-maker, institutions stepped forward to fill this gap. The result was the emergence of institutional rivalry, as each institution attempted to impose its own vision and to monopolize micro-level decisions.

Third, in terms of the high political cost of military usage and the lack of economic capability, traditional diplomacy was the most widely used instrument of Egypt's Africa policies. However, despite the extensive existence of the Egyptian embassies in Africa, due to various deficiencies, this instrument was unable to realize the ultimate target of achieving Egypt's foreign policy objectives. In the Nile Waters case, the instrument utilized was not sufficient to reinforce the positions of the `negotiating team' against the tough positions of the upstream countries during the CFA talks.

In summary, Egypt's policy towards the Nile Waters issue is symptomatic of Egypt's Africa policies deficiencies. In light of prominent scholar Gamal Hamdan's belief that foreign policy is a demonstration of the internal situation of the state, this paper has dealt with key domestic element responsible for Egypt's foreign policy towards Africa and the Nile Waters issue, the role of the bureaucracy in the decision-making process. It concludes that the performance of the Egyptian institutions dealing with the Nile Waters issue left a lot to be desired. Such assessment includes the principal decision-maker (President Mubarak) and the bureaucracies. On a more general level, the question can be raised: how did Africa rate among Egypt's national interests? The discussions indicate that Africa was at the bottom of the pile of Egypt's foreign policy agenda under Mubarak and that the Egyptian bureaucracy can be held responsible for the setbacks of the policy.

Accordingly, further analysis on the change in the decision-making process of Egypt's Africa policies, post-Mubarak era, has to be conducted. Undoubtedly Egypt's Africa relations witness an unmistaken improvement since President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi held power in 2014. This is attributed to the extended use of presidential diplomacy, the tool that has been absent in Egypt's Africa policies since 1995 until the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak. Sisi started his duties in June 2014 with Egypt's resuming its participation in the African Union's activities which was suspended after the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. President Sisi's active engagement in Africa resulted into similar behaviour from the Egyptian bureaucracy which suddenly became interested to conduct various activities in the continent. Such behaviour confirms the analysis that in the states characterized by central regimes, the political leader monopolizes the decision-making process to the extent that other state actors remain subordinate to him. In Egypt, there will always be a correlation between active Africa policies and the degree of which the president is interested in these policies. To illustrate, there is a positive relation between Egypt's active engagement in Africa and the President's foreign policy inclination. The more the Egyptian president shows interest towards Africa, the more engaged the Egyptian institutions are in the continent's issues. As for the bureaucracy, it is more likely that the balance of power will remain in favour of the presidency, the security agencies and the defence ministry with regard to the foreign policy decision-making process in Egypt. For this situation to change, dramatic changes of the characteristics and the behaviour of the political regime have to take place, which is unlikely to happen in the time being.

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