Economic Liberalization and Authoritarianism
A Comparative Political Economy of Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Morocco, 1950-2011
- 2022
- Buch
- Verfasst von
- Christian Neugebauer
- Verlag
- Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
Über dieses Buch
Im Gegensatz zu anderen Weltregionen sind die politischen Regime im Nahen Osten und Nordafrika (MENA) größtenteils autoritär. Während die Suche nach Erklärungen noch andauert, lenkt Christian Neugebauer die Aufmerksamkeit auf einen bisher wenig erforschten Faktor: die wirtschaftliche Liberalisierung. Als Teil einer globalen Verlagerung von staatlich gelenkter Entwicklung hin zu strukturellen Anpassungen in der Wirtschaft haben diese Maßnahmen auch die Länder der MENA-Region stark beeinflusst. Dies macht die Widerstandskraft des Autoritarismus in der Region umso rätselhafter, als ein großer Teil der wissenschaftlichen Gemeinschaft erwartete, dass die wirtschaftliche Liberalisierung autoritäre Regime untergraben würde. Neugebauer versucht, das Rätsel mit einer vergleichenden Fallstudie zu lösen, die vier Länder (Ägypten, Tunesien, Jordanien und Marokko) und ihre politischen Regime von der Unabhängigkeit in den 1950er Jahren bis zum Arabischen Frühling 2011 abdeckt. Er zeigt, dass zwei spezifische politische Strategien wirtschaftlicher Liberalisierung tatsächlich für die Stabilität des Regimes relevant gewesen sein könnten: die Liberalisierung der Verbraucherpreise und die Privatisierung.
Mit KI übersetzt
Über dieses Buch
Contrary to other world regions, political regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remain largely authoritarian. While the search for explanations is still ongoing, Christian Neugebauer draws attention to a hitherto underresearched factor: economic liberalization. Being part of a global shift from state-led development towards structural adjustment in the economy, these policies also deeply affected the countries of the MENA region. This makes the resilience of authoritarianism in the region all the more puzzling, as a large part of the scientific community expected economic liberalization to undermine authoritarian regimes. Neugebauer strives to solve the puzzle with a comparative case study that covers four countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Morocco) and their political regimes, from independence in the 1950s to the Arab Spring in 2011. He shows that two specific policies of economic liberalization might in fact have been relevant for regime stability: consumer-price liberalization and privatization.
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Inhaltsverzeichnis
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Frontmatter
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Chapter 1. Introduction
Christian NeugebauerAbstractFor more than 30 years, a puzzle has haunted political and academic observers of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: why does authoritarianism still linger there? In the decades following the Second World War two waves of democratization would affect around 90 countries in other world regions, but curiously spared the MENA. With the exception of Israel, Lebanon, Syria during the period 1954–1957, and Iraq after 2003, where democracy prevailed either due to historic path dependencies or was installed through external intervention, none of the 18 MENA countries would achieve the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule from their political independence up until the year 2011. -
Chapter 2. Key Terms
Christian NeugebauerAbstractIn this chapter, I theoretically define the key terms used in this study. In addition, I present some common empirical operationalizations, to show the use of these terms in empirical studies. Where theoretical terms have been constitutive for practical policies, I sketch out empirical effects of these policies, but only if these effects contributed in turn to a theoretical redefinition or to adjusted operationalizations of the original terms. -
Chapter 3. Theory and State of the Art
Christian NeugebauerAbstractIn this chapter, I present theory and empirical results from the two scientific fields that are relevant for the research question of this study: stability of authoritarian regimes and economic liberalization. In the first subchapter, I carve out theoretical propositions on factors potentially affecting the stability of authoritarian regimes. -
Chapter 4. Theoretical Model and Hypotheses
Christian NeugebauerAbstractHaving discussed the state of the art in the two scientific fields relevant for the research question of this study, that is the stability of authoritarian regimes and the effects of economic liberalization, I now elaborate the theoretical model, on which I base my investigation. Moreover, I specify the hypotheses to be tested in the empirical part of this study. The chapter starts with the theoretical model, whose purpose it is to depict the research question and the main hypothesis in theoretically definable variables and variable relations. In addition, I briefly discuss the basic actor theorem underlying the theoretical model. -
Chapter 5. Epistemology, Methodology, Methods
Christian NeugebauerAbstractIn this chapter, I first comment briefly on the epistemology and methodology that underlie the investigation, and that also guide the choice of methods. Following on, I describe the methods used in this study, while justifying my choice. The main method used is the comparative case study, both in a descriptive and in an analytical variant (“comparative-historical method”). -
Chapter 6. Empirical Analysis—Economic Liberalization and the Stability of Authoritarian Regimes in Resource-poor Countries of the MENA Region: Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Morocco, 1950–2011
Christian NeugebauerAbstractThis chapter presents and discusses the empirical material. It consists both of descriptive comparisons of the four MENA country cases (Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Morocco) and tests of the hypotheses derived from the body of theory against the empirical information available for the four countries. The chapter starts with a comparative political economy of the four MENA countries under investigation, along distinct historical periods from their political independence during the 1950s up to the Arab Spring in 2011. -
Chapter 7. Conclusion
Christian NeugebauerAbstractIn this study I have addressed the scientific puzzle that, in contrast to 90 other countries around the globe formerly ruled by authoritarian regimes, none of the 18 making up the MENA (with the exceptions of Israel, Lebanon and short periods of Syrian and Iraqi history) would achieve the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule in the period from their political independence up until the year 2011. This enigma has haunted political and academic observers of the MENA region for more than 30 years. What makes this observation even more confounding is the fact that the countries of the MENA region were subjected to the same forces of economic globalization as their democratizing counterparts in other world regions—forces that brought economic liberalization onto the policy agenda of developing countries worldwide. -
Chapter 8. Appendix: Hypotheses Tables
Christian NeugebauerAbstractThe appendix gives an overview of the hypotheses implicitly contained in the reviewed literature. These hypotheses together constitute the body of theory and the state of the art in the two scientific fields (stability of authoritarian regimes and effects of economic liberalization) analyzed in this study. -
Backmatter
- Titel
- Economic Liberalization and Authoritarianism
- Verfasst von
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Christian Neugebauer
- Copyright-Jahr
- 2022
- Electronic ISBN
- 978-3-658-35639-2
- Print ISBN
- 978-3-658-35638-5
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35639-2
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