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.

This book offers the first critical engagement with the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Challenging conventional wisdom on the origins and contemporary dynamics of capitalism in the region, these cutting-edge essays demonstrate how critical political economy can illuminate both historical and contemporary dynamics of the region and contribute to wider political economy debates from the vantage point of the Middle East. Leading scholars, representing several disciplines, contribute both thematic and country-specific analyses. Their writings critically examine major issues in political economy—notably, the mutual constitution of states, markets, and classes; the co-constitution of class, race, gender, and other forms of identity; varying modes of capital accumulation and the legal, political, and cultural forms of their regulation; relations among local, national, and global forms of capital, class, and culture; technopolitics; the role of war in the constitution of states and classes; and practices and cultures of domination and resistance. Visit politicaleconomyproject.org for additional media and learning resources.

The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil, which started mid-2014, had major repercussions across the Middle East for net oil exporters, as well as importers closely connected to the oil-producing countries from the Gulf. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century – one that has continued to impose constraints, but also provided opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The studies reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period but were incapable of repelling burdensome adjustment policies, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to fulfil the expectation that they could benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection signifies that rentierism still prevails with regard to both empirical dynamics in the Middle East and academic discussions on its political economy.

This book analyzes the political economy of the MENA region with a focus on pre-revolutionary political and economic conditions, the 2011 revolution itself, and post-revolutionary political processes in Tunisia. The author places particular emphasis on the political role of women, Islam, and democracy after the revolution, and argues that post-Revolution Tunisia serves as an ideal model for the MENA region to follow. This volume will interest scholars, students, researchers, and everyone who is interested in the politics of MENA and political economy.

Despite its oil wealth, the Middle East and North Africa is economically stagnating. Growth rates are comparatively unfavorable and insufficient to substantially improve citizens’ lives. Whether this economic inertia can be overcome or will continue into the indefinite future is a vital question that confronts both the region and the world. In this book leading Middle East scholar Robert Springborg discusses the economic future of this region by examining the national and regional political causes of its contemporary underperformance. Overgrown, weak MENA states, he explains, have been unable to escape their unfavorable historical legacies. “Limited access orders” and the deep states based in the means of coercion that underpin them undermine state capacities and constrain beneficial, autonomous political and economic activity. Increasingly challenged by their populations, MENA states face the daunting and so far unmet challenge of diversifying non-sustainable, rentier political economies away from direct or indirect dependence on oil and gas revenues. Stagnation of those revenues and failure to generate alternative income sources, combined with rapid population growth, presents the region with an economic challenge that can only be overcome by profound political change.

This integrated, analytic text presents a comprehensive analysis of the transformation of the political economy of the entire contemporary Middle East region over the past several decades. As did the first edition, this new edition, extensively rewritten and revised, stresses how different development strategies have contributed to the creation of powerful interests that now often block needed change. The book also retains its focus on the interaction of economic development processes, state systems, and social actors. The revisions not only include much new data and evidence but also take into account emerging issues, such as youth unemployment, impending water shortages, the experience with structural adjustment, pressures for democratization, and the rise of political Islam. The authors also give special attention to the impact of such recent international events as the collapse of the oil boom, the end of the Cold War, and Operation Desert Storm.

An original and empirically grounded analysis of the Gulf monarchies and their role in shaping the political economy of the Middle East.

Offers a critical and realistic reassessment of the threats posed to the environment in the Middle East, and what can be done about them.

The emerging consensus that institutions shape political and economic outcomes has produced few theories of institutional change and no defensible theory of institutional origination. Kiren Aziz Chaudhry shows how state and market institutions are created and transformed in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, two countries that typify labor and oil exporters in the developing worlds.In a world where the international economy dramatically affects domestic developments, the question of where institutions come from becomes at once more urgent and more complex. In both Saudi Arabia and Yemen, fundamental state and market institutions forged during a period of isolation at the end of World War I were destroyed and reshaped not once but three times in response to exogenous shocks.Comparing boom-bust cycles, Chaudhry exposes the alternating social and organizational origins of institutions, arguing that both broad changes in the international economy and specific forms of international integration shape institutional outcomes. Labor and oil exporters thus experience identical economic cycles but generate radically different state, market, and financial institutions in response to different resource flows. Chaudhry supplemented years of field work in Saudi Arabia and Yemen with extensive analysis of previously unavailable materials in the Saudi national archives.

Adopting a political-economy perspective, this book is an original collection of research chapters that focus on Turkey’s economic-development experience from the nineteenth century to the present. It provides a systematic and chronological examination of Turkey’s major historical dynamics in the economic and socio-political spheres. The chapters are organized according to the consecutive phases of Turkey’s political-economic development. Each chapter not only reflects on the country-specific aspects of those development phases, but also clarifies the dependence of domestic-policy orientations on the dynamics of the world economy. As such, the book provides a historically-conscious, political-economic account of Turkey’s dependent-development experience. The book serves as a quality reference on the political economy of modern Turkey, bringing together fourteen prominent experts as contributing authors who have devoted their intellectual lives to the understanding and explanation of political-economic dynamics in both Turkey and the world. All contributors write on a historical period of the Turkish economy in which they are most specialized. This aspect of the book is a momentous advantage in the field of Turkey's political economy, enabling the highest degree of academic expertise to concentrate in each chapter.