MER Article Sudan's Deepening Crisis Conditions that prevail in Sudan today -- environmental degradation, drought and famine, civil war, repression, and sharp deterioration in economic and living conditions for the majority of the population -- reflect a long process of bad leadership in the country since independence in January 1956. A succession of sectarian governments, Benaiah Yongo-Bure • 15 min read
MER Article Class Acts in the Middle East Berch Berberoglu, ed., Power and Stability in the Middle East (Zed, 1989). Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East: State, Class and Economic Development (Westview, 1990). Karen Pfeifer • 8 min read
MER Article The Bourgeoisie and the Baath For more than a quarter of a century, Syria has been ruled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party, which claims to be leading the country not only to unity and freedom but also to socialism. In the early years of its rule, the Baath made great efforts to develop central Volker Perthes • 19 min read
MER Article Iraqi Contractors: Clients, Loyal Supporters or Interlopers The contracting sector has consistently been the preserve of Iraq’s private sector and has provided an important source of state patronage. The Iraqi Union of Contractors, founded in 1988, was the only independent corporate association in the country. In contrast to labor, professional, student and business associations, it was Kiren Aziz Chaudhry • 2 min read
MER Article Arab Economics After the Gulf War On February 6, 1991, Secretary of State James Baker admitted before the House of Foreign Affairs Committee that economic factors, particularly widespread Arab resentment that oil wealth was not more equitably distributed, had played a role in the dynamics leading to the Gulf war and would remain one Yahya Sadowski • 15 min read
MER Article Egyptian Political Economy Robert Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt (Oxford, 1989.) Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton, 1988). These two important new books address some of the central questions Roger Owen • 8 min read
MER Article America's Egypt Open almost any study of Egypt produced by an American or an international development agency and you are likely to find it starting with the same simple image. The question of Egypt’s economic development is almost invariably introduced as a problem of geography versus demography, pictured by descr Timothy Mitchell • 45 min read
MER Article Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954 (Princeton, 1987). Robert Vitalis • 9 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf Dipesh Chakrabarty’s well-documented, theoretically informed, innovative history of the jute mill workers of Bengal, Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal, 1890-1940 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), poses this central question: “Can…third-world countries like India…build democratic, Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article The President and the Field Marshal Husni Mubarak succeeded Anwar al-Sadat in October 1981 at a time of troubled civil-military relations. Sadat’s pursuit of a separate peace with Israel after the war in 1973 raised important questions about the military’s future role, size and sources of weapons. If Egypt was no longer at war, it wou Robert Springborg • 36 min read
MER Article Libya's Revolution Revisited When the United States sent its warplanes to bomb Libya last spring, a first and then a second invasion of Western journalists descended upon the country. With the media in box seats, the scenario conjured up visions of the 1830 French invasion of Algiers, when well-heeled citizens of the Republic h Dirk Vandewalle • 19 min read
MER Article Egypt's Infitah Bourgeoisie A recent story illustrates the political power of the bourgeoisie in contemporary Egypt: At the beginning of 1985, the Egyptian minister of economy, Mustafa al-Sa‘id, unveiled a set of new trade and banking laws. They aimed, among other things, at imposing a greater degree of Central Bank control ov Robert Vitalis • 5 min read
