Robert Springborg is Professor (ret) of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, and Non-resident Research Fellow, Italian Institute of International Affairs

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One: Accounting for Development in the MENA

Chapter Two: The Origins of State Effectiveness

Chapter Three: Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Globalization and the State

Chapter Four: Limited Access Orders and the Rise of Deep States

Chapter Five:  Deep States: Types, Resources and Impacts

Chapter Six: Inclusion, Human Resources and State Power

Chapter Seven: State Capacities for Economic Management

Chapter Eight: The MENA -Regionalized but not Integrated

Chapter Nine : Survival Strategies in Weaker MENA States

Chapter Ten: Survival Strategies in Stronger MENA States

Conclusion

Selected Readings
Notes

Despite its oil wealth, the Middle East and North Africa is economically stagnating. Growth rates are comparatively unfavorable and insufficient to substantially improve citizens' lives. Whether this economic inertia can be overcome or will continue into the indefinite future is a vital question that confronts both the region and the world.
In this book leading Middle East scholar Robert Springborg discusses the economic future of this region by examining the national and regional political causes of its contemporary underperformance. Overgrown, weak MENA states, he explains, have been unable to escape their unfavorable historical legacies. "Limited access orders" and the deep states based in the means of coercion that underpin them undermine state capacities and constrain beneficial, autonomous political and economic activity. Increasingly challenged by their populations, MENA states face the daunting and so far unmet challenge of diversifying non-sustainable, rentier political economies away from direct or indirect dependence on oil and gas revenues. Stagnation of those revenues and failure to generate alternative income sources, combined with rapid population growth, presents the region with an economic challenge that can only be overcome by profound political change.