Richard Lawless - North Africa: Contemporary Politics and Economic Development

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: THE ECONOMY OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Volume 22

NORTH AFRICA

First published in 1984

This edition first published in 2015

by Routledge

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1984 R.I. Lawlessand A.M. Findlay

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-78710-0 (set)

eISBN: 978-1-315-74408-7 (set)

ISBN: 978-1-138-81014-3 (Volume 22)

eISBN: 978-1-315-74472-8 (Volume 22)

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1984 R.I. Lawless and A.M. Findlay

Croom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row,

Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

North Africa: contemporary politics and economic

development.

1. Africa, North Social aspects

2. Africa, North Political aspects

I. Lawless, Richard I. II. Findlay, Allan M.

961. 04 HDT177

ISBN 0-7099-1609-4

All rights reserved. For information, write:

St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

First published in the United States of America in 1984

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

North Africa, contemporary politics and economic

development.

Includes index.

1. Africa, North Politics and government. 2. Africa,

North Economic conditions. I. Lawless, Richard I.

DT204.N67 1984 320.961 83-43001

ISBN 0-312-57812-1

CONTENTS

Stace Birks and Clive Sinclair

This volume aims to be a reader on the politics and economies of the four countries of Northwest Africa Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya for the decade of the 1970s. The colonial history of the Maghreb states linked them traditionally to the politics and economy of Europe, but contemporary political and economic changes both within Northwest Africa and in the world economy has led to these countries becoming increasingly marginalised by the European nations. Although the political courses pursued by Algeria. Morocco. Tunisia and Libya have been strikingly different, one from another, during the 1970s, they have all been strongly influenced by international economic forces such as the international division of labour, the dependence on technology provided by the major international corporations, and in the case of Tunisia and Morocco by international aid programmes. By the late 1970s all the Northwest African nations were increasingly being drawn into a complex political and economic involvement with the Mashreq or Arab East, acting both as mediators in the conflicts of the Arab world and as major recipients of finance from the oil-rich states of the Middle East. All these forces have had the effect of introducing common constraints on the independent economic and political courses being sought by the different nations of Northwest Africa.

This reader devotes one chapter to the politics of each nation followed in the second half of the book by a chapter which concentrates on the economic aspects of change in each state. The boundary between political and economic aspects of development is a hard one to define, and for this reason some minor overlap between chapters has been permitted so that chapters on the contemporary politics of each nation can be read independently from those on the economy. Likewise the authors of each chapter have been given considerable academic freedom in their approach, resulting in light being thrown on the important issues from a number of different perspectives.

The editors gratefully acknowledge their thanks to Nancy Smart (Centre for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies. University of Durham) for undertaking preparation of the cameraready copy of the book with great patience and care. Without her considerable efforts the publication of this book would not have been possible. Acknowledgements are also due to Dennis Ewbank (Centre for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, University of Durham) for his help in preparing the tables for final publication; to Margaret Cape, who drew most of the maps; and to Leslie Hill (Photographic Unit of the Department of Geography, University of Glasgow) for his help. In addition we are most grateful to Marion FaroukSluglett, Anne Findlay and Peter Sluglett who completed some translation work on our behalf.

Source: Middle East Economic Digest (the figures refer to January of each year).

Werner Ruf

How can one justify another book on North Africa, especially when it is almost impossible to find one's way through the existing literature? The authors of this book have tried to tackle this very problem, and have attempted to produce a wide ranging review of the state of political and economic development in the Maghreb countries at the beginning of the 1980s.

Such an attempt to draw up a balance sheet is important for a number of reasons. In the first place, the gradual concentration of economic relations, transport networks and communications systems has meant that the world has become smaller, and in this context North Africa lies at the southern door of Europe. Secondly, the Mediterranean basin is becoming increasingly important in the general context of the rising tensions in international relations; such tensions include the so-called crisis in Afghanistan, which broke out, perhaps not entirely fortuitously, shortly after the fall of the Shah, the Americans most reliable ally, and the war between Iran and Iraq, which may well lead to a dangerous destabilisation of both regimes and which has already been responsible for a substantial check to Soviet influence in the area. An important consequence of the Iran/Iraq war has been the collapse of OPEC, but its impact has not been confined to the price of oil and the revenues of the oil producing states in the region. In the medium term it may well have serious implications for the international financial system, particularly if the Gulf states are no longer able to fund their ambitious development plans with current revenues from oil and are forced to withdraw their enormous deposits from Western banks.