Bahrain

I was looking through some old Al Jazeera documentaries from during the revolutions. I found this one on Bahrain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaTKDMYOBOU) and I must say it is truly a moving documentary. It reminded me of the documentary we watched in class the Arab Awakening- End of a Dictator. 

No MENA Political Integration without Democracy

Arab nationalism has its roots as an oppositional force to the colonial narrative, which used sub-national tribal, regional, religious, and ethnic identities to divide and conquer MENA resistance to colonial rule.  In order to bypass the conflicts of the sub-national identities, Arab nationalism adopted a secular narrative of an imagined and glorified past.  However, besides the unavoidable national and sub-national identities, a number of political barriers have worked against integrating the MENA region along a European Union model.  One barrier is the economic and political asymmetry of the region, with a few small oil-rich Gulf countries and many large resource-poor countries.  Besides this economic dualism, the economies of each group of countries are relatively similar, providing a limited incentive for economic integration and increased trade.

                However, the European Union was able to overcome economic and political asymmetries to create its supra-national governing structure, so this barrier is not sufficient to prevent MENA political integration.  Instead, the lack of democracy and diversity of state structures provides the crucial impediment to the creation of a supra-national MENA entity.  All EU countries are democracies, so the EU governing structure naturally adopted a democratic structure.  Since the MENA region has monarchical, authoritarian, and democratic state structures, agreeing on one political system for MENA supra-national will prove almost impossible.  How could a democratic entity like the EU exist in the MENA region when most of the individual member countries still lack basic democratic freedoms like freedom of speech?  A MENA equivalent of the EU will therefore not be possible until the region’s member countries become more democratic domestically.

Marshall Plan for the Middle East?

Jack Goldstone mentions proposals for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East to curb mass unemployment. He recognizes that this will fuel corruption and undermine democratic transition.

Although the US does not have the best reputation in the region, what role should the US play in post-revolution Egypt and Tunisia?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-13/arab-spring-needs-a-mini-marshall-plan.html

Interesting blog on post-Arab Spring economies

My Arab Economies professor required my class to read this blog covering the post-revolution Egyptian economy and I found it fairly interesting so I thought I'd share it with the class.

After reading most of the posts from the last couple of months the main points I got were as follows:

1) a) The paradox of Morsi's rule: The Muslim Brotherhood's electoral success was predicated on its populist message of improving the welfare for the average Egyptian. However, the political instability of the revolution has caused tremendous economic instability which has depleted Egypt's foreign reserves (largely from the precipitous decline of tourism revenue as well as foreign investment.) This in turn has necessitated economic reform to the already existing welfare services (particularly food and energy subsidies. Also Egypt is the world largest importer of wheat so its currency devaluation has significantly raised the cost of these imports.) This means that the politicians who were elected to improve welfare services to the poor are now the ones who have to negotiate some sort of reform of the current programs. As expected from economists, the blog argues subsidy reform is essential to economic reform, especially particular energy subsidies that go primarily to the upper class.

This chart visualizes the economic crisis that Egypt faces (from the blog.) If Egypt cannot figure out a long-term solution to its deficit problem, the social unrest that it has experienced will be exacerbated greatly through the need for some kind of structure adjustment.

 

b) Many international leaders have expressed that they will only assist Egypt when it is political stable, however, this ignores the fact that increasing joblessness and general economic instability will increase political instability.

2) Morsi's lack of a coherent economic policy: She argues that the current government is taking a reactionary, myopic approach to economic policies, highlighted by announced policies that have been quickly rescinded days later. Instead of a gradualist, long-term economic plan, Morsi's government has taken an ad-hoc approach based on short-term considerations.