THE POPULATION CENSUS OF 1917 AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO EGYPT 3 19TH-CENTURY STATISTICAL REGIMES

This essay is a comparison of Egypt's three 19th century statistical r egimes, with particular emphasis on the third established by the Briti sh before WW1, and culminating in the holding of the 1917 census. It i s argued that the organizer of this census used it self-consciously to encourage the production of statistical data as an essential tool of modem government. He also provided officials with a method of integrat ing their findings through the use of a national model based on the ba lance between population and resources. Foucault's notion of governmen tality is deployed to provide a framework: within which to understand the central processes at work.