Cairo’s new rulers have few plausible solutions to the longstanding problems of political economy and while Egyptian civil society failed to democratise the political order in the wake of the Mubarak overthrow, it remains a potentially revolutionary force.
The impending collision of the Morsi government with its opponents and (perhaps) the military broadly fits a cyclical pattern of Islamist collaboration with state forces observed over the previous six decades of Egyptian politics.
The politics of neglect which has long governed Cairo's expansive informal spaces looks set to remain well into the post-Mubarak era.
