Doing Business in the Middle East

Abstract

Is business the solution to the problems of the Middle East? Some economists and policymakers argue that unleashing the Arab private sector is the key to sustainable growth and more liberal politics. Pete Moore's book is the first to examine relations between state authority and elite business representation in the region. By analysing the Kuwait and Jordan cases, he considers why organised business in Kuwait has been able to coordinate policy reform with state officials, while their Jordanian counterparts have generally failed. The author concludes that unleashing the private sector alone is insufficient to change current political and economic arrangements, and that successful economic adjustment requires successful political adjustment.

Resource Wealth: A “Curse” for Labor Rights?

“…Resource wealth incentivizes business elites to "forge bonds based on rent-seeking" with the state (Mazaheri, 2010: 3). This creates a mutually beneficial situation wherein business and government elites collude to preserve the status quo, as states use rents to "'buy off' business elites in order to exercise greater decision-making power and acquire their political support" (Mazaheri, 2016: 49; see also Herb, 2014;Moore, 2004;Shambayati, 1994;Crystal, 1995). For their part, the business elite receives preferential treatment from the government, including enhanced access to credit, market access, and freedom from regulatory scrutiny.…”

Rainfall: Features and Variations over Saudi Arabia, A Review

“…In spite of the fact that the Mediterranean and neighboring areas have been extensively explored throughout the last few decades [1][2][3][4], the SA region has received little attention. Brief and sound climatological information on the Arabian Peninsula (AP) was provided by [5][6][7], and they demonstrate that there is a wide climatic spectrum on the AP, from the snows of the Asir Province in SA to the over powering humidity of the Arabian Gulf, from the searing heat of the Rub Al Khali to the monsoon precipitation in the Qara mountains in Dhofar. SA is characterized by a complex topographical surface and covers vast areas (approximately 2,250,000 km 2 ), occupying nearly eighty percent of the AP.…”

Two-level negotiations in a fragmented system: Saudi Arabia's WTO accession

“…Categories from the state-business relations literature such as associational capacity of business, or trust and reciprocity between state and business can inform institutional analysis of policy-making in non-democratic polities where the Western-oriented institutionalist debate has few specific concepts to contribute (Schneider/Maxfield, 1997;Schneider, 2004;Moore, 2004). As we will see, these categories can explain policy outcomes and the capacity to reach deals better than deductive economic reasoning can.…”