The Political Constraints on Economic Development in the Middle East

Prevailing discussions about economic crisis in the Middle East pay inadequate attention to the political constraints that limit the horizon of development. Neither old state-led economic approaches nor the neoliberal templates that replaced them have resolved the chronic underdevelopment of the region. 

Newer paradigms today are based upon a reformulated version of state-led capitalism, namely the so-called “Gulf model” as well as the economic dualism practiced in non-rentier states. Yet these templates of development suffer social vulnerability and political limitations, the latter reflecting the elite-centric structures of governance that still characterize political authority. 

Imagining a more productive future requires not reformulating technocratic logics that have failed, but rather conceiving of more pluralistic political institutions capable of rendering economic decisions more accountable to popular interests.

Featuring:

• Welcome : Stéphanie Balme, CERI, Sciences Po
• Introduction : Stéphane Lacroix, CERI, Sciences Po
• Guest Speaker : Hicham Alaoui, University of California Berkeley
• Discussant : Ishac Diwan, Paris School of Economics

This event is co-organized by the Center for International Studies and the Paris School of International Affairs.

Watch the replay of the event:

Biography of Guest Speaker, Dr Hicham Alaoui

Dr. Hicham Alaoui is a political science lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the founder and director of the Hicham Alaoui Foundation, which undertakes innovative social scientific research in the Middle East and North Africa. He currently also serves on the Advisory Board of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He is a scholar on the comparative politics of democratization and religion.  His latest publications include the monograph Pacted Democracy in the Middle East: Tunisia and Egypt in Comparative Perspective (Palgrave, 2022), as well as the co-edited volumes The Political Economy of Arab Education (Lynne Rienner, 2021) and Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges… and the Need for Change (Lynne Rienner, 2023).  He holds an A.B. from Princeton University, M.A. from Stanford University, and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.