Globalization, international finance, and political Islam in the Arab World

Middle East Journal

Volumn 60, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 444-466

  El Said, Hamed ^a,b   Harrigan, Jane ^c  

^a ROYAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY   (Jordan)

^b MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^c UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC RELATIONS; GEOPOLITICS; GLOBALIZATION; IMF; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; ISLAMISM; POLITICAL RELATIONS; SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS; WORLD BANK;

ASIA; EURASIA; MIDDLE EAST; SAUDI ARABIA;

EID: 33748132212     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3751/60.3.12     Document Type: Article

References (115)

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2. J. Mittelman, "Globalisation: Captors and Captives," Third World Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 6 (2000), p. 917.
3. See, for example, Third World Quarterly, which devoted its 2000 edition to the discussion of the social impact of globalization in Asian countries that were most severely affected by the 1997-98 financial crisis.
4. J. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (London: Penguin Books, 2002), p. 41.
5. See, for example, M. Halaiqah, Jordan's Accession to the World Trade Organisation: Challenges and Perspectives, Working Paper, (Amman: Sindebad Publishing House, 2000);
6. P. Alonao-Gamo, S. Fennell, and K. Saker, Adjusting to New Realities: MENA, The Uruguay Round and the European Union Mediterranean Initiative, IMF Working Paper (Washington: IMF, 1997);
7. N. Shafiq, ed., Prospects for Middle Eastern and North African Economies: From Boom to Bust and Back? (London: McMillan, 1998);
8. D. Vandewalle, ed., North Africa: Development and Reform (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996).
9. P. Cook and M. Minogue, "Waiting for Privatisation in Developing Countries: Towards the Integration of Economic and non-Economic Explanations," Public Administration and Development, Vol. 10 (1990), p. 400.
10. There is a heated debate going on between what has come to be known as "hyper-globalists" and "critics" over the concept and definition of globalization, when it really started, its extent and scope, and whether globalization is a completely new phenomenon or a continuation of long historical developments. For more details, see P. Dicken, Global Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century, (London: Sage, 2003) chapter one;
11. D. Held, A Globalising World? Culture, Economics, Politics (London: Routledge, 2000);
12. World Bank, On The Threshold of the Third Globalisation: Why Liberal Capitalism Might Fail? (Washington DC: Research Department, December 1999);
13. P. McMichael, "Globalisation: Myths and Realities" in Roberts & Hite, From Modernisation to Globalisation (2000);
14. R. Wade, "US Hegemony and the World Bank: the fight over people and ideas," in Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 2002).
15. Wade, "US Hegemony," p. 216.
16. Also see G. Dunkley, The Free Trade Adventure: The WTO, the Uruguay Round and Globalism - A Critique (London: Zed Books, 1997).
17. See Stiglitz, Globalization
18. and S. Wang, "The Social and Political Implications of China's WTO Membership" Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 9, No. 25, (2000).
19. J. Toye, Dilemmas of Development (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987)
20. and Dunkley, The Free Trade Adventure provide a comprehensive discussion and critique for free trade arguments.
21. Also see M. Florio, "Economists, Privatisation in Russia and the Waning of the Washington Consensus," Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 2002), pp. 374-415,
22. Wayne Ellwood, No Non-Sense Guide to Globalisation (London: Verso, 2004).
23. R. Woltering in his paper "The Roots of Islamist Popularity" Third World Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 6 (2002), pp. 1133-1143, defines political Islam as the desire for the Islamization of society, which requires replacing the existing political system with a usually - undefined - Islamic one. The implementation of shari'a is a common goal although this term is more of a collective noun than a reference to a specific body or system of law. He contrasts political Islam with Christian-Democratic parties in Western Europe, Hindu parties in East Africa, and the Jewish Shas Party in Israel since the latter aim to work within the given political system they operate under whereas political Islam aims to overthrow the existing system in favor of "something Islamic."
24. Stabilization programs have been extensively analyzed. See for example T. Killick, IMF Programmes in Developing Countries: Design and Impact (London: Routledge, 1995)
25. and G. Bird, IMF Lending to Developing Countries: Issues and Evidence (London: Routledge, 1995).
26. For an analysis of World Bank structural adjustment lending see P. Mosley, J. Harrigan and J. Toye, Aid and Power: The World Bank and Policy Based Lending, Vols. I and II, (London: Routledge, 1995).
27. Ayubi, Over-Stating, p. 332.
28. R. Dhumale, "Public Investment in the Middle East and North Africa: Towards Fiscal Efficiency," Development Policy Review, Vol. 18 (2000);
29. I. Harik and D. Sullivan, eds., Privatisation and Liberalisation in the Middle East, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992);
30. T. Niblock and E. Murphy, eds., Economic and Political Liberalisation in the Middle East (London: British Academy Press, 1993);
31. Shafiq, Prospects;
32. Vandewalle, North Africa;
33. IMF, Building on Progress: Reform and Growth in the Middle East and North Africa (Washington: Middle East Department, 1996);
34. M. El-Erian, S. Eken, S. Fennell, J. P. Chauffour, Growth and Stability in the Middle East and North Africa (Washington: IMF, 1996).
35. Shafik, Prospects, p. 8.
36. K. Pfeifer, "Between Hard Rocks and Hard Choices: International Finance and Economic Adjustment in North Africa" in D. Vandewalle, ed., North Africa: Development and Reform (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), p. 40.
37. S. Niva, "Between Clash and Cooptation: US Foreign Policy and the Spectre of Islam," Middle East Report, Vol. 28, No. 208 (Fall 1998), p. 27.
38. S. Hubbell, "The Containment Myth: US Middle East Policy in Theory and Practice," Middle East Report, Vol. 28, No. 208 (Fall 1998), p. 9.
39. Niva, "Between Clash," p. 27.
40. V. Perthes, "Points of Differences and Cases for Cooperation: European Critique of US Middle East Policy," Middle East Report (Fall 1998), p. 30.
41. When asked about the expected benefits from joining the WTO, for example, the main benefit highlighted by Jordanian officials at the Ministry of Planning was the "massive aid that Jordan will be receiving from her accession into the WTO" (Interviews with the authors, Amman, July 2003).
42. K. Pfeifer, "How Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Even Egypt Became IMF Success Stories," The Middle East Report, Vol. 29, No. 210 (1999), pp. 23 and 26.
43. Economist, "Murder, and its Consequences: How Safe an Anti-Iraq Ally is Jordan?" (October 31, 2002).
44. Between 1992-2002, Jordan also received at least five IMF stand-by and extended facility arrangements, several World Bank sectoral loans, and at least five debt reschedulings by the Paris Club in addition to several reschedulings by international private banks. See F. Al-Fanik, ed., Jordan Economic Monitor, Monthly Newsletter, several issues;
45. H. El-Said, "The Political Economy of Reform in Jordan: Breaking Resistance to Reform?" In G. Joffe, Jordan in Transition 1990-2000 (London: Hurst, 2002). Jordan: Breaking Resistance to Reform?"
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47. W. Swearingen, "Agricultural Reform in North Africa: Economic Necessity and Environmental Dilemmas" in De Vandewalle, ed., North Africa: Development and Reform (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), p. 79.
48. Algeria still managed to reduce its internal debt, keep current account in surplus and even developed the largest liquefied natural gas facility in the world. Rarely has the Arab world in recent decades witnessed a leadership that was so committed to development and industrialization. For more details, see Swearingen, "Agricultural Reform;"
49. Pfeifer, "Between Hard Rocks;"
50. A. Layachi, "The Domestic and International Constraints of Economic Adjustment in Algeria" in D. Vandewalle, ed., North Africa: Development and Reform (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), pp. 129-152; Domestic and International Constraints of Economic Adjustment in Algeria" in D. Vandewalle, ed., North Africa: Development and Reform
51. D. Harrold, "Economic Discourse in Algeria: Economists Circle the State" in D. Vandewalle, ed., North Africa, pp. 153-176.
52. J. Harrigan, C. Wang and H. El-Said, "The Economic and Political Determinants of IMF and World Bank Lending in the Middle East and North Africa," World Development, Vol. 34, No. 2 (February 2006), p. 247.
53. Also see J. Harrigan, C. Wang and H. El-Said, "The Politics of IMF and World Bank Lending: will it backfire in the Middle East and North Africa?" in A. Paloni and M. Zanardi, The IMF, World Bank and Policy Reform (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 64-99.
54. We took at IMF loans rather than World Bank program loans because the former are almost always a prerequisite for the latter.
55. The traditional division of labor in the 1980s was that the IMF would take care of balance of payments problems while medium-term growth would be the concern of the World Bank (Mosley, Harrigan and Toye, Aid and Power: The World Bank and Policy-Based Lending, Vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 51-56.
56. A Probit model is a model where the dependent variable we are trying to explain takes the value of zero or one. In our case zero if the country did not receive an IMF loan in a given year, and one if it did. We then use a series of explanatory variables to try to explain and predict the value of the dependent variable via regression analysis.
57. Hubbell, "The Containment Myth," p. 9.
58. While the early work of Harik and Sullivan (Privitisation) and Niblock and Murphy (Economic and Political) focuses mainly on the political and economic impediments to reform in the region, Shafiq's (Prospects) and Vandewalle's (North Africa) work focuses mainly on the potential benefits from further reform in the region and hence pays little attention to the social dimension.
59. For the social impact of reform in other regions, see Stiglitz, Globalization;
60. Dunkley, The Free Trade Adventure;
61. M. Goldstein, "IMF Structural Conditionality: How Much is Too Much?" Paper presented at NBER Conference on Economic and Financial Crisis in Emerging Market Economies (Woodstock, Vermont, 2000);
62. F. Stewart, "Income Distribution and Development," Working Paper Series #37 (Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, 2000);
63. CAFOD (Catholic Aid Agency) Taming Tigers: Social Impact of Crisis (London, March, 1998).
64. Pfeifer, "How Tunisia."
65. See Harrigan and El-Said, The IMF and the World Bank in Jordan: A Case of Over Optimism and Elusive Growth, The Review of International Organizations (forthcoming, September 2006).
66. R. El-Ghonemy, Affluence and Poverty in the Middle East (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 178-180.
67. United Nations Arab Human Development Report (New York: United Nations, 2002).
68. Also see Economist, "An Unsparing New Report by Arab Scholars Explains Why Their Region Lags Behind so Much of the World," (July 4, 2002).
69. These figures have been gathered by the authors in preparation for their research project on the region funded by the UK DIFD from the following sources: UN Statistical Year Book (New York, 2001), pp. 244-258
70. UN Arab Human Development Report, 2002, p. 158;
71. International Labour Organisation, Yearly Statistical of Employment, Geneva, ILO, several issues;
72. World Bank, World Development Report 2000/01 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),
73. and Harrigan, El-Said and Wang, "The Economic and Political," (2006).
74. Pfeifer, "Between Hard Rocks," p. 33;
75. Swearingen, "Agricultural Reform," p. 79;
76. El-Ghonemy, Affluence, p. 198.
77. Pfeifer, "How Tunisia," p. 23.
78. R. Khalaf, "Zoellick Criticism Sets Back Egypt Hopes on Free Trade Deal:" Financial Times (June 24, 2003), p. 3.
79. Khalaf, "Zoellick Criticism."
80. G. Becker, Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education (London: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
81. B. Fine, Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the Turn of the Millennium (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 153.
82. E. Gamarnikow and A. Green, "Developing Social Capital: Dilemmas, Possibilities and Limitations in Education," in A. Hayton, ed., Tackling Disaffection and Social Exclusion (London: Cogan Page, 1999), pp. 58-59.
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84. A. Richards and J. Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East (Colorado: Westview Press, second edition, 1996), p. 228.
85. These figures were taken directly by the authors from the headquarters of The Islamic Charity Centre Society in Amman, Jordan on January 2, 2004. The Centre is responsible for all investments and projects initiated by the Movement, and manages all of its social and welfare programs.
86. On Hamas' social program and activities, see Economist, "Palestine's Elections: Hamas ahoy!" (January 19, 2006).
87. Interview with the authors, (Amman: January 1, 2004).
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89. Niva, "Between Clash and Cooptation," p. 28.
90. This information is based on fieldwork, including interviews by the authors with Islamists in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco during 2005 and early 2006.
91. It is evident that Islamists in Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan not only have been very careful not to nominate a large number of their candidates in local elections, but that most of their candidates have actually been winning elections in their designated areas. For example, the Moroccan Justice and Development Islamist Party nominated only 52 candidates in the last elections, 42 of them won their seats, and six of whom were females.
92. T. Schirato and J. Webb, Understanding Globalisation (London: Sage Publication, 2003).
93. Aljazeera News, http://www.radiosawa.com/article.aspx?id=881926, (May 20, 2006).
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98. Also see Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2004),
99. and Economist, "Investigative Journalism," (October 21, 2004)
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105. For more details, see Economist, "Dancing in Kenya to the Donor's Tune," (August 3, 2000).
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110. Pfeifer, "Between Hard Rocks," p. 31.
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113. Y. Sadowsky, Political Vegetables? Businessmen and Bureaucrats in the Development of Egyptian Agriculture (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1991).
114. H. El-Said, "The Political Economy of Reform in Jordan: Breaking Resistance to Reform?" in G. Joffe, ed., Transitions in Contemporary Jordan (1989-2000) (London: C. Hurst and Co., 2002), p. 271.
115. Quoted in "Revolution Delayed," Economist, (September 5, 2002).