logo for Harvard University Press
A History of Middle East Economies in the Twentieth Century
Roger Owen and Sevket Pamuk
Harvard University Press, 1998
This important book on economic development in the modern Middle East examines, for the first time, the separate national economies of the Arab states, including the Gulf, Israel, and Turkey, from 1918 to the present. It describes the main trends within each economy based on the best available statistical data, and answers larger questions concerning the long-term growth of the countries, first in the colonial period, then in the periods characterized by planning and development, followed by the first steps toward liberalization and structural adjustment. It evaluates government policy in promoting the protection of imports and in advancing market economies. Policies employed by the oil-producing states to build new institutional structures based on near unlimited supplies of capital and labor are also examined. The Middle East economies are placed in their proper international context, and questions of colonialism and labor migration are discussed. The authors evaluate where the Middle Eastern economies are now, and speculate about how they may develop in the future.
[more]

front cover of The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life
The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life
Roger Owen
Harvard University Press, 2012

The monarchical presidential regimes that prevailed in the Arab world for so long looked as though they would last indefinitely—until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life exposes for the first time the origins and dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century.

Presidents who rule for life have been a feature of the Arab world since independence. In the 1980s their regimes increasingly resembled monarchies as presidents took up residence in palaces and made every effort to ensure their sons would succeed them. Roger Owen explores the main features of the prototypical Arab monarchical regime: its household; its inner circle of corrupt cronies; and its attempts to create a popular legitimacy based on economic success, a manipulated constitution, managed elections, and information suppression.

Why has the Arab world suffered such a concentration of permanent presidential government? Though post-Soviet Central Asia has also known monarchical presidencies, Owen argues that a significant reason is the “Arab demonstration effect,” whereby close ties across the Arab world have enabled ruling families to share management strategies and assistance. But this effect also explains why these presidencies all came under the same pressure to reform or go. Owen discusses the huge popular opposition the presidential systems engendered during the Arab Spring, and the political change that ensued, while also delineating the challenges the Arab revolutions face across the Middle East and North Africa.

[more]

front cover of The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life
The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life
With a New Afterword
Roger Owen
Harvard University Press, 2014

The monarchical presidential regimes that prevailed in the Arab world for so long looked as though they would last indefinitely—until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life exposes for the first time the origins and dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century.

Presidents who rule for life have been a feature of the Arab world since independence. In the 1980s their regimes increasingly resembled monarchies as presidents took up residence in palaces and made every effort to ensure their sons would succeed them. Roger Owen explores the main features of the prototypical Arab monarchical regime: its household; its inner circle of corrupt cronies; and its attempts to create a popular legitimacy based on economic success, a manipulated constitution, managed elections, and information suppression.

Why has the Arab world suffered such a concentration of permanent presidential government? Though post-Soviet Central Asia has also known monarchical presidencies, Owen argues that a significant reason is the “Arab demonstration effect,” whereby close ties across the Arab world have enabled ruling families to share management strategies and assistance. But this effect also explains why these presidencies all came under the same pressure to reform or go. Owen discusses the huge popular opposition the presidential systems engendered during the Arab Spring, and the political change that ensued, while also delineating the challenges the Arab revolutions face across the Middle East and North Africa.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter