After Israel, no state receives more US aid than Egypt, approximately $2 million per year, and all of it eventually finds its way through the Egyptian bureaucracy. The Nasser era transformed Egypt into a bureaucratic state, and under Sadat the bureaucratic apparatus increased dramatically in size. In 1981 Mubarak inherited a staggering array of problems, all dependent upon bureaucratic reform. In 1983 the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo conducted a survey of 825 Egyptian civil servants as part of the ongoing plan to implement change. This service is unique and provides empirical data that is rare indeed in the development literature generally and for Egypt specifically. The authors first discuss the historical development and nature of the Egyptian bureaucracy. Then follows the major portion of the book, on the survey itself and its results. The final chapter summarizes the conculusions of the survey and makes recommendations for change.
