Search Results

The political economy of the country determines not only what types of industrial policies are pursued, but may also determine which group will benefit and which will be harmed. MENA countries maintained strong roles for the government and policies of significant government intervention in production and economic planning. Economic justifications alone cannot fully explain the nature and effects of industrial policy on performance; political factors are central. Political economy factors are thus central to understanding the industrial policy experience of the MENA region. The lack of interest groups emerging to press for change has hindered the region's move toward more functional, market-friendly policies for growth—a phenomenon closely linked to the weaknesses in governance. The ultimate outcome will be largely determined by each country's initial conditions and individual political economy factors.

This book has examined the conditions that may facilitate the growth of what appears to be a distinctively Islamic variety of capitalist development, identifying self-consciously Islamist financiers and trying to discover the conditions under which they best thrive. It has found that distinctive financial practices seemed to mobilise the capital which would have otherwise stayed hidden in the mattresses of the MENA region. The processes of economic globalisation, coupled with the steady accumulation of Islamic capital, were deemed to eventually overcome the present barriers to the integration and promotion of a more political pluralism in the region. The studies in this book have identified Islamic capitalism as a natural evolution of gentle commerce. This chapter argues that if big international business can polish the manners of the Bush Administration sufficiently to avert a clash of globalisations, this will aid Islamic finance to promote the steady structural transformation of the region that the essays of this book have envisioned.

The book concludes with a discussion of the increasing importance of the GCC for the wider MENA region and for South Asia, through several external channels. The data shows the increasing importance of the remittances, trade, FDI, foreign aid and spillover channels. In addition, a panel model identifies the determinants of international linkages between the GCC countries and the MENA region, and shows that growth in the GCC is indeed a very important explanatory variable for growth in MENA.

In the post-9/11 environment, characterized by high security surveillance, the debates about the relationship between academic pursuits and political interests, and the related question of whether area studies or the scientific study of society provides the best way to respond to “national needs,” have gained renewed currency. This chapter examines some of these discussions from a historical perspective by focusing on the relationship between Middle East studies (MES) and sociology as it evolved over the past century or so. The first part of the chapter concentrates on three distinct periods in the history of the relationship between sociology and MES. In each of these periods, sociology and MES started in their separate but parallel trajectories. The second part considers the history of sociology in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Unlike in the United States, the connection between area studies and sociology has always been close in MENA.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has played a key role in supporting the expansion of governance capabilities in Arab countries. Focusing on the work of the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA)-OECD Governance Programme and its Working Group on Regulatory Reform, this chapter chronicles the progress of administrative reform in light of recent developments. The Arab Spring has highlighted the urgency with which MENA governments must improve regulatory policy tools in order to achieve ambitious reform goals. The key to improving policymaking in the MENA region is the enhancement of organizational capacities. This can be achieved by peer learning and the sharing of technical expertise, which can integrate evidence-based decision-making tools into regulatory management.

This chapter analyses statements released by Ayman al-Zawahiri in the context of MENA uprisings and the rise of the Islamic State organization. The chapter traces Zawahiri’s aggregate narrative during this period, discussing how the Al-Qaeda leader framed these key events and how these framing efforts evolved. This discussion highlights issues regarding legitimate leadership of jihadist vanguards, the role of public opinion in that equation and the way in which al-Zawahiri has sought to exploit and address those challenges in his efforts to retain momentum and relevancy within a complex jihadi universe. The chapter concludes by considering the particulars of al-Zawahiri’s most recent discursive emphases in light of his public rhetoric to date in order to highlight the evolution and, at times, contradictions of this narrative.

The introductory chapter explains the four sections of the book. The first section deals with the theoretical and methodological analysis of changes that have occurred since 2011 as a result of the Arab Spring: in political regimes, from a Comparative Politics approach; and in the MENA region, from an International Relations perspective. The second section includes an analysis of the transformations in party systems, the elections, the constitutional reforms undertaken, changes in government and power relations within political regimes, advances or deteriorations in governance in the MENA countries, the role of civil society in processes of political change, and the current situation regarding rights and civil liberties, and particularly in media and press freedom in the MENA countries. Section III analyses the political consequences of the processes of change at both regional and international level. The section thus takes into account the importance of the MENA region on the international scene, the role played by international powers in the processes of political change and in the conflicts that have erupted since the Arab Spring, the configuration of new political interests, regional powers, and alliances, and revised understandings of the threats facing the region and the international community. Finally, section IV presents the processes of political change undertaken as a consequence of the Arab Spring according to the typology established in chapter 1.

This chapter reflects on the existence or not of a new wave of democratisation in the wake of the Arab Spring. It is true that simultaneity, contagion, diffusion and emulation do feature in the political dynamics of change following the Arab Spring. However, rather than a democratic tsunami, there were ebbs and flows of a ‘wave of political change’ that has involved differing transformative processes in each country. Secondly, the author offers a typology of political regimes as well as a classification of MENA regimes prior to the Arab Spring, in order to identify the starting point of political change. Thirdly, different types of political change processes are defined and categorised: two general processes of political change (democratisation and autocratisation); and, five specific processes of political change affecting democracies (democratic regression, democratic deepening and consolidation of democracy) or authoritarianisms (political liberalisation and authoritarian progression). And finally, the author presents the methodological framework used in this book to study political change in the MENA countries. This change is analysed with reference to three dimensions: pluralism and political competition (party/representation systems and electoral integrity); government (constitutional reforms, government and state powers, and good governance; and public rights and liberties (political rights, civil rights, rule of law, and civil society).

This chapter examines parties and party system change across the MENA countries since December 2010. The discussion begins with a brief overview of party systems in the region on the eve of the Arab Spring, thereby providing a quick introduction to the selected cases as well as a benchmark against which to measure change. Party system change is determined via indicators such as the effective number of parties, party system fragmentation, electoral volatility and the entry of new parties into the system. The analysis of the indicators of party system change is coupled with a discussion of empirical data on the political environment during and in the immediate aftermath of the elections, including issues such as regime classification, rotation of power, coalition structures, prohibited parties, and societal cleavages. The author explains how - despite the fact that some old regimes fell and elections were held - the traditionally dominant or hegemonic political parties stayed preeminent in a number of MENA countries. Finally, this chapter shows what party system change tells us about the prospects for democracy some five years after the outbreak of the Arab Spring.

This chapter presents a comparative contextual analysis of parliamentary and presidential elections held in the MENA countries between 2011 and 2015, in order to clarify the relation between electoral integrity, electoral context and political regime. With this aim in mind, the analysis pursues: (1) identifying the evolution path of these three variables; (2) testing the existence or absence of correlation between them; and 3) classifying the countries in view of their last electoral, contextual and regime model records. The results suggest three evidences. The first one refers to the heterogeneous behaviour of the variables, including progress, regression, fluctuation and stagnation patterns. The second is that positive correlation between them exists just in three cases, where progress (Tunisia), fluctuation (Egypt) and stagnation (Kuwait) are respectively the common trend. The third is that countries may be classified within two categories, considering if (i) the current level of electoral integrity corresponds with the general level of freedoms, rights and governance that contextualises the holding of elections, and (ii) the level of electoral integrity is either higher or lower than might be expected in relation to the defining characteristics of the electoral context and the regime.

This chapter analyses the constitutional reform processes that have taken place in the MENA countries since the social uprisings in 2011. The purpose of this study is to examine and compare the constitutional reform processes in order to offer key insights into these processes and to propose a typology of the dynamics of constitutional reform, and its scope in the MENA region. The aspects for analysis include procedures, consensus and dissent during the course of the constitutional process, and the content of the constitutional reforms. The emphasis is placed on the most important elements of the processes of constitutional change and of the content of the new constitutions, while paying particular attention to aspects related with the power of heads of state, the most frequently-debated reforms and the advancement of gender equality and women’s rights. The authors conclude that constitutional processes are relevant, but not determinant for democratic change, with the exception of Tunisia. The scope of the constitutional amendments has been limited and has perpetuated the dominance of the authoritarian rulers. Many of the constitutional reforms after the Arab Spring have been the product of strategies for survival by the respective regimes and were promoted ‘top-down’ through a process that, in many countries, excluded the revolutionary movements and opposition groups that were not loyal to the regime.

This chapter analyses the change (or continuity) of MENA regimes in a post-Arab Spring context, focusing on governments and power relationships. This chapter firstly analyses the place governments occupy in their respective political systems; how they are perceived by their populations; and the extent to which are they capable of managing violence and imposing their authority across the whole of their national territory. Governments are responsible for the policies carried out in their countries. Thus, many of the social protests - predominantly focused on the high levels of corruption - were directed against governments. However, while governments are perceived to be the institutions responsible for meeting citizens’ welfare needs, there are other non-elected institutions (formal or informal) with significant decision-making powers that are non-accountable, such as the presidents of the republic, the monarchs, and other national (the armed forces in the case of Egypt; armed groups in the cases of Libya, Syria and Yemen) or international actors (such as Saudi Arabia and Iran). On the other hand, this chapter studies changes in the power structure. The author finds evidence of greater power concentration, with the exception of the new democratic regime of Tunisia.

This chapter analyses the state of good governance following the main indicators elaborated by the World Bank in the MENA region. International institutions have been criticised for having unrealistic or unreliable criteria in relation to good governance; however this chapter argues that they do sufficiently represent what good governance should be about and in what kind of environment it should occur. The contention here is that the lack of good governance in the MENA region is not a story of poor achievement related to criteria or adaptability, but a much broader failure of international institutional policies in the developing world, but at the same time, local MENA political actors greatly contributed to such failure. There are a number of factors that explain the failure of good governance policies in the Middle East and North Africa and they are related to both structural weaknesses in the way in which they were thought out – erroneous theoretical assumptions – and to contingent issues related to their implementation on the ground. Finally, various studies on the state of governance and its indicators over the last decade, including the Arab Spring period, have demonstrated that the political, economic and social situation is no better than before the uprisings.

This chapter establishes a general framework that enables to assess the situation of civil society in the MENA region, before and after the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring undermined many of the theories that dwelt on the depoliticisation of civil society, its inability to influence the political agenda and the customary use made of it as an instrument of authoritarian regimes. Although this activism appeared to take on new forms, it was not spontaneously generated, but included an accumulation of baggage from the past, in constant relationship and tension with the state; hence, along with associations concerned with charity work and development, there also existed another more critical and politically committed type of organisation, in which the theory of the persistence of authoritarianism had not shown sufficient interest. Likewise, the Arab Spring questioned the institutionalised, structured, organisational nature of civil society that transitology usually supports. During the uprisings, none of the traditional or formal civil society organisations came to the fore, either in their interventionist (NGOs) or their most contestatory dimensions (human rights organisations, Islamist groups, or more politicised platforms). Thus, the chapter shows that it is necessary to go beyond a certain reductionist view of what civil society is and to propose another concept, much more dynamic, creative and horizontalist that involves not only hierarchical organisational structures, but also other spaces of mobilisation in which the citizenry can express its social, political and economic commitment.

A key issue in the study of political change is the situation and development of rights and freedoms. Specifically, this chapter studies the impact that the eruption of the Arab Spring has had on these liberties. In order to meet this objective it analyses primary sources, legal reforms and frameworks, and databases and research reports. The question this chapter addresses is whether political changes in the MENA region reflect deepening liberalisation processes through de iure modifications of the civil liberties legislative framework; and the extent to which these changes have had a de facto impact on regimes. In sum, it assesses whether these changes have been sufficient to represent an advance or regression in the democratic character of the region's political regimes. After the analysis, it can be concluded that the situation of civil liberties in the region is either precarious or alarming in the majority of the MENA countries. Furthermore, with the exception of Tunisia, the Arab Spring has not led to a substantive improvement despite the reformist ambition of some countries, and has even led to a significant deterioration in various cases.

The objective of this chapter is to explore the Arab region’s media systems in order to assess the sources of information available to civil society. The chapter is divided into four parts, which provide: first, an account of the political and regulatory environment in which the media have to operate; second, a description of traditional media; third, an overview of satellite television, which is paramount in the region; and fourth, an analysis of internet access in the region. The data analysed in this chapter clearly illustrates that one of the results of the Arab Spring has been the attempt to further control information flows. With the exception of a few countries, especially Tunisia and Algeria, almost all the governments in the region have adopted rules in the hope of controlling information in a more effective way. Of course, this does not mean that citizens are unable to obtain political information through other channels than those accepted by governments. Satellite TV is a first fracture in the closed ecosystem, but events in recent years suggest that it is not entirely free from attempts at regularisation and control. Nonetheless, there are other tools to serve the public that can be treated as sources of information and, therefore, as media: namely the Internet and all its facets.

This chapter examines the political, territorial and security repercussions of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) for the MENA region, and particularly in Syria, Iraq and Libya. The proclamation of the IS, on 29 June 2014, has had a major impact on political and security alike. It has been given a new twist to the war in Iraq and Syria and the Libyan conflict on the following aspects: (i) amplifying and making the conflict more complex with related implications on security; (ii) establishing a new mode of governance in the conquered territories; and (iii) further producing a new security framework in MENA region. After a brief contextualization about the origins and goals of IS, the chapter analyses the following sections: (i) the impact of IS in the security domain (type of conflict with its own signs of identity); (ii) the government exerted in the occupied territories; and (iii) the implications and impacts on the security realm throughout MENA region by focusing on two main domains: the international response to the threat provided by the international community, and the new configuration of regional and global alliances. The main contribution of this chapter dues to the scarcity of studies in this regard is the analysis of the IS’ conflict typology.