The Uprising in Egypt and Its Impact on Bilateral Relations with Israel

Download or read book The Uprising in Egypt and Its Impact on Bilateral Relations with Israel written by Chantal Chastonay and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, political scientists have argued that democracies do not fight wars against each other. While the empirical evidence of the "democratic peace" argument has left little room for scientific debate, scholars studying the process of democratization have found that the transition towards democracy actually leads to an increased likelihood of international conflict. In the light of this debate, the popular protests that have spread throughout the Middle East since 2011 provide a unique opportunity for scholars studying transition processes to revaluate their findings on the linkage between democratization and interstate conflict. This thesis aims to contribute to this debate and analyze the prospects for Egyptian- Israeli relations on the basis of previous research conducted on domestic regime change and the onset of interstate hostilities. Accounting for both domestic as well as structural factors as brought forward in the transition literature; this thesis argues that the probability of conflict occurrence between Egypt and Israel remains low at this point. As the regional balance of power in the Middle East has been largely left unaffected by current political turmoil, both Egypt and Israel will be mainly interested in maintaining the status quo.