Preface to the second edition

Summary

Writing a second edition a decade after the first provides ample time to reflect on our original work. By and large it seems to have stood the test of time, even if some assumptions and implied prognoses were off the mark. We overestimated both the magnitude and the consequences of the financial squeeze on the MENA. Excess global liquidity, which caused investors to seek out higher rates of return in emerging markets, combined with substantial increases in hydrocarbon prices, generated financial resources for the region in excess of what we anticipated. Pressures for governments to become more transparent and accountable were correspondingly less. But so, too, did we underestimate the creativity of MENA governments in combining focused governance reforms with persisting authoritarianism, so that they maintained or even enhanced revenue flows without democratizing. We also did not foresee the dramatic emergence within the regional and global economies of the Arab Gulf states and the increased speed and depth of change to their domestic political economies. Iran's collapse into praetorianism was likewise not anticipated. On the other hand, the basic finding of the first edition, which was that the MENA countries can be categorized according to regime types and that those types in turn determine capacities to respond to the threats and opportunities of globalization, has been borne out. Over the past decade the region's worst performers have been the most repressive and the best performers the most democratic, with others similarly arrayed as predicted. So, too, has the claimed relationship between financial sector autonomy and civil society capacity been demonstrated to obtain.

Readers familiar with the previous edition will notice that this one is considerably larger. That is due not just to updating, but to a remarkable increase in available comparative economic and governance data over the past decade, a phenomenon that has paralleled and contributed to economic globalization. We have drawn on this data to evaluate propositions contained in the first edition and to formulate new ones. We have also used it to enrich analyses of specific countries. Discerning readers will notice a substantial increase in tables and figures, which we hope will help both to explicate and to reinforce our arguments that link globalization, regime, and civil society types and capacities with political and economic outcomes.