Business Politics in the Middle East

Download or read book Business Politics in the Middle East written by Steffen Hertog and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although most Arab countries remain authoritarian, many have undergone a restructuring of state-society relations in which lower- and middle-class interest groups have lost ground while big business has benefited in terms of its integration into policy-making and the opening of economic sectors that used to be state-dominated. Arab businesses have also started taking on aspects of public service provision in health, media and education that used to be the domain of the state; they have also become increasingly active in philanthropy. The ‘Arab Spring,’ which is likely to lead to a more pluralistic political order, makes it all the more important to understand business interests in the Middle East, a segment of society that on the one hand has often been close to the ancien regime, but on the other will play a pivotal role in a future social contract. Among the topics addressed by the authors are the role of business in recent regime change; the political outlook of businessmen; the consequences of economic liberalisation on the composition of business elites in the Middle East; the role of the private sector in orienting government policies; lobbying of government by business interests and the mechanisms by which governments seek to keep businesses dependent on them.