transferred to a newly-created upper house of the parliament); opposition newspapers were permitted; the Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to re-emerge -- discouraged from formal political activity but providing a counterweight to leftist groups, especially on college campuses; the military gradually edged out of its political role; security services reined in; and a limited measure of judicial independence was restored. In the 1980s, most of these trends were deepened under Mubarak.

The course of this limited liberalization was uneven, and Egypt's leaders periodically bared their full authoritarian teeth (most notably in 1981 when Sadat launched a wholesale crackdown on dissent across the spectrum or in the 1990s when Mubarak used harsh tools against Islamists).

But the overall institutional effect of this evolution was clear: the Egyptian state was no longer micromanagedwithin many of them between those eager to get along for personal or institutional reasons and those who chafed at what they saw as the cheapening or corruption of their cherished institutions. The emergence, for instance, of the "independence trend" among the judiciary, or an association of dissident religious scholars within al-Azhar were two of the most visible public manifestations of this tension.

Thus it was during these years that the "Balkanization" of the state took place. Each part of these assemblages of states-within-the state developed its own (often ossified) leadership, doling out benefits within its part of the state in order to cement ties of loyalty.

Everyone above the fray

The reach of the Egyptian state goes far in many directions. In economics, state-owned enterprises, regulations, and controls are still