Although the IMF and the World Bank have advocated public sector reforms for market-oriented economic development, Egyptian authoritarian leaders have avoided such reforms. Egypt maintains a large public sector with a significant number of young Egyptians among its ranks. However, the public sector has shortcomings such as overstaffed government departments, deteriorating working conditions, and employee protests. This study uses the “social contract” concept to understand why Egypt’s political leaders have preserved this inefficient institution. The logic of the “social contract” works under two conditions: generous welfare as the main source of the regime’s legitimacy and a lack of accurate information concerning the extent to which people can tolerate painful reforms under authoritarian rule. Contrary to the conventional understanding, a lack of democratic institutions imposes “shackles” upon authoritarian leaders rather than giving them wide discretion regarding policymaking and the manipulation of institutions for their survival. The findings thus offer important insights into the dynamics of authoritarianism.

尽管国际货币基金组织和世界银行提倡公共部门改革以促进市场导向的经济发展，但埃及专制领导人却回避了这种改革。埃及拥有庞大的公共部门，其中有大量年轻的埃及人。然而，公共部门存在政府部门人员过多、工作条件恶化和员工抗议等缺点。本研究使用“社会契约”概念来理解为什么埃及的政治领导人保留了这种低效的制度。“社会契约”的逻辑在两个条件下起作用：作为政权合法性的主要来源的慷慨福利，以及缺乏关于人们在威权统治下能在多大程度上容忍痛苦改革的准确信息。与传统认识相反，缺乏民主制度给专制领导人施加了“枷锁”，而不是让他们在决策和为生存而操纵制度方面拥有广泛的自由裁量权。因此，这些发现提供了对威权主义动态的重要见解。