The Mubarak regime in Egypt is just one of many authoritarian regimes that holds some form of competitive elections. In this chapter, I explore how competitive elections function in a broader set of Arab cases. I find that there exist four primary types of electoral–institutional arrangements across the authoritarian states of the Arab world: a) hegemonic party regimes with high levels of political contestation, b) constitutional monarchies with high levels of contestation, c) single-party regimes with limited electoral competition, and d) non-constitutional monarchies with low levels of electoral contestation. In terms of the distributive implications of electoral competition, there are a number of similarities between hegemonic party regimes with high levels of contestation – such as Egypt – and constitutional monarchies with political contestation. These similarities exist to a lesser extent in single-party regimes with limited contestation. The goal of this chapter is not to undertake an exhaustive review of other regimes but rather to demonstrate that patterns in the development of authoritarian institutions in Egypt are also found in a wider set of cases.

A primary argument of this project is that electoral competition, even in an authoritarian context, is meaningful for the way that it mediates several types of elite conflict and informs patterns of distribution. Based on these ideas, where and when could we expect to see competitive authoritarian elections emerging in countries of the Arab Middle East?