A Political Economy of the Middle East

Melani Cammett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429972232
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A Political Economy of the Middle East is the most comprehensive analysis of developments in the political economy of the region over the past several decades, examining the interaction of economic development processes, state systems and policies, and social actors in the Middle East.The fourth edition, with new authors Melani Cammett and Ishac Diwan, has been thoroughly revised, with two new introductory chapters that provide an updated framework with which to understand and study the many changes in demography, education, labor markets, urbanization, water and agriculture, and international labor migration in the recent years. The new edition also includes: a new chapter that charts the political economy of the Gulf states and, in particular, the phenomenal growth of oil economies; a new chapter on the rise of "crony capitalism;" and increased coverage of the changes in civil society and social movements in the region, including an exploration of the causes, dynamics, consequences, and aftermath of the Arab uprisings.

1
INTRODUCTION AND FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY

Since 2007, when the last edition of this book was published, revolutionary movements have swept across the Middle East, changing the region greatly. These revolutions, known collectively as the “Arab uprisings,” began on December 17, 2010, in Tunisia, where Mohamed Bouazizi, a vegetable seller in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire to protest mistreatment by local police and government authorities. Beginning in rural areas and later spreading to urban coastal areas, the wave of protests incited by Bouazizi’s act encompassed a diverse array of participants, ranging from informal-sector workers, like Bouazizi himself, to unemployed graduates, workers, lawyers, and cyber-connected youth. Ultimately, these mass protests led to the ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled Tunisia in an increasingly repressive manner for over two decades. Protesters demanded justice and accountability from their government and refused to step down, even in the face of brutal repression and government promises to create new jobs and expand civil and political liberties.

The revolutionary movement then spread to Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak, who had held power for almost thirty years, was ousted after several weeks of protests in Cairo and other cities. In Egypt, too, protesters remained steadfast in the face of a harsh crackdown, calling for Mubarak and his key henchmen to step down. In February 2011, Mubarak resigned and later faced trial for complicity in the murder of protesters. From Tunisia and Egypt, protests spread across the region to Yemen, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Jordan, and Bahrain. More sporadic and, in some cases, short-lived protests took place in Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and even Saudi Arabia. Now, three years after the uprisings, the region has undergone profound political transformations. Much of the region seems to have entered a period of relative chaos, driven by the fierce competition between the new political forces that seek to have more influence on the way their countries are governed. But it is already clear that these societies have come of age and that they are unlikely to be dominated by autocrats in the future as they have been in the past.

Revolutions and rebellions are complex phenomena. Likewise, the motivations for the Arab uprisings have been multifaceted. Political concerns, such as outrage over dictatorial rule, repression, and restrictions on basic liberties, were undoubtedly important. For many people, however, economic issues were equally if not more salient. In 2005 a poll conducted by Zogby International found that expanding employment opportunities, improving health care and educational systems, and ending corruption were the most important priorities of citizens across the region. Democracy and civic and political rights were also cited but were ranked lower than socioeconomic concerns (Zogby International 2005). More recently, the 2010 Arab Youth Survey found that the greatest perceived challenge and concern of Arab youth was the cost of living, followed by unemployment and then human rights. The largest change relative to the 2009 Arab Youth Survey was the increased perception of income inequality (ASDA’A/Burson-Marsteller 2010).

Despite momentous political changes in the region, many insights from the third edition of this book, which was published more than two years before Bouazizi set himself on fire, remain relevant. Some of the core economic and political challenges described in the third edition were important factors that either directly or indirectly contributed to the uprisings, including insufficient job creation, labor market pressures exacerbated by the youth bulge, the mismatch between educational systems and labor market needs, the declining quantity of water and rising dependency on food imports, the continuing decay of the public sector, the mixed record of economic liberalization, a growing housing crisis in urban areas, and the rise of political Islam across the region.

The Arab uprisings highlight issues that require more in-depth analysis than they received in prior editions of this book. For example, the rise of crony capitalism underscores the ways in which politics and, more specifically, political connections shape economic opportunities in the region. As implied by the slogan “Bread, freedom, and social justice,” which protesters chanted on Avenue Bourguiba, in Tahrir Square, and elsewhere in the region, both economic and political issues were central concerns. Thus, the perceived increase in inequalities, the discontent with public services, the political economy of cronyism, the narrowing composition of authoritarian coalitions, and succession issues in Arab republics have proven to be important developments across the Arab world.

This fourth edition of the book differs significantly from previous editions in that, to fully appreciate and understand the new developments brought on by the Arab uprisings, we have needed to develop new analytical tools. Ousted leaders and struggles over the construction of new political institutions in some countries have led us to revise the classification of regime types, and even in countries where incumbent rulers remain entrenched, the nature of the political game has changed. Across the region, “street politics” is an increasingly important form of political expression and citizens are presenting demands to their leaders more forcefully and frequently. At this juncture, the context of policymaking is altered: with the emergence of new political regimes and the rise of claim-making, rulers are compelled to respond more effectively to citizen demands. Evolving political systems as well as economic developments demand new perspectives on the political economies on the region.

What explains the origins and dynamics of the Arab uprisings? We believe that a political economy approach has much to offer in addressing this question. Neither purely political concerns, such as the desire for democracy, nor simple economic trends can explain protesters’ calls for the downfall of autocratic rulers. Rather, the interaction of political factors and real and perceived economic developments brought about the uprisings. As we argue here, the narrowing of authoritarian coalitions in the context of crony capitalism, the rollback of the state, and the decline of welfare regimes alienated formal-sector workers and tenuous middle classes. In the context of unequal life chances and rising insecurity, growing portions of Arab societies perceived that the distribution of social services, justice, good education, good jobs, and, more generally, social mobility were increasingly unequal and unjust. Thus, growth rates or absolute levels of income inequality cannot account for these popular movements to overthrow incumbent dictators. Rather, it was the perceptions of socioeconomic trends in the context of evolving political economies and, as we contend throughout the book, the perceived rise in the inequality of opportunities (in the labor market and in access to services) that were at the root of the mass protests.

In this introduction to the new edition, we develop these claims in more detail. First, we sketch a picture of regional variation in the uprisings, pointing to a variety of factors that differentiate the countries of the region and help to explain their distinct trajectories thus far during this period of momentous change. Next, we set up the analytical framework used in the book. Then we describe a typology of Arab countries that we also employ throughout the book. Finally, we use the framework and the typology to provide a broad-brush description of the politico-economic developments that led to the uprisings.

THE ARAB UPRISINGS OF 2011: HOW DID WE GET THERE?

Many of the characteristics of the recent Arab uprisings are puzzling and do not fit easily within popular intellectual frames. Why did the uprisings occur at the end of 2010, when there were no apparent direct triggers such as declines in subsidies or shifts in foreign alliances, rather than in the 1990s, when welfare states in the region began to be rolled back? Why did the revolutions start in Tunisia and Egypt, the countries with some of the highest economic growth in the region in the preceding few years, rather than in countries such as Syria or Yemen, where economic conditions were more dire and political repression more severe? Why were the uprisings initiated by secularist middle-class youth, the supposed beneficiaries of the modernizing republics, rather than by the long-standing Islamist opposition? Why did some of the regimes fight back more fiercely than others? And following the uprisings, why did social polarization rise everywhere in the region, and why did this polarization center on issues of identity rather than on divisions over economic policies?

In the early days of the Arab uprisings, debates about the relative importance of economic versus political factors permeated journalistic and scholarly discussions about the motivations for the mass protests across the region. On the face of it, economic factors hold little explanatory value. In the preceding decade, economic growth in the “revolution” countries was at about 4 to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) per year, which is not considered low. In 2010 growth stood at 3.1 percent in Tunisia, 5.1 percent in Egypt, 3.4 percent in Syria, 3.7 percent in Libya, 7.7 percent in Yemen, 3.7 percent in Morocco, and 2.3 percent in Jordan (World Development Indicators 2010). The macroeconomic situation was also relatively stable after the imbalances of the early 2000s had been absorbed: on the eve of the uprisings, budget and current account deficits were shrinking, debt levels were reasonable, and international reserves were at comfortable levels. The unemployment rate was high in most Arab countries—between 10 and 15 percent of the labor force, higher than in other developing regions—but stable. Inequality as measured by GINI coefficients was lower than in other regions, with values at around 0.3 to 0.4, and was not rising fast (Belhaj and Wissa 2011).

To be sure, the 2008 global recession, coupled with the oil and food crises, did affect the region. Growth slowed down after 2008, and while it had recovered somewhat by 2010, it remained below the levels reached in 2006 to 2008. Energy subsidies increased with international prices, further eroding the ability of the state to spend on public investment and wages, while inflation rose and real wages fell. Furthermore, the region’s rising growth rates in the 2000s were unable to reach Asian double-digit levels, which would have been needed to absorb the youth wave and the unemployed in the labor market. In cross-regional comparative perspective, youth unemployment was high in the Arab world, at around 25 percent, but this was not a new development and therefore cannot explain the timing of the protests. Similarly, the decline of public welfare functions and the rise of parallel networks of social welfare provision were not recent phenomena. The rollback of the state originated in the fiscal crises that most countries in the region, particularly those with low per capita oil reserves, experienced in the 1980s. In short, by 2011, on the eve of the revolts, there was no singular economic shock to point to as the spark that ignited the uprisings. Subsidies were not being cut; unemployment, while high, was not rising; and growth rates and investment ratios were on the rise and at comfortable levels. Furthermore, as the literature on social movements argues, economic grievances at best provide incomplete explanations for mass mobilization (McAdam 1982).

Instead, as we argue in this book, discontent on the economic front interacted with a broader sociopolitical context to ignite the uprisings. In particular, economic stagnation mixed with the perceived rise in inequalities and lack of “social justice,” which had been mounting as a result of the rollback of the state and economic liberalization characterized by cronyism. Access to economic opportunities was seen to be neither meritocratic nor governed by a level playing field but, rather, mediated by connections to political leaders and their narrowing circles of allies. In the context of redistributive commitments by rulers to their populations, which arguably increased citizen expectations of the state in both the “populist” republics and the more conservative monarchies, the inability of government to provide for citizens was particularly egregious and combined with a growing sense of economic insecurity. Countries that were unable to address these grievances through rising state support, as the richer Gulf countries could do, increasingly used state repression to maintain order, generating a sense of indignity among their populations. This combination of factors dammed up the accumulated grievances and rising aspirations, which were ready to burst.

We can illustrate our argument by briefly applying it to the case of Tunisia, where the revolts began. At first glance, Tunisia was the least likely country in the region to have ignited the Arab uprisings. Tunisia had experienced steady growth rates in the previous decade and exceeded the regional average on a variety of social indicators, such as literacy, school enrollment, and life expectancy. Among the non-oil economies in the region, Tunisia had the most developed welfare state institutions, which helped to create a more robust middle class than was found in other Arab countries. The state also ran a variety of social assistance programs, and poverty rates were lower than in neighboring countries. In addition, until the late 1990s, business-government relations were less corrupt and capital was less concentrated than in other countries with similar industrial profiles. Politically, Tunisia also appeared to be an improbable place to set off the uprisings. The Tunisian state was notoriously repressive, leaving its citizens with far less scope for civil society activism and public expression than was the case in many other countries in the region, and the ruling party’s penetration of all aspects of civic and political life was further facilitated by the country’s small size. Although many Tunisians did not like Ben Ali, their fear of unrest, as experienced in neighboring Algeria, which underwent a bloody civil war in the 1990s, seemed to reduce their appetite for regime change.

Paradoxically, Tunisia’s socioeconomic achievements may be one important reason for the spread of mass mobilization against Ben Ali. Older generations of Tunisians had experienced genuine social mobility in their lifetimes, particularly during the first few decades after independence under Habib Bourguiba’s rule, and they had developed high expectations of their state. Their children could no longer expect to advance socioeconomically, even with graduate degrees. Furthermore, the history of relatively minimal corruption in state-business relations made the concentration of economic opportunities in the hands of the Ben Ali and Trabelsi families all the more scandalous. In effect, under Ben Ali’s rule, the authoritarian coalition gradually narrowed. By the time those who were marginalized in Tunisian society and those who lived in neglected regions rose up against Ben Ali, the state’s traditional sources of support—the middle classes and business interests—joined in the revolt again the ruler and his cronies (Kaboub 2013).

Tunisia’s story included all of the main components of the story that was emerging across the Arab world. In the mid-1980s, the rollback of the state began without a concomitant democratic opening, enabling an elite, capitalistic class to benefit from personal connections and acquire disproportionate access to lucrative opportunities. The elite allied with state security apparatuses, which enforced the elite’s dominance through repression (sticks) and economic co-optation (carrots) to maintain the support of the middle class. Tight state-business relations within a supposedly “liberal” economic environment dependent on political repression did not translate into a successful industrial policy. Instead, the state and key constituents developed a system of gift exc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• 1 INTRODUCTION AND FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY
• 2 ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND SOCIAL OUTCOMES
• 3 POLITICAL REGIMES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• 4 THE IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
• 5 HUMAN CAPITAL: HEALTH AND EDUCATION
• 6 WATER AND FOOD SECURITY
• 7 THE RISE AND FALL OF STATE-LED DEVELOPMENT
• 8 STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT AND THE RISE OF CRONY CAPITALISM
• 9 THE EFFECTS OF OIL ON DEVELOPMENT AND THE RISE OF THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL
• 10 WAR, CONFLICT, AND THE MILITARY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• 11 SOLIDARISM AND ITS ENEMIES: CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• 12 IS ISLAM THE SOLUTION?
• 13 REGIONAL AND GLOBAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION
• 14 CONCLUSION
• References
• Index