Drawing on Khalid Ikram's extensive knowledge of economic policymaking at the highest levels, The Political Economy of Reforms in Egypt lays out the enduring features of the Egyptian economy and its performance since 1952 before presenting an account of policy-making, growth and structural change under the country's successive presidents to the present day.
This pioneering volume addresses the key issue of the relationship between politics and economics, with special reference to Egypt in the 1990s. Drawing on the expertise of both political scientists and economists, it assembles an impressive array of data, including detailed opinion surveys, to demonstrate conclusively that political and economic reform need to proceed in tandem. In an insightful analysis of the Egyptian legislature, the authors draw attention to a fundamental aspect of institutional reform, namely the informational and knowledge base of legislation as well as the organizational infrastructure of policy formulation. As regards Egypt's economic performance since the early 1990s, they focus in particular on impediments to improved export performance and offer solid recommendations as to how such obstacles might be overcome. This stimulating study makes a timely contribution to political economic analysis, which may at the same time prove helpful in the formulation of new policies.
Egypt has undergone significant economic liberalization under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, USAID, and the European Commission. Yet after more than four decades of economic reform, the Egyptian economy still fails to meet popular expectations for inclusive growth, better standards of living, and high-quality employment. While many analysts point to cronyism and corruption, Amr Adly finds the root causes of this stagnation in the underlying social and political conditions of economic development. Cleft Capitalism offers a new explanation for why market-based development can fail to meet expectations: small businesses in Egypt are not growing into medium and larger businesses. The practical outcome of this missing middle syndrome is the continuous erosion of the economic and social privileges once enjoyed by the middle classes and unionized labor, without creating enough winners from market making. This in turn set the stage for alienation, discontent, and, finally, revolt. With this book, Adly uncovers both an institutional explanation for Egypt's failed market making, and sheds light on the key factors of arrested economic development across the Global South.
The economies of Turkey and Egypt, remarkably similar until the early 1980s, have since taken divergent paths. Turkey has successfully implemented a policy of export led industrialisation whilst Egypt’s manufacturing industry and exports have stagnated. In this book, Amr Adly uses extensive primary research to present detailed comparisons of Turkey’s and Egypt’s state administrative and private sector capacities and links between the two. The conclusion the author draws is that the external contexts for both were so alike that this cannot account for their diverging paths. Instead, the author suggests a counterintuitive yet compelling explanation; that a democratic polity is far more likely than an authoritarian one to engender a successful developmental state. Emerging in the wake of the January revolution in Egypt, when hopes for democratisation were raised, this book provides a fresh perspective on the topical subject of state reform and development in the Middle East and will be of interest to students and scholar alike.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an economically diverse region. Despite undertaking economic reforms in many countries, and having considerable success in avoiding crises and achieving macroeconomic stability, the region’s economic performance in the past 30 years has been below potential. This paper takes stock of the region’s relatively weak performance, explores the reasons for this out come, and proposes an agenda for urgent reforms.
For nearly three decades, scholars and policymakers have placed considerable stock in judicial reform as a panacea for the political and economic turmoil plaguing developing countries. Courts are charged with spurring economic development, safeguarding human rights, and even facilitating transitions to democracy. How realistic are these expectations, and in what political contexts can judicial reforms deliver their expected benefits? This book addresses these issues through an examination of the politics of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, the most important experiment in constitutionalism in the Arab world. The Egyptian regime established a surprisingly independent constitutional court to address a series of economic and administrative pathologies that lie at the heart of authoritarian political systems. Although the Court helped the regime to institutionalize state functions and attract investment, it simultaneously opened new avenues through which rights advocates and opposition parties could challenge the regime. The book challenges conventional wisdom and provides insights into perennial questions concerning the barriers to institutional development, economic growth, and democracy in the developing world.
Brookings fellow Sadowski assigns blame for the failure of nearly 20 years of Western aid to improve the agriculture industry in Egypt. Development officials, he says, do not understand Egypt's political and social forces, so have contributed to entrenching capitalists Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Critical examinations of efforts to make governments more efficient and responsive Political upheavals and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have obscured efforts by many countries in the region to reform their public sectors. Unwieldy, unresponsive—and often corrupt—governments across the region have faced new pressure, not least from their publics, to improve the quality of public services and open up their decisionmaking processes. Some of these reform efforts were under way and at least partly successful before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2010. Reform efforts have continued in some countries despite the many upheavals since then. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of a wide range of reform efforts in nine countries. In six cases the reforms targeted core systems of government: Jordan's restructuring of cabinet operations, the Palestinian Authority's revision of public financial management, Morocco's voluntary retirement program, human resource management reforms in Lebanon, an e-governance initiative in Dubai, and attempts to improve transparency in Tunisia. Five other reform efforts tackled line departments of government, among them Egypt's attempt to improve tax collection and Saudi Arabia's work to improve service delivery and bill collection. Some of these reform efforts were more successful than others. This book examines both the good and the bad, looking not only at what each reform accomplished but at how it was implemented. The result is a series of useful lessons on how public sector reforms can be adopted in MENA.
