Civil War, Economic Governance & State Reconstruction in the Arab Middle East

Abstract

Civil wars currently underway in Libya, Syria, and Yemen demonstrate that patterns of economic governance during violent conflict exhibit significant continuity with prewar practices, raising important questions along three lines. First, violent conflict may disrupt prewar practices less than is often assumed. Second, continuity in governance highlights the limits of state fragility frameworks for postconflict reconstruction that view violent conflict as creating space for institutional reform. Third, continuity of prewar governance practices has important implications for the relationship between sovereignty, governance, and conflict resolution. Civil wars in the Middle East have not created conditions conducive to reconceptualizing sovereignty or decoupling sovereignty and governance. Rather, parties to conflict compete to capture and monopolize the benefits that flow from international recognition. Under these conditions, civil wars in the Middle East will not yield easily to negotiated solutions. Moreover, to the extent that wartime economic orders reflect deeply institutionalized norms and practices, postconflict conditions will limit possibilities for interventions defined in terms of overcoming state fragility.

Taking stock of MENA political science after the uprisings

“…The wars in Syria and Libya have generated an important new research programme on proxy warfare and the changing nature of power in regional politics (Lynch, 2021, inpress). The rise of the Islamic State, as Darwich' essay in this SI discusses, sparked new research on the durability of borders and on the provision of rebel governance (Ahram, 2019;Heydemann, 2018;Revkin & Ahram, 2020). The rise of the Gulf states as major players in regional politics has sparked a theoretical novel literature on the political economy of Gulf power (Hanieh, 2018;Ulrichsen, 2020).…”

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

“…Both have been shaped by, and had profound effects, in turn, on informal trade activity in border regions. Clientelistic ties with key groups within the merchant class ensured that economic spoils were monopolized by elites usually located in the political centre (Heydemann 2004). While this occurred, in part, at the expense of formal economic development in borderland areas, it often coincided with informal arrangements that tolerated the continuation of income-generating activities through informal cross-border trade (Gallien 2018).…”

“…Border economies can furnish important insights into a central empirical and theoretical puzzle: the exceptional durability of authoritarian regimes in MENA (Diamond 2015;Bellin 2004). To understand authoritarian resilience in MENA, mainstream political economy scholarship has offered three main explanations: the role of oil (Ross 2015), business-state relationship (Heydemann 2004;Hertog, Luciani, and Valeri 2015) and the nature of social pacts (Schlumberger 2007). These dominant explanations, however, have paid insufficient attention to the role of cross-border informality in explaining regime durability.…”

“…However, in each case, the control of smuggling routes, the trafficking of migrants, crude oil, consumer products or essential consumables has become a crucial aspect of war economies. It helps to finance militias and incentivises key actors to maintain the status quo (Heydemann 2018). 22 Two key rent streams fuelling the region's civil strife emanate from currency and fuel trade.…”

“…Analyses of business-state relationship in the Middle East have also focused almost entirely on interactions between the state and "formal" businesses, neglecting the significance of informal commercial networks operating in borderland regions (Heydemann 2004;Hertog, Luciani, and Valeri 2015). Our primary contribution in this paper is to raise the curtain for an important but understudied subject and to offer concrete signposts for ways in which cross-border informality can enrich the study of the political economy of MENA.…”