How Capitalism Failed the Arab World The Economic Roots and Precarious Future of the Middle East Uprisings

by Heydarian, Richard Javad

• ISBN13: 9781780329581
• ISBN10: 178032958X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-03-06
• Publisher: ZED BOOKS

Summary

Economic liberalization has failed in the Arab world. Instead of ushering in economic dynamism and precipitating gradual democratic reform, it has over the last three decades resulted in greater poverty, rising income inequality and sky-rocketing rates of youth unemployment. In How Capitalism Failed the Arab World, Richard Heydarian shows how years of political autocracy, corruption and economic mismanagement have encouraged people to revolt, and how the initial optimism of the uprisings is now giving way to bitter power struggles and increasing uncertainty.

A unique and provocative analysis of one of the key social and political events of the last decade.

Author Biography

Richard Javad Heydarian is a Lecturer of political science and international relations) at Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU), the Philippines, and consultant to a number of institutions, including the House of Representatives, and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Manila Office). He has contributed to or been quoted in The Huffington Post, Asia Times, Inter-Press Service, The Diplomat, UPI, Foreign Policy, and Tehran Times, amongst other publications, on geopolitical and economic trends in the Asia-Pacific and MENA regions.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Walden Bello
1. A Brave New Middle East: The Birth of a New Era
2. The Anti-Development State: Economic Origins of Arab Upheavals
3. The Advent of Economic Globalization: A Prelude to Crisis
4. The Great Recession: Collapse of the Arab Crony Capitalism
5. The New Powerbrokers: Political Islam and the Arab Summer
6. Gulf Exceptionalism: How the Monarchies have Reshaped the Arab Spring
7. Peering into Abyss: The Arab Spring at the Crossroads
8. Where Do We Go From Here?: Finding the True Path to an Arab Spring