Border economies of the Middle East: why do they matter for political economy?

Abstract

Although borderland regions of the Middle East and North Africa represent active sights of economic and social exchange, they remain peripheral to the analysis of the region's political economy. Conventional accounts of cross-border informal trade tend to emphasize its illegality based on existing economic regulations, overlooking the deep political foundations of such trade. This article posits new arguments on the political economy significance of cross-border informal trade in the Middle East, highlighting its relevance for studying processes of state formation, durability of authoritarian regimes, conflict, informal institutions and the interdependence between domestic and external political economy domains. Our analysis underscores the need for a more holistic understanding of border economies that moves the field away from a security-centred view that treats such trade as mainly a law and order issue.

GRAY GOVERNANCE AT BORDER CHECKPOINTS: Regulating Shadow Trade at the Sino‐Kazakh Border

“…In Cambodia, rents from shadow exchanges have been used to support the ruling regime (Mahanty, 2019). In Tunisia, former president Ben Ali and his family were closely associated with border passage rents from smuggling (Malik and Gallien, 2020). In Syria, it was known that the military and the intelligence services offered protection to cigarette and car smuggling (Haddad, 2011).…”

Cross‐border market building for narcotics control: A Polanyian analysis of the China–Myanmar border region

“…First, the internal characteristics of these unique spatial formations have become clearer through fine-grained and in-depth case studies. These range from attempts by firms to forge cross-border industrial clusters (Sparke et al, 2004;To & Mahanty, 2019); the establishment of formal and informal networks to capture price differentials within the border region (Mahanty, 2018(Mahanty, , 2019; the emergence of transient and often clandestine labour flows across borders (Malik & Gallien, 2020;Szytniewski et al, 2020); and the proactive implementation of experimental policies by the state (Simmons, 2019;Wright, 2019). Second, similarities and differences between border regions are foregrounded through comparative analyses (Fricke, 2015).…”

Breaking Out of Fragility: A Country Economic Memorandum for Diversification and Growth in Iraq

“…The existence of informal trade, or smuggling, into and out of Iraq represents an important caveat to this analysis, because such trade includes products other than crude oil. In particular, Iraq is reported to export significant quantities of gasoline by informal methods (Malik and gallien 2020). Because the price in Iraq is relatively low (because of differences in national energy policies), Iraqi gasoline is informally exported to Turkey and Jordan, as well as to Iran.…”