Development Challenges and Solutions After the Arab Spring

Since the extraordinary events of early 2011, most Arab countries have slipped into a state of war, and living conditions for the majority of the working population have not improved. The revolution did not restructure society in favour of working people. The reason is that the prevailing ideology remains set in the neoliberal discourse. The policies behind the resource allocation mechanisms, the conveyor belts of income and wealth distribution, have not changed. This edited collection examines the socioeconomic conditions and provides a critique of the existing policy framework from a heterodox angle. Authored by leading scholars of Arab development, this book contests the received policy framework and aims to demonstrate that workable alternatives do exist.

Ali Kadri is Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Prior to joining NUS he was a visiting fellow in the Department of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK, and Head of the Economic Analysis Section at the United Nations regional office for Western Asia. His current research focuses on the political economy of development in the Arab World, with two forthcoming publications on macroeconomic work on economic policies for the Arab world and the economics of the Arab Spring. Kadri is also the author of the monograph Arab Development Denied (2014).