Convergent (Il)liberalism in the Mediterranean? Notes on Political Trends in Egypt and Italy

This paper explores the hypothesis of a convergence between ‘backsliding’ European liberal democracies and the ‘pseudo-liberalization’ of Middle Eastern authoritarian systems (Cavatorta, 2010) by considering the similarities, beyond the well-known differences, between Italy and Egypt. We suggest that standard indicators of regime type (e.g. Polity IV Authority Index) fail to capture important trends both in the evolution of both the forms of political power and the forms of resistance. Reflecting on such trends may help re-think the current limitations of Democratization theory (Teti, 2012).