Egyptian Parliamentary Speeches, 1866-1882

The dataset forms part of a research program by Mohamed Saleh titled "Intra-Elite Conflict and the Reluctant Democratization of the Middle East and North Africa," funded by the British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship in 2024/25. This research program aims at developing a new historical political economy of the Middle East that explains the economic roots of authoritarianism in the region. It theoretically and empirically investigates how demands for democratization could emerge from intra-elite conflicts in an agrarian economy, despite the lack of an industrial bourgeoisie, and how elite politics shift with colonialism and postcolonial regimes. While elite conflicts can lead to democratization, they can alternatively result in autocracy. Furthermore, colonialism and postcolonial military coups could curtail these developments leading to episodes of democratic opening and authoritarian backsliding. The research program tests this by examining elite politics in Egypt, using a novel database on parliament members from 1824 to 2020, and parliamentary speeches in 1866-1882 and 1924-1952.

This dataset covers the universe of speeches made in the Egyptian parliament from 1866 to 1882. The dataset was constructed by the authors from the original Arabic-language parliamentary minutes that were published in four volumes by the National Archives of Egypt.