Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T04:31:37.925Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Political Economy of Economic Liberalization in Syria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Raymond A. Hinnebusch
Raymond A. Hinnebusch
Affiliation:
Professor of Political Science, College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minn. 55105, U.S.A.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When the Arab world's authoritarian-populist/;etatist regimes first emerged, they were perceived by Marxist and modernization theorists alike as potentially forging the strong states needed by late developers to pursue national development. Three decades later, the conventional wisdom sees these states as obstacles to development and statism is in retreat. Even in Syria, where the Baʿth institutionalized statist ideology more effectively than elsewhere, economic liberalization has proved inescapable.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , August 1995 , pp. 305 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 For a sophisticated version of the Marxist analysis, see Farsoun, Sami and Carroll, William, “State Capitalism and Counter-Revolution in the Middle East: A Thesis,” in Social Change in the Capitalist World Economy, ed. Kaplan, Barbara H. (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1978)Google Scholar. The rentier state is exhaustively dissected in The Rentier State, ed. Luciani, Giacomo and Bablawi, Hazem (London: Croom Helm, 1987)Google Scholar. A neopatrimonial argument is made by Leca, Jean, “Social Structure and Political Stability: Comparative Evidence from the Algerian, Syrian, and Iraqi Cases,” in Beyond Coercion: The Durability of the Arab State, ed. Dawisha, Adeed and Zartman, I. William (London: Croom Helm, 1988), 164–202Google Scholar. For an argument similar to the one in this paper that political and economic rationality have not necessarily been irreconcilable in Syria, see Heydemann, Steven, “The Political Logic of Economic Rationality: Selective Stabilization in Syria,” in The Politics of Economic Reform in the Middle East, ed. Barkey, Henri (New York: St. Martins Press, 1992), 11–39Google Scholar.

2 Hinnebusch, Raymond A., Authoritarian Power and State Formation in Baʿthist Syria: Army, Party and Peasant (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), chap. 5Google Scholar.

3 World Bank, Syrian Arab Republic Development Prospects and Policies (Washington, D.C., 1980), 4:48Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., 4:54, 166; SAR, Statistical Abstract, 1989, 508Google Scholar.

5 Hinnebusch, Raymond A., Peasant and Bureaucracy in Baʿthist Syria: The Political Economy of Rural Development (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989), 177Google Scholar.

6 SAR, Statistical Abstract, 1989, 77, 170–71Google Scholar.

7 Arudki, Yehia, al-Iqtiṣād al-Sūrī al-Ḥadīth (The Modern Syrian Economy) (Damascus: Ministry of Culture, 1972), 1:243–376Google Scholar; Ministry of Industry, Wāqiʿ al-ṣināʿa fī Sūriyā (Facts on Industry in Syria) (Damascus, 1973)Google Scholar; Daqqaq, Abdul Muhied et al. , “Dirāsa ʿan al-taṣnīʿ al-zirāʿī” (Study on Agricultural Industrialization) (Damascus: Working Paper of the Agricultural Symposium, 1977)Google Scholar; Odeh, Karam, “Food Processing and Agro-Industries in the Syrian Arab Republic.” (Damascus: 1977)Google Scholar; Hinnebusch, , Peasant and Bureaucracy, 163–69Google Scholar.

8 World Bank, Syrian Arab Republic, 4:180–81Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., 1:63; Clawson, Patrick, Unaffordable Ambitions: Syria's Military Build-up and Economic Crisis (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1989), 36Google Scholar.

10 World Bank, Syrian Arab Republic, 4:100Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., 101.

12 Clawson, , Unaffordable Ambitions, 14–17Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., 10–11, 18.

14 Meyer, Günter, “Economic Development in Syria since 1970,” in Politics and the Economy in Syria, ed. Allen, J. A. (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1987), 40–62Google Scholar.

15 World Bank, World Development Report (Washington, D.C., 1988)Google Scholar; The Middle East, 12 1988, 27Google Scholar; ibid., January 1990, 24.

16 Clawson, , Unaffordable Ambitions, chaps. 7–8Google Scholar; The Middle East, 07 1989, 34–35Google Scholar; Heydemann, , “The Political Logic of Economic Rationality,” 17, 25–31Google Scholar; Perthes, Völker, “The Syrian Private Industrial and Commercial Sectors and the State” (Paper presented to the Middle East Studies Association, Austin, Tex., 1990), 5Google Scholar.

17 World Bank, World Development Report, 224–25Google Scholar.

18 SAR, Statistical Abstract, 1989, 490–91Google Scholar.

19 Perthes, , “Syrian Private Industrial Sectors,” 5–6Google Scholar.

20 Clawson, , Unaffordable Ambitions, 41–42Google Scholar; The Middle East, 10 1986, 37–38Google Scholar; December 1988, 30; July 1989, 34–35.

21 Seale, Patrick, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 456, quoting Sadek al-AzmGoogle Scholar.

22 Perthes, Völker, “The Syrian Private Industrial and Commercial Sectors and the State,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24, 2 (1992)Google Scholar.

23 Economist Intelligence Unit, Syria: Country Report (No. 2, 1990), 4Google Scholar.

24 Seale, , Asad, 452Google Scholar.

25 Hopfinger, Hans, “Capitalist Agrobusiness in Syria's Socialist Economy” (Paper presented to Middle East Studies Association, Austin, Tex., 1990)Google Scholar.

26 Perthes, (1990), “Syrian Private Industrial Sectors,” 5–8, 15–16Google Scholar.

27 Economist Intelligence Unit, Syria: Country Report (2nd quarter, 1994), 11Google Scholar.

28 Perthes, (1990), “Syrian Private Industrial Sectors,” 19Google Scholar; interview U. S. embassy economic section, July 1994.

29 For a political-economy analysis of Egypt similar to my assessment of Syria, see Waterbury, John, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the same story told more on the political level, see Hinnebusch, Raymond A., Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-Populist Development of an Authoritarian-Populist State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.