COLLOMBIER, Virginie

Max Weber Fellow 2011-2012, 2012-2013

Email Virginie.Collombier@EUI.eu   
Tel. [+39] 055 4685 616
Office VF 43

European University Institute
Max Weber Programme
Via delle Fontanelle 10
I-50014 San Domenico

Departmental affiliation: Political and Social Sciences  
Mentor: Oliver Roy    

Prior to joining the European University Institute as a Max Weber Fellow I worked for a few years as a Middle East analyst within the French administration. I hold a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Grenoble and an M.A. in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris. My work has mainly focused on political change and regimes’ transformations in the Arab world. 

In my Ph.D. dissertation, titled Will the party be the solution? The Egyptian National Democratic Party (NDP), a tool for gaining power in an authoritarian regime in transition, I focused on the inner workings of the Egyptian presidential party between 2000 and 2008 and analyzed the strategy for gaining power implemented by Gamal Mubarak – the president’s younger son – and a group of newcomers on the political scene. I highlighted the advantages and drawbacks of a strategy that focused mainly on the party, at the expense of other institutions more influential in the Egyptian political system. This has proven a very useful background to understand the processes of political crisis and regime transformation that took place in early 2011.

Since I joined the EUI in September 2011, I have been following the political developments in Egypt with a specific focus on party-building processes in the transition phase. My hypothesis is that despite their taking place in very different political contexts, the experiences of the former NDP and newly created parties such as the Social Democratic Party or the Freedom and Justice Party are open to comparison.