Melani Cammett - A Political Economy of the Middle East

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cammett, Melani Claire, 1969

A political economy of the Middle East / Melani Cammett, Brown University, Ishac Diwan, Harvard University, Alan Richards, University of California, Santa Cruz, Jo Waterbury, University of Beirut, NYU Abu Dhabi. Fourth edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8133-4939-8 (e-book) 1. Middle EastEconomic conditions1979 2. Middle EastEconomic policy. 3. Working classMiddle East. 4. Middle EastPolitics and government1979 I. Diwan, Ishac. II. Richards, Alan, 1946 III. Richards, Alan, 1946 Political economy of the Middle East. IV. Title.

HC415.15.C36 2015

330.956dc23

2015001543

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

TABLES

FIGURES

BOXES

The last edition of this book was published six years ago. In the interim, much has changed. First and foremost, the whole region has witnessed massive upheavals with the resurgence of the streetfirst in the Green Movement in Iran in 2009 and later with the Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and spread across the region at greater or lesser levels of intensity, making a variety of societal demands on rulers. The authors of this book, too, have changed. The founding authors of this classic text, Alan Richards and Jo Waterbury, wrote the first three editions, which laid out an important agenda for the study of the region. We are privileged to take over co-authorship of the book, building on the excellent work of our predecessors and updating it to address the momentous shifts occurring in the Middle East. As we undertook this formidable task, we were struck by the prescience of many of the observations that Alan and Jo made at least two years before uprisings erupted across the region in 2011.

Since the third edition appeared, not only the region itself, but also Americans perceptions of and involvement in the region have undergone considerable change. Mass social mobilization in the Arab uprisings resulted in the ouster of some dictators (in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, with the help of international intervention, and Yemen, although its deposed ruler retains significant influence in the country). Elsewhere, such as Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco, large-scale social protests became the foundation of sustained opposition or pro-reform movements and have altered the nature of politics in enduring ways, even if incumbent rulers remain in place. In still other countries, demonstrations and similar forms of opposition did not occur on a mass scale, particularly in the oil-rich countries, which have small indigenous populations and rulers who can afford to respond to or preempt some citizen demands. Even in the OECD countries of the region, Israel and Turkey, large-scale social protests erupted, albeit in quite distinct political and economic contexts.

Meanwhile, some Middle Eastern countries are in the midst of protracted violent conflicts that are subjecting civilian populations to increasingly harsh living conditions and leading to sharp drops in human development achievements. In Iraq, state institutions continue to be weak while extremist Islamist groups are presently making territorial gains in the country and in neighboring Syria. Peaceful demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria turned violent as the state cracked down harshly on protesters, and opposition forces have become increasingly dominated by extremist organizations. As in Iraq and elsewhere, the war in Syria has unraveled many impressive human development achievements and also spilled across borders, placing enormous pressures on neighboring countries such as Jordan and Lebanon. Libya is facing mounting unrest as government officials struggle to strengthen state institutions and control the national territory while nonstate actors exert virtually unchecked authority in many parts of the country. And in the summer of 2014, Palestine and Israel were engaged in yet another cycle of heavy violence that would leave more than 1,800 Gazans dead and thousands injured, with limited prospects for medical care in the overtaxed health care system, while more than 60 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed.

Other aspects of the region exhibit some continuity since the last edition of this book was published. The so-called War on Terror remains in full swing, even if US troops have been withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the public debate about the appropriate role for the United States in the region persists, with much of it still ill informed. Public uneasiness with the largely military approaches of the United States to the region since 9/11 helps to explain the Obama administrations reluctance to fully engage in the crisis in Syria and other parts of the region. Heated debates among specialists and policymakers enumerate the pros and cons of more direct intervention in these conflicts. Despite these deep differences of opinion, most now agree that the problems of the bulk of the countries in the region are structural and deeply entrenched and therefore do not readily lend themselves to simple solutions, as Richards and Waterbury noted in these pages six years ago. Neither government officials, whether in the region or in the West, nor opposition groups, which at least until recently have been dominated by Islamists, have thus far identified and pursued viable strategies for leading the Middle East economies and societies down a path toward more inclusive and sustainable development.

In this edition of the book, as in previous editions, we aim to provide readers with an understanding of the complexity and depth of the regions challenges with respect to economic, social, and political development. In the introductory chapter, we present the framework of the book. We maintain that any attempt to understand the varied development trajectories within the region (or in any region) must start with politicsthe struggles over resources that ultimately produce the formal and informal rules in a given society. Yet politics does not operate in a vacuum: the decisions and actions of political actors, especially those in the state, are shaped by the demands and behavior of societal actors as well as by economic opportunities and limitations. Indeed, the nature of state institutions, the choices of state actors, the actions of individuals and groups in society, and economic trends and circumstances evolve in an interactive, mutually constitutive fashion.