Business Politics in the Middle East
How business associations and state elites actually bargain across the region.
Summary
The reference has not verified this book in detail; the summary states only what the title, author and subject establish.
Hertog, Luciani and Valeri edited a collection of country studies examining relations between private business and the state across the Middle East and North Africa. The contributors are academic specialists on individual countries.
The reference has not verified the detail of each chapter. What the volume establishes as a whole is the analytical question it addresses: whether business elites in the region function as an independent political force capable of pressing for policy change and institutional reform, or whether they remain dependent on state patronage and therefore aligned with existing regimes. The country cases cover both oil-exporting states, where the state distributes rents and the private sector is largely a recipient of them, and non-oil states such as Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Syria, where business emerged through privatisation and liberalisation programmes that were themselves administered by the regime.
Hertog's own work, including Princes, Brokers and Bureaucrats on Saudi Arabia, argues that state-business relations in rentier economies produce segmented institutions rather than uniformly weak ones, with pockets of effective administration coexisting with clientelist distribution. Luciani's work established the distinction between rentier and production states and its implications for taxation and political representation.
The volume was published in 2015, after the Arab uprisings, and the question of whether business elites supported or opposed those uprisings runs through it. Readers should consult the table of contents to identify the country chapters relevant to their purpose, since an edited collection varies in coverage and depth.
Key takeaways 6
- Business elites in rentier economies depend on state distribution of oil revenue, which aligns them with regime survival rather than with reform.
- The distinction between rentier states funded by resource income and production states funded by taxation predicts different state-business relations.
- Privatisation programmes in non-oil Arab states transferred assets to regime-connected businesses rather than creating independent capital.
- State administrative capacity in the region is segmented, with effective agencies coexisting alongside clientelist distribution.
- Business associations in the region generally function as channels for state communication rather than as vehicles for collective lobbying.
- The Arab uprisings tested whether business elites would back political change, and in most cases they did not.
Who should read it
Investors and analysts working on Middle Eastern markets who need the academic literature on state-business relations, consulted by country chapter.
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Where it sits in the reference 3
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