It is rare to find in the literature an interpretation of the basic characteristics of the political, social and administrative frameworks of governance in Egypt that does not mention that the country has the longest tradition of centralisation in the world. Egypt was the perfect example of Karl Wittfogel's theory of hydraulic society. For survival not only must a state be ‘genuinely managerial’, but it must also be ‘like the tiger’, monopolising all means of production, domination, intimidation and organisation in order to rule absolutely, with no local initiatives allowed to ‘counterbalance and control the political machine’. For Max Weber, Egypt is ‘the historical model of all later bureaucracies’. Its oldest bureaucratic administration was an inevitable consequence necessitated by an almost pure ‘natural’ economy that called for unitary action in ‘administrating the Nile waters and fighting the desert sands’. Over centuries, centralism in Egypt was regarded as the only political order of things. It is, according to the Egyptian geographer Gamal Hamdan, ‘the most distinct feature of the personality of Egypt’: deep-rooted, as old as the pyramids and lasting until today.

However, over-centralisation is now considered the major reason for most failures in Egyptian local governance and it bears the responsibility for its various problems, such as poor performance, slowness and corruption at all levels. The predicament made various observers, researchers and politicians, including the Egyptian presidents themselves, consider a solution in some form of decentralisation reform that could politically empower local communities and change the status quo from the bottom up. However, despite recognition of the need to decentralise the system of local administration (SLA), for decades the Egyptian regime had neither the desire nor the will to take any step towards implementation of such a measure. The explanation lies, by unanimous agreement among researchers, in the regime's ambivalence towards any kind of political mobilisation that could threaten the stability of its authoritarian control.

Since Nasser (1952–71), the Egyptian SLA has been characterised by a highly centralised top-down authority that gives a broad role to executive authorities, especially to the central government and the governor and his appointed executive councils, at all levels, including the local one.