Since the 25 January Revolution Egypt has been in a transitional period. Though the country had an elected president for almost a year during this period, the state has not had its full set of institutions at any point during the last three years. The executive branch has witnessed repeated changes, while the legislature has been in session for less than six months. Therefore the present presidential and legislative elections will complete the re-establishment of the state institutions. The question arises of whether these vital milestones on the roadmap will mean the end of the transition period. Configuring the state institutions means that a democratically elected as well as a fully accountable state is in place. Functionally, such newly configured institutions will have to prove their credentials for holding the chief executive to account in the case of the president and for representing the nation in the case of the parliament. These institutions have been assigned the mission of leading Egypt's transformation from the present situation, with its challenging realities, to a future desired state that has been avidly awaited by millions of Egyptians. The transitional phase is not only about democratisation and should not be considered as synonymous with it. Democratisation is a long-term process with a different trajectory that has overlapped with the road map only during certain periods. The Egyptian public started the democratisation process in the aftermath of the 25 January Revolution. Yet, this transition is about more than writing a new constitution and building new state institutions. It is about transforming the old state and society to accommodate and represent the new socioeconomic order, reflecting the aspirations of the people as well as the new realities that are in place. Indeed, it can be argued that one of the major mistakes that the country's elites and revolutionaries have made has been in their identification of the transition phase with the democratisation process alone, seeing that as preceding all other priorities. Also mistaken has been such forces' assumption that democratisation has only ever meant free-and-fair elections. This mistake, together with the previous one, led to the exhaustion of the first transition phase that was lost in arcane debates and bloody confrontations, bringing to the forefront the worst option for the country in the shape of the Muslim Brotherhood. During its period of rule, this terrorist organisation further distorted the transition phase, directing its path towards the achievement of its own objectives and in the aftermath of its ousting from power becoming determined to violently obstruct the establishment of the new state. As a result, the transition phase ended up with the state's declining capability to impose law and order or to maintain, let alone to maximise, the scarce resources needed to meet the raised expectations of the unsatisfied masses. Perhaps the transition phase with its tremendous political, economic and security challenges eventually paved the way for the evolution of a sizable mainstream majority opinion among the elites, and more importantly among the masses, aiming at achieving a stable socioeconomic order. There is now a consensus among the mainstream elites and the masses on the need to prioritise solutions to the security crisis as well as to the declining economic conditions. Establishing the functionality of the state in such domains has become imperative. The character of the Egyptian state has been questioned for some time. Even during the later years of the rule of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak there was growing concern among some commentators about features characteristic of failing states that were manifested in the performance of the Egyptian state. For example, the economist Galal Amin, borrowing the concept of the “soft state” from economist Karl Gunnar Myrdal, talked of a state that “passes laws but does not enforce them,” identifying Egypt as a typical soft state. The events of the January Revolution further exposed the vulnerabilities of the security apparatus of the state, resulting in an unprecedented near loss of its deterrent power. As a result, the Egyptian state cannot now claim the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within its territory, as per Max Weber's definition of the state. Nor can it claim the more recent interpretations of the state's monopoly of the use of force, such as those put forward by the US political scientist Charles Tilly, who uses the term “control over the chief concentrated means of violence,” or that of economist Douglas North, who has developed the newer expression of a “comparative advantage in violence.” Based on such definitions, the Egyptian state has been in urgent need of optimising its security capabilities to match rising local threats with their regional and even global ramifications. Such security threats are represented by terrorist organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood, and evidently there is no other option but forcefully to address such threats. However, potential or latent security threats, as exemplified by rising religious fundamentalism among sectors of society, have to be handled by other societal, cultural and economic reforms aiming at addressing the root causes of them and halting their radicalisation. Herein lies the difference between the two types of threats that have to be differentiated in terms of their origins or evolution on the one hand and the pertinent strategies that need to be adopted to address them on the other. This is not an open invitation for the security apparatus to resume its past practices, or for it to behave as a state within the state. Rather, it is a plea for the restoration of the functionality of the security apparatus, which should be reflective of the new revolutionary paradigm prevalent since the January Revolution that was not tolerant of any excesses from the security apparatus. The reversal of the soft state means the submission of the people and the institutions to the law. The state should re-impose its sovereignty over the country's highly porous borders, given the tremendous threats that have been noted there. Indeed, the whole chaotic landscape is in dire need of a state that is capable of imposing law and order on the streets, the traffic, the construction sector, the service sector, and so on. The transition phase should also reestablish the role of the state in the economy. The state is not and should not be an alternative to the private sector. Rather, it should, with its various enterprises or agencies, including the army, work to consolidate an active role in leading the national economy, achieving social justice, and, no less importantly, restoring Egypt's independence from its increasing reliance on foreign loans, countries and institutions. Mubarak's neo-liberal economic policies devastatingly failed to deliver their purported development objectives, and it would be absurd to think of repackaging them under any new label. Such economic growth as might have trickled down to the poorer societal sectors has not materialised, and neo-liberal policies have worsened social inequalities. A private sector that has been seemingly reluctant to adopt minimum wage proposals should not be entrusted with the leading role in shaping the evolution of a more egalitarian society and economy. In other words, Egypt was being forced to adopt a change in economic policies in view of the disastrous socioeconomic conditions they were leading to even before Mubarak's ouster and in response to the unacceptably political support of many of the donor countries. The new policy of the need for the state to step in to prevent soaring inequalities coincides with global concerns about the political and economic destabilisation that such inequalities can lead to. The pioneering work of the French economist Thomas Piketty, for example, in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been remarkable in this regard and in the need for state intervention to address inequalities as an inherent feature of capitalism. Egypt is about to start a real transition phase. Re-establishing the functionality of the state in the domain of security and the economy will help it to build a new image in the eyes of millions of Egyptians. Such an image is essential for Egyptians to be able to identify the foundations for a better future despite the current realities. The path to such a better future with its egalitarian promise is neither smooth nor linear. Setbacks and derailments will be inevitable, and they will recur across the political landscape, casting shadows and uncertainties. It is leadership at all levels and in different contexts that will make all the difference. The writer is a political analyst.
