Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited

by Steven Heydemann

This volume explores the role of informal networks in the politics of Middle Eastern economic reform. The editor's introduction demonstrates how network-based models overcome limitations in existing approaches to the politics of economic reform. The following chapters show how business-state networks in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan have affected privatization programs and the reform of fiscal policies. They help us understand patterns and variation in the organization and outcome of economic reform programs, including the opportunities that economic reforms offered for reorganizing networks of economic privilege across the Middle East.

342 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Steven Heydemann is Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University in New York City and the author of "Authoritarianism in Syria: Institutions and Social Conflict, 1946-1970" (1999)