The politics of weak control: State capacity and economic semi-formality in the middle east

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Volumn 22, Issue 1-2, 2002, Pages 43-52

  Kamrava, Mehran ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77951881098     PISSN: 1089201X     EISSN: 1548226X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/1089201X-22-1-2-43     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. Joel Migdal, "Studying the State" in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure, ed. Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 208-235.
2. Joel Migdal, Atul Kohli, and Vivienne Shue, eds., State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
3. A very small sample includes: James Bill and Robert Springborg, Politics in the Middle East, 5th ed. (New York: Longman, 2000).
4. Simon Bromley, Rethinking Middle East Politics (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).
5. Fred Halliday and Hamza Alavi, eds., State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1988)
6. Jamil Jreisat Politics without Process: Administering Development in the Arab World (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1997)
7. Ghassan Salame, ed. The Foundations of the Arab State (London: Croom Helm, 1987).
8. Iliya Harik and Denis Sullivan, eds., Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).
9. Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2000).
10. Abdo Baaklini, Guilain Denoeux, and Robert Springborg Legislative Politics in the Arab World: The Resurgence of Democratic Institutions (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999).
11. John Esposito and John Voll, Islam and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
12. Najib Ghadbian, Democratization and the Islamist Challenge in the Arab World (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1997).
13. Mohamed Hamid, The Politicization of Islam: A Case Study of Tunisia (Boulder: Westview, 1998)
14. Emad Eldin Shahin, Political Ascent: Contemporary Islamic Movements in North Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).
15. Rex Brynen, "Economic Crisis and Post Democratization in the Arab World: The Case of Jordan" Canadian Journal of Political Science25, no.1 (1992): 69-97.
16. Steven Dorr, "Democratization in the Middle East," in Global Transformation and the Third World, ed. Robert Slater, Barry Shutz, and Steven Dorr (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1993), 131-157.
17. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, "Crises, Elites, and Democratization in the Arab World," The Middle East Journal 47, no. 2 (1993): 292-305
18. Kanan Makiya, "Toleration and the New Arab Politics," Journal of Democracy6, no. 1, (1995): 90-103
19. Richard Augustus Norton, ed. Civil Society in the Middle East (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995).
20. Eva Bellin, "Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in Late-Developing Countries," World Politics52 (January 2000): 179.
21. Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
22. See for example Friedreich Schneider, "What Do We Know about Shadow Economies: Evidence from 21 OECD Countries," World Economics 2, no.4, (2001): 19-32.
23. F. Gregory Gause, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994).
24. Morocco and Egypt represent two extremes of accommodation and repression respectively, with the Moroccan state giving greater freedom of action to the legislature in the 1990s more than ever before while the Egyptian state has become increasingly more repressive. See Baaklini, Denoeux, and Springborg, Legislative Politics in the Arab World.
25. Migdal, "Studying the State," 221.
26. For a definition of rentierism see note 34 below.
27. Hooshang Amirahmadi, Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990)
28. Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, The Price of Wealth: Economies and Institutions in the Middle East (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1997)
29. Manochehr Dorraj, "State, Petroleum, and Democratization in the Middle East and North Africa," in The Changing Political Economy of the Third World, ed. Manochehr Dorraj (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), 119-143.
30. Ellis Jay Goldberg, ed., The Social History of Labor in the Middle East (Boulder: Westview, 1996)
31. Iliya Harik, "Privatization: The Issues, the Prospects, and the Fears," in Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East, ed. Iliya Harik and Denis Sullivan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 1-23
32. Homa Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, 1926-1979 (New York: NYU Press, 1981).
33. Timothy Piro, The Political Economy of Market Reform in Jordan (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998)
34. Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 1996).
35. Edmund Burke ed., Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
36. Guilain Denoeux, Urban Unrest in the Middle East: A Comparative Study of Informal Networks in Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993).
37. An insightful exception is Deborah Harrold, "The Menace and Appeal of Algeria's Parallel Economy," Middle East Report (January-February 1995): 18-22.
38. Also, Sanchez, Palmiero, and Ferrero discuss a "quasi-formal" sector, although they apply the concept to "those earning a high income either because of advanced skills, or because of high capital intensity or because of oligarchical market environment," embodying "self-employed professionals like doctors, lawyers, etc.; small engineering units and manufacturing activities with significant amounts of skills and investment; selfemployed construction workers including plumbers and electricians and the like; and commercial activities with a substantial capital input." Carlos Sanchez, Horacio Palmiero, and Fernando Ferrero, "The Informal and Quasi-Formal Sectors in Cordoba" in The Urban Informal Sector in Developing Countries: Employment, Poverty and Environment, ed. S.V. Sethuraman (Geneva: International Labour Office, 1981), 144-145
39. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Volume II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760 - 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 550.
40. Mahmoud S. Mohieldin and Peter W. Wright, "Formal and Informal Credit Markets in Egypt," Economic Development and Cultural Change 48, no.3 (April 2000): 660-661
41. Dimitri Vittas, "The Role of Non-Bank Financial Intermediaries, " Policy Research Working Paper, 1892, The World Bank, 1998, 1.
42. Peter Mansfield, A History of the Middle East (New York: Penguin, 1991), 119.
43. Charles Issawi, An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 8.
44. According to one study, "by 1969 the [Tunisian] state had established more than 80 public sector industrial enterprises, producing everything from sugar, clothes, and ice cream, to phosphates, ovens, and tractors." Eva Bellin, "The Politics of Profit in Tunisia: Utility of the Rentier Paradigm?" World Development22, no.3 (1994): 428.
45. John Ruedy, Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 216-217
46. Volker Perthes, The Political Economy of Syria under Asad (London: I.B.Tauris, 1995), 41-42
47. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 181-2.
48. Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, 1926-1979, 244-247
49. Louis Cantori, "Civil Society, Liberalism and the Corporatist Alternative in the Middle East," Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 31, no.1 (1997): 37.
50. Daniel Brumberg, "Survival Strategies vs. Democratic Bargains: The Politics of Economic Reform in Contemporary Egypt," in The Politics of Economic Reform in the Middle East, ed. Henri J. Barkey (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 76.
51. Nazih Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East (London: I.B.Tauris, 1999), 211.
52. Henri J. Barkey, "Introduction: Economic Reform in the Middle East," in The Politics of Economic Reform in the Middle East, ed. Henri J. Barkey (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 5-7.
53. According to a 1998 study of privatization in Egypt, for example, "despite recent aggressive economic reforms, the private sector's initiatives are insufficient to drive Egypt's growth and are far behind private sector contributions to economic activity in other developing countries." Samiha Fawzy, "The Business Environment in Egypt," working paper no. 34, The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, Cairo, November 1998, 26.
54. Bradford Dillman, State and Private Sector in Algeria: The Politics of Rent-Seeking and Failed Development (Boulder: Westview, 2000), 31.
55. Perthes, The Political Economy of Syria under Asad, 61.
56. Mokhtar Khattab, Constraints to Privatization: The Egyptian Experience working paper no. 38, The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, Cairo, May 1999, 2.
57. Emile Sahliyeh, "The Limits of State Power in the Middle East," Arab Studies Quarterly22, no.4, (Fall 2000): 1-30.
58. Brumberg, "Survival Strategies vs. Democratic Bargains," 75.
59. The rentier phenomenon has been discussed extensively in the political economy literature of the Middle East. Briefly, rentierism is the result of earning high profits from economic activities that do not require proportionately high levels of productivity. For example, the extraction and export of oil is a relatively easy task compared to the amount of revenues and profits that are accrued from its sale abroad. In the Middle East, in fact, oil has become a primary source of rent for most of the region's governments, and the oil monarchies in particular have become rentier states par excellence. But rent-seeking is not limited to the export of primary products at highly profitable rates. "Rationing foreign exchange, restricting entry through licensing procedures, and instituting tariffs or quantitative restrictions on imports are all ways of creating rents." Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 23.
60. Hootan Shambayati, "The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy: State and Business in Turkey and Iran," Comparative Politics 26, no.3, (April 1994), 309.
61. Meliha Altunisik, "A Rentier State's Response to Oil Crisis," Arab Studies Quarterly18, no.4, (Fall 1996): 56.
62. Shambayati, "The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy," 309.
63. Bellin, "The Politics of Profit in Tunisia," 428.
64. Shambayati, "The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy," 309.
65. Altunisik, "A Rentier State's Response to Oil Crisis," 56.
66. Bellin, "The Politics of Profit in Tunisia," 432.
67. Claude Liauzu, "The History of Labor and the Workers' Movement in North Africa," in The Social History of Labor in the Middle East, ed. Ellis Jay Goldberg (Boulder: Westview, 1996), 214.
68. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 210.
69. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 316-317
70. David Waldner, State Building and Late Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 89.
71. This class has alternatively been labeled the "state class," "bureaucratic class," or "state bourgeoisie." See Perthes, The Political Economy of Syria Under Asad, 10
72. John Waterbury, "The Twilight of the State Bourgeoisie," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 23, no.1 (1991): 1-17.
73. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 330.
74. Fred Lawson, "Political-Economic Trends in Ba'thi Syria: A Reinterpretation," Orient29, no.4 (December 1988): 590.
75. Significantly, when the state transferred resources to the private sector, or at least allowed it to acquire greater breathing room, its primary concern was to foster beneficial conditions for the growth of larger private companies rather than petit bourgeois entrepreneurs. Perthes, A Political Economy of Syria under Asad, 61.
76. Dillman, State and Private Sector in Algeria, 29.
77. Despite widespread hopes for political liberalization in the Middle East in the scholarly community, the region has witnessed a general "deliberalization" in most countries, with the exceptions of Iran, Lebanon, and to a lesser extent Morocco. See, for example, Eberhard Kienle, "More than a Re sponse to Islamism: The Political Deliberalization of Egypt in the 1990s," Middle East Journal 52, no.2 (Spring 1998): 219-235
78. I am grateful to officials at KOSGEB's Ankara headquarters for freely discussing with me, in July 1999, the organization's activities, its successes, and the difficulties it encounters in dealing with SMEs.
79. Palmer, Leila, and Yassin, The Egyptian Bureaucracy, 119.
80. Waterbury, Exposed to Innumerable Delusions, 5.
81. Mehran Kamrava, Democracy in the Balance: Culture and Society in the Middle East (New York: Chatham House, 1998), 95.
82. Chaudhry, The Price of Wealth, 7.
83. Mervat Hatem, "Egypt's Middle Class in Crisis: The Sexual Division of Labor," Middle East Journal 42, no.3 (1988): 407-22
84. Safia K Mohsen, "New Images, Old Re flections: Working Middle-Class Women in Egypt," in Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices for Change, ed. Elizabeth Wamock Fernea (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), 57.
85. Mark Tessler, "The Origins of Popular Support for Islamic Movements: A Political Economy Analysis," Islam, Democracy, and the State in North Africa, ed. John Entelis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 94. In the early 1990s, a similar "suitcase trade" emerged between Turkey and Russia, although, in 1997, Russia's seemingly chronic economic difficulties put an effective end to it.
86. Joel Migdal, "The state in society: an approach to struggles for domination," State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World, ed. Joel Migdal, Atul Kohli, and Vivienne Shue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 14.
87. Denis Sullivan, "Extra-State Actors and Privatization in Egypt," Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East, ed. Iliya Harik and Denis Sullivan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 24-45.
88. Michael Field, The Merchants: The Big Business Families of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States (Woodstock: Overlook Press 1985).
89. Shaul Bakhash The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution (London: I.B.Tauris, 11985).