Abstract
This article challenges the thesis that local‐level bureaucrats need be part of any ‘dominant coalition’ at the village level. Based on a case study of Egyptian agricultural officials, the paper argues that local bureaucrats may well be more useless than dominant in any political or economic sense. In rural areas in which local officials lack the resources (supplies, funds) to do their jobs, they may well be quite inconsequential. In such situations their position as ‘public servants’ may be appropriated by members of the rich peasantry, who have no particular need to work closely with resource‐poor local government staff.
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