Since the events of 2011, most Arab countries have slipped into a state of war, and living conditions for the majority of the working population have not changed for the better. This edited collection examines the socioeconomic conditions and contests the received policy framework to demonstrate that workable alternatives do exist.
Since the events of 2011, most Arab countries have slipped into a state of war, and living conditions for the majority of the working population have not changed for the better. This edited collection examines the socioeconomic conditions and contests the received policy framework to demonstrate that workable alternatives do exist.
Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.
Since the events of 2011, most Arab countries have slipped into a state of war, and living conditions for the majority of the working population have not changed for the better. This edited collection examines the socioeconomic conditions and contests the received policy framework to demonstrate that workable alternatives do exist.
Qatar and the Arab Spring offers a frank examination of Qatar's startling rise to regional and international prominence, describing how its distinctive policy stance toward the Arab Spring emerged. In only a decade, Qatari policy-makers - led by the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani - catapulted Qatar from a sleepy backwater to a regional power with truly international reach. In addition to pursuing an aggressive state-branding strategy with its successful bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar forged a reputation for diplomatic mediation that combined intensely personalized engagement with financial backing and favorable media coverage through the Al-Jazeera. These factors converged in early 2011 with the outbreak of the Arab Spring revolts in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen, which Qatari leaders saw as an opportunity to seal their regional and international influence, rather than as a challenge to their authority, and this guided their support of the rebellions against the Gaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria. From the high watermark of Qatari influence after the toppling of Gaddafi in 2011, that rapidly gave way to policy overreach in Syria in 2012, Coates Ulrichsen analyses Qatari ambition and capabilities as the tiny emirate sought to shape the transitions in the Arab world.
This work compares the development experiences of East Asia and the Arab world. It posits that in view of the collapse in socialism and its ideological retreat, their development performances are intensely over determined by their modes of integration with world capital. For East Asia, it's through manufacturing of civilian-end use commodities and for the Arab World, through militarism. The book is a unique attempt approaching the topic from the theoretical angle using an analytical comparative perspective.
As Yemenis start planning the reconstruction and rebuilding of their country after recent turmoil they face huge challenges in every major sphere. This book discusses the political and economic background and analyses the most important issues: the option of improved governance through a federal government addressing the powerful and patronage networks of the previous regime investing in Yemen's human and natural resources to compensate for falling revenues from oil and gas maintaining rural life through reduced dependence on irrigated agriculture and investing in enhancing rain fed agriculture addressing the issue of urban water shortage through desalination involving women in enhancing security
A large percentage of workers and firms operate in the informal economy, outside the line of sight of governments in emerging market and developing economies. This may hold back the recovery in these economies from the deep recessions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic--unless governments adopt a broad set of policies to address the challenges of widespread informality. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery and for long-term development. It finds that pervasive informality is associated with significantly weaker economic outcomes--including lower government resources to combat recessions, lower per capita incomes, greater poverty, less financial development, and weaker investment and productivity.
Since 2011, democratic transitions in the Middle East and North Africa have mostly failed to consolidate and have been hindered by the difficult economic heritage of previous authoritarian governments. Yet newly established democratic governments must deliver on the expectations of their people, especially the poorer strata, otherwise disillusionment may open the door to restoration of authoritarian rule. Can democracy succeed? Various ideas for economic policies that may help consolidate the early democratisation process are proposed in this volume, while major obstacles on the way to democratic success are also highlighted. Contributors include: Alissa Amico, Laura El-Katiri, Philippe Fargues, Bassam Fattouh, Steffen Hertog, Giacomo Luciani, Samir Makdisi, Adeel Malik, Bassem Snaije, Robert Springborg, and Eckart Woertz.
