Introduction
In
1980, Turkey had a level of economic development similar to Egypt, Tunisia,
Morocco and other Middle Eastern states.
All of the economies of the above countries were highly dependent on
exporting natural resources as their industrial sectors were highly inefficient
and only survived with state protection.
With the exception of the wealthy rentier states in the Arab Gulf, most
states in the region had a GDP per capita below 2,000 dollars.[1] However, over the following three decades, Turkey
was able to pull ahead of most of the other states in the region, developing an
export oriented market for manufactured goods in the process. Today, its GDP per capita is 10,972 dollars,
which is over three times that of Egypt.
According to Aly Azmy, we cannot attribute this anomaly solely to
Turkey’s market liberalization policies despite what supporters of the
Washington Consensus like the Heritage Foundation would claim.[2] If a government opens up its manufacturing
sector to foreign competition without prior preparation, the end result will
most likely resemble what happened to Russia in the 1990’s when the shock
therapy policies of President Boris Yeltsin led to deindustrialization and
economic ruin. State protected
industries need technological, educational, financial, and infrastructural
assistance before they are exposed to outside competition. Furthermore, the state cannot allow petty
politics and clientele relations to determine which industries to support and
which ones to cut loose; the decision must be made by an autonomous and
professional bureaucracy with a developmental mentality.[3] In other words, good governance is
critical.
This leads to the following
question: why was Turkey better at governance than Egypt? There are several theories in the literature
that attempt to explain economic and political stagnation in the Middle East
over the last three decades. These
theories include rentierism or the overdependence on rents like oil; historical
institutionalism or the manner in which institutions were created and shaped
during the initial formation of the modern state; the influence of
international actors like the United States, the Soviet Union, and the European
Union; and the level of democratic transparency and accountability.[4] No one theory can explain why the region as a
whole has struggled to develop.
The Dependent Variable: Economic Development
From
1980 to 2015, Turkey made greater gains in terms of economic development in
comparison with Egypt. According to Paul
Gregory and Robert Stuart, there are five major variables to determine levels
of economic development, which are economic growth, efficiency, income
distribution, stability, and viability[5]. After quantifying these variables using
statistics from various international organizations, it will be shown that
Turkey quite clearly made greater gains than Egypt over the last thirty five
years despite starting from relatively similar economic starting point.
The
first variable on Gregory and Stuart’s list is economic growth, which is
measured by the total amount of wealth produced by a country in terms of
primary resources like agriculture, fossil fuels, and minerals; mass produced
goods; and services.[6] Although
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as measured in dollars is the standard statistic
used to measure total wealth, it is better to use GDP per capita as it measures
the total wealth per person, which is more useful for comparing and contrasting
states with different population sizes. During
the 1970’s, international institutions like the IMF and the World Bank considered
growth of GDP per capita to be the benchmark for determining success or failure
in terms of economic development. [7] If a country produces more, this means that
there are more resources available for development. In 1980, Egypt had a GDP per capita of $510
while Turkey’s was $1,567. In 2013,
Egypt’s GDP per capita only rose to $3,314 while Turkey’s rose to $10,972.[8] It is quite clear that one country grew
faster than another. However, these
statistics don’t tell us how efficiently each country was making use of their
resources or how the wealth was redistributed among the population. Furthermore, GDP per capita says nothing
about long term stability or viability. By the 1990’s, international
institutions like the IMF and the World Bank came to realize that there were
factors other than growth that were critical to economic development.[9] This was only realized after many IMF
economic structural reforms to encourage GDP growth such as cutting government
spending often led to severe divides in wealth and political instability.
One
factor that international institutions began to take seriously by the 1990’s is
economic efficiency, which refers to how well a country’s resources are utilized.[10] There are several ways we can measure
this. On the one hand, we can look at
the efficiency of labor. One important
statistic for measuring this is the United Nation’s Human Development Index
(HDI), which is a combination of the following three statistics: GDP per
capita, life expectancy, and the amount of time the average individual spends
in school. A worker is more productive when they are
healthier and well educated. In 1980, Turkey’s HDI was .496 and Egypt’s was
.452. In 2013, Turkey’s rose to .759
while Egypt’s was only .682. In
addition, there were differences in several other measures of educational
quality.[11] According to the World Bank, from 1980 to
2013, Turkey’s literacy rate went from 66 percent to 95 percent whereas Egypt
went from approximately 38 percent to 74 percent. [12]
Furthermore, in Egypt, the teacher to student ratio at the primary level went
from 34 to 1 in 1979 to only 28 to 1 in 2010; however, in Turkey, the numbers
went from 30 to 1 in 1979 to 20 to 1 in 2012. By 2015, the Global Competitiveness Report on
Education ranked Turkey 85 out of 144 countries in terms of quality in higher
education whereas Egypt ranked at a stunningly low 141 out of 144.[13] These statistics show that Turkey’s labor
force is better educated, healthier, and more productive.
We
can also look at economic efficiency in terms of whether or not business owners
spend more of their time and resources becoming more competitive or if they
spend their wealth on rent seeking to receive protection from the
government. In a competitive market
place, businesses have to use their resources to improve their business model;
in a corrupt market place, monopolies and oligarchies receive special
protection from the state due to clientelism and corruption, which leads to
inefficiency and stagnation. [14]
We can measure this by looking at Transparency International’s Corruption
Perception Index. The scale they use is
from zero to one hundred with zero being the most corrupt. Unfortunately, the earliest measurement that
could be obtained for both countries is 1996.
In that year, Turkey’s CPI Index was 35 and Egypt’s was 28
approximately. In 2014, Turkey was 45
and Egypt was 37.[15] Overall, there is more competition in Turkish
markets than in Egypt, which means there is more efficiency in terms of how
resources are used.
Another
marker for economic development is economic equality. This measure is far more controversial. Some political scientists have argued that
development first requires a growing gap between rich and poor as industrial
enterprises accumulate more capital; only after industry has developed can
wealth than be distributed through welfare policies, the expansion of services,
and trickle-down economics.[16] If welfare comes before industrialization,
this can stall development and create a balance of payments problem for the
government. This is why some countries
that are more developed have larger gaps between rich and poor than some poorer
countries. Other scholars argue that
economic development cannot take place without a population that is healthy and
well educated with opportunities to move above their social class.[17] If the wealth gap is too large, the economy
might stagnate as large swaths of the population become mired in poverty. To measure economic inequality, I will use
the World Bank’s GINI index, which uses a scale of zero to one hundred with
zero representing perfect equality. The
statistics show that there is a bigger wealth gap in Turkey. In 1980, Egypt’s GINI index was 32.0 and Turkey’s
was 43.6.[18] In 2008, Egypt’s GINI index was 30.8, while
in 2011, Turkey’s was 40.0. However,
Turkey has a GDP per capita over three times that of Egypt, which means that
Turkey’s poor are much better off than those in Egypt despite the greater wealth
gap.
Another
measure of economic development is stability.
Economies that are overly dependent on a couple of natural resources are
far more vulnerable to a swing in global prices than economies that are
diversified. However, countries that
can mass produce products at a competitive price have a greater diversity of
international markets in which to sell their goods. According to Aly Azmy, in 1980, approximately
25 percent of exports from Egypt and Turkey were manufactured goods; thirty
years later, Egypt had only increased that number to 38 percent whereas Turkey increased
it to over 60 percent.[19] Furthermore, although Egypt did significantly
increase its industrial capacity in the 1990’s and 2000’s, this sector of the
economy is highly dependent on state protection in the form of non-tariff
protections and energy subsidies. In
2010, over fifty percent of Egypt’s exports consist of oil and natural gas, and
approximately forty percent of state expenditures today comes from non-tax
revenue such as oil rents, the Suez Canal, foreign aid, and state owned
industries that survive partly because of energy subsidies.[20] In other words, Egypt’s economy lacks
diversity. On the other hand, Turkey’s
industrial sector is far more competitive and diverse, creating more stability
in the economy.
Gregory
and Stuart’s last measure of economic development is viability, which refers to
the long term prospects of an economy.[21] Turkey’s economy is more viable than Egypt’s
over the long term. In 1980, thirty
percent of Egypt’s GDP came from fossil fuels; in turn, thirty percent of
Egypt’s state expenditures came from the same resources. By 2010, fossil fuel revenues dwindled to
eight percent of GDP due to growing local consumption and dwindling supplies.[22] However, thirty percent of Egypt’s state
expenditures were still dependent on oil.
The reason is that government has significantly cut spending on welfare
over the last two decades and depreciated the currency starting in 2003.
Instead of diversifying the economy to deal with declining rents, Egypt’s
government has decided to cut social services and use repression to deal with
the resulting political instability. The
regime was almost brought down as a result of the 2011 revolution and now
remains highly dependent on foreign aid from the Gulf to survive. Turkey, on the other hand, has a dynamic
economy with a diverse range of industrial exports in textiles, heavy
machinery, household appliances, and electronic equipment.[23] As a result, its economy is more
interconnected into the European Union, and its entrepreneurs have gained
access to new technology and ideas a result of cultural diffusion.
It
needs to be emphasized that Turkey’s economy still has a number of urgent
problems. There are still high levels of
corruption that create problems with competition in many markets. Furthermore, there is a large wealth gap
between rich and poor. Lastly, although
Turkey has developed an export-oriented industrial economy, their educational
institutions have not advanced to the point where Turks are developing their
own technology. Whereas late developers
like South Korea have advanced to the stage where they are making advances in
digital technology and automobiles, Turkey is much like China, Mexico, and Brazil
in that it is too dependent on the technological developments of Western countries.[24] However, in comparison with Egypt, Turkey has
made much greater gains in terms of moving from an economy dependent on primary
resources to one dependent on mass-produced goods.
The Intervening Variable: Governance
The
reason why Turkey was able to develop faster than Egypt economically is because
of better governance. In 1980, both
Egypt and Turkey had industrial sectors, but they were heavily dependent on
tariffs to protect them from outside competition; they often depended on state
subsidies for their survival; and they produced low quality products due to the
lack of competitive markets. During the
1970’s, growing populations, out of control spending on welfare, and unstable
oil prices in Egypt, Turkey, and most of the developing world led to growing debt
problems.[25] This led to dependency on international
banks, the IMF, and the World Bank for support to make it through the crisis.[26] International institutions like the IMF
recommended that states cut welfare spending, improve the competitiveness of
markets, and open up to international trade to gain access to new markets,
ideas, and technology. Governments in Egypt
and Turkey responded differently to the crisis.
Over the next three decades,
Turkey’s bureaucracies were able to institute developmental reforms, providing funding,
access to new technology, and scientific information to industries that had the
potential to export their products. [27]
Industries that did not have the potential were not given state support. Over time, as industries became more
competitive, the state began lowering tariffs and non-tariff barriers, exposing
those businesses to more competition. In
the 1980’s, Turkey became more competitive in lighter industries like
textiles. By the 2000’s, they were mass
producing heavy machinery.[28]
However, in Egypt, institutional
reforms were problematic as over bloated and corrupt bureaucracies had problems
coordinating and executing policies. Individual
bureaucracies at various points were implementing contradictory policies, and
they were often hostile to private industrial interests. Furthermore, political leaders and
bureaucrats did not have the same motivation as the Turks to initiate
developmental policies for various domestic and international reasons as will
be discussed below. As a result, most of
Egypt’s industry remained inefficient and state protected, and the budget was
balanced through a combination of foreign aid, debt forgiveness from foreign
banks in the early 1990’s, inflation, and spending cuts. In short, Turkey, despite its problems, was
better at governance.
The
World Bank’s six governance indicators show empirical evidence for this
phenomenon. In almost every indicator of
governance, Turkey made improvements from 1996 to 2013 whereas Egypt declined[29]:
Turkey in 1996
|
Egypt in 1996
|
Turkey in 2013
|
Egypt in 2013
|
|
Control of Corruption
|
-.2
|
-.1
|
.1
|
-.6
|
Government Effectiveness
|
0
|
-.2
|
.4
|
-.9
|
Political
Stability
|
-1.3
|
-.6
|
-1.2
|
-1.6
|
Regulatory Quality
|
.2
|
0
|
.4
|
-.7
|
Rule of Law
|
-.2
|
0
|
.1
|
-.6
|
Voice and Accountability
|
-.2
|
-.8
|
-.3
|
-1
|
As indicated above, both countries
have struggled with political stability.
In Turkey, democratically elected governments starting in 1950 have
often abused the state budget and ran up large deficits to pay for a large welfare
state with the hope of being reelected.[30] Frequent problems with macro-economic
instability led to coups d’état in 1960, 1971, and 1980 as a result. Each time the military stepped into power,
they would restore macro-economic stability and eventually allow democratic
elections only for process to repeat itself.
It was not until the 1980’s and the global rise in oil prices that
Turkey’s civilian government took on more developmental policies, investing in export-oriented
industry.
Furthermore, Turkey has experienced
tensions between its secular military and Turkish Islamist political parties
over this time period.[31] Since the 1920’s, Turkey’s military has
protected the secular legacy of the country’s founder Mustapha Kamel by
suppressing Islamist forms of dissent against the government. Islamist parties have been disbanded numerous
times and various political rights and civil liberties of individuals in these
groups have been suppressed. In 1997,
when a member of the Welfare Party, an Islamist movement, became Prime
Minister, the Turkish military forced him to resign. It was not until the 2000’s that a moderate
right wing Islamist movement, the Justice and Development Party led by Tayyip
Erdogan, was allowed to take charge of the government. Since
then, Erdogan has become semi-authoritarian in his own right, restructuring the
military to avoid another coup while repressing the civil liberties of
opposition parties. However, the threat
of military intervention into politics has been subsided for the foreseeable
future.
Lastly, Turkey has had problems with
the international community over its inhumane treatment of the Kurdish minority
in the Eastern part of the country, its current occupation of Northern Cyprus,
and its refusal to recognize the genocide of Armenians. These political issues have created
instability over the last half century and are the biggest barriers to Turkey’s
potential inclusion into the European Union.[32]
Despite Turkey’s problems, Egypt has
faced even worse instability over the last three decades and especially in the
last couple of years. When president
Anwar Sadat began making neo-liberal economic reforms in the 1970’s, which
involved spending cuts to welfare programs, the regime began losing its
legitimacy with the working and poorer classes.[33] Under Abdel Nasser from 1952 to 1970, the
Egyptian government was able to create an extensive welfare state and provide
jobs in exchange for loyalty to the autocratic regime.[34] However, the global economic crisis of the
1970’s forced Nasser’s successor Sadat to cut spending on bread subsidies,
public housing, government jobs, and other forms of welfare. These policies culminated in bread riots in
1977. Although the exploitation of oil
resources in the early 1980’s and two billion dollars a year in American aid
temporarily created stability during the first years of the Hosni Mubarak
administration, the oil glut in 1986 led to an enormous drop in state revenue and
a debt crisis.[35] The government once again responded with
spending cuts as a part of IMF driven reforms.
Many Egyptians, having lost faith in the state, began turning away from
the government and joining moderate Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood
who could offer charity and a sense of purpose.[36] A small number joined radical Islamist groups
like al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad.
The government fought a domestic war with these radicals from 1992 to
1997. Although repression worked in the late
1990’s, the situation only grew worse in the 2000’s as more neoliberal cuts
were led by a political faction dominated by Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal.[37] From 2004 to 2010, protests by industrial
workers, liberal activists, and Islamists grew in frequency and size despite
government attempts to repress them, culminating in the 2011 revolution. [38]
These political problems have not bolded
well for Egypt’s tourist industry, which was ten percent of Egypt’s GDP before
the revolution.
Egypt has also experienced problems
with its neighbors. The country’s
border with Israel and Palestine has been a source of constant tension. Egypt fought wars with Israel in
1947, 1956, 1967, and 1973.[39]
In 1967, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula
and did not begin to leave until the Camp David Accords in 1978. Furthermore, ever since the Islamist group
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2006 and Israel responded with a
blockade, the Egyptian government has had difficulties stopping the building of
tunnels that connect the Sinai with the Gaza Strip as well as the trafficking
of weapons, drugs, and people through the Sinai Peninsula. The government is now fighting a war with
various Islamist groups and Bedouin engaged in this activity. Furthermore, Egypt has diplomatic problems
with its neighbors to the south, most notably Ethiopia, over access to the
water of the Nile River. The desert
countries along the Nile are dependent on the river for their survival, and as
populations continue to grow, access to water is going to become a greater
problem.[40]
Although both Egypt and Turkey have
faced problems with political stability, Turkey is far better on all other
government indicators, including the rule of law; government effectiveness;
voice and accountability; regulatory quality; and control of corruption. As Turkey’s economy developed from 1980 to
2015, this led to further political development. Egypt instead has declined politically and
has only made modest gains economically.
Why was this case?
The Independent Variables
There
are four major factors that explain why Turkey had better governance than Egypt
by 1980. These factors also explain why
Turkish governance improved from the 1980’s to the 2000’s while Egypt declined
politically. These factors are as follows:
rentierism; historical institutionalism; international relations; and the level
of democratization.
In
a ground breaking quantitative study in 1999, Michael Ross showed a great deal
of empirical evidence that countries dependent on rents suffer from a number of
political problems; most notably, struggles with democratization.[41] A rent is any form of economic revenue that
requires little to no work to obtain it.
Great examples of rents are fossil fuels, mineral resources, and control
of transport routes like canals and oil pipelines. Furthermore, other forms of revenue like
international aid, although they usually come with a political price, are
similar to rents in that there are sources of money that don’t always require
significant economic development. States
that are overly dependent on rents can use the revenue generated by them to
maintain regime support through welfare spending; expanding the bureaucracy to
provide jobs; and having low or no taxes.
Since the state has revenue and can buy support, it sees little need to
invest in long term development or export-oriented industry. Furthermore, since the population is not
being taxed, they have fewer reasons to demand government accountability or
voice their opposition to the state.
Lastly, rents allow authoritarian governments to spend more on the
military, allowing them to suppress dissent.
Throughout much of the Middle East, dependence on rents has arguably
stalled political and economic development.
Does
this apply to Egypt? Some scholars like
Thomas Richter would say that it does. [42]
Although oil revenues did drop significantly from 1980 to 2010, one third of
GDP was still being generated from rents in the early 2000’s, including oil,
the Suez Canal, foreign aid, and taxes on imports. This number does not count the amount of
revenue generated by publicly owned industries that are highly dependent on
government energy subsidies.
Furthermore, Egypt’s control of the geopolitically important Suez Canal
has led the country to receive an exceptionally large amount of foreign aid in
comparison with other countries. For
example, during the 1950’s and 1960’s, Egypt was the largest receiver of Soviet
Aid on the planet; much of this aid was used to build the High Dam in Aswan. [43]
Following the signing of the Camp David Accords and the establishment of peace
with Israeli in 1978, Egypt became the second largest recipient of American aid
at approximately two billion dollars a year.
Furthermore, when the country faced a debt crisis in the late 1980’s and
early 1990’s, the IMF and other international banks worked out an awfully
generous deal where over half of Egypt’s debt would be forgiven. This happened partly because the United
States needed a strategic Arab state to support them in the Gulf War. Finally, following the 2011 revolution and
the 2013 coup, Egypt was, by far, the largest receiver of aid from the Gulf
States. Although Turkey did receive aid
from the United States in the form of the Truman doctrine in the late 1940’s
and 1950’s, the country has not benefitted from the same kind of international
aid as Egypt. Furthermore, the country
has barely any oil resources. When
Turkey needed to restructure its economy in the 1980’s, it did not have the
same access to foreign aid or rents, so the country faced greater pressure to
develop economically.
Not
only did Turkey face greater pressure to make developmental reforms, it also
had better institutional structures than Egypt to engage in those reforms. When Turkey first formed as a state from the
1920’s to the 1930’s, the country was, for the most part, united under the
charismatic rule of Mustafa Kamal. The Turks had fought a war for national liberation
against the Greeks, who had occupied part of the Anatolian Peninsula after the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World One. [44] This direct threat to the nation allowed
Mustafa Kamal to forge a modern state without having to deal with too many social
cleavages. Facing little opposition,
Mustafa Kamal was able to create a set of bureaucracies based on rational,
developmental needs and not short term political ones. What this means is that bureaucracies were
created and staffed to govern; not to provide jobs for loyal supporters. However, Turkey’s bureaucracies did become
partially politicized after the country’s transition to a democracy in
1950. Populist governments often used
bureaucracies as a way to provide jobs to voters and loyal supporters, leading
to inefficiency in many bureaus. This
continued until the 1980’s, when the state began making developmental reforms. Despite these problems, the Turkish state
bureaucracies were in a much better position to lead the way towards export
oriented industrial development than Egypt by 1980.
Egypt
had a very different history in terms of the formation of its institutions. For one, the country was occupied by the
British from 1880 until 1956, delaying the development of the state and
industrialization in general. Furthermore,
the British played divide and conqueror, supporting certain political and
social groups within the country over others. [45]
This created intense social cleavages between Islamists and secularists; land
owners and state bureaucrats; fascists and liberals; communists and
capitalists, etc. Whereas Turkish
society was far more united upon the birth of the modern state in the 1920’s,
Egypt was hopelessly divided on the eve of the 1952 revolution that saw the
overthrow of the British backed monarchy by a group of young Arab
officers. When Abdel Nasser and his
supporting officers came to power in the early 1950’s, they faced severe
economic, political, and social problems.
Force was not enough to quell the unrest. Abdel Nasser began a project of expanding the
size of the state bureaucracy to appease opposition elements. An excessive amount of bureaucracies were
created to create jobs and win allies; land was redistributed to the poor; and
the welfare state expanded. The end
result was the creation of large, over bloated bureaucracy that was good for
short term political stability but terrible for long term economic development.[46]
Egypt
and Turkey were also heavily influenced by different international influences
in the middle of the twentieth century that created different paths to
development. From the 1950’s to the
1970’s, both Turkey and Egypt tried to industrialize by protecting their
economy from imports in a policy known as import substitution industrialization
(ISI). Although the policy did lead to the
creation of factories and mass production, they became inefficient and costly due
to the lack of competition and corruption. [47]
By the 1970’s, both countries were heavily in debt because of ISI policies and
the international oil crisis. However,
Turkey and Egypt differed dramatically in terms of how they implemented ISI
policies. Turkey in the 1950’s was an
ally of the capitalist United States and a member of NATO; unlike Egypt, they
were never colonized, so they did not have the same animosity towards the West or private property. Forty one percent of the new industries from
the 1950’s to the 1970’s were private, and during the 1980’s, Turkey witnessed
the rapid rise of private industry. [48]
By 2001, over eighty percent of Turkey’s industries were private.
In Egypt on the other hand, ISI
policies under Nasser were highly influenced by the Soviet Union. As a result of colonialism and anti-Western
attitudes in Egypt, the Nasser regime leaned towards the U.S.S.R. in terms of
foreign policy. By the late 1950’s and
early 1960’s, the regime adopted socialist policies. Almost all of the country’s businesses and
industries were nationalized, and the state bureaucracies that were developed
had no experience dealing with free markets.
When it came time for Turkey and Egypt to make reforms in the 1980’s,
the Turkish bureaucracies already had experience working with private industry. Egypt’s bureaucracies had no institutional
means for working with the private sector; in fact, bureaucrats often saw the
emergence of a private sector as a political threat. Lastly, Turkey’s special relationship with
the European Union and the hopes of one day joining, however unrealistic that
may be, have provided an impetus for the government to make institutional
reforms to adapt to European economic norms.
The United States has not provided the same degree of pressure or
influence on Egypt’s institutions on the other hand. While spending cuts and macro-economic
stability have been encouraged, developing the institutions to encourage
industrial exports has been a secondary concern.
Finally,
whereas Egypt’s tumultuous political history in the 1950’s led to the emergence
of a military dictatorship, Turkey was able to peacefully transition into a
democracy, albeit a highly flawed one. [49]Although
Egypt did open up the authoritarian system to elections under Sadat and
Mubarak, the elections were fixed, guaranteeing that the National Democratic
Party would win every time. According to
Freedom House, Turkey had much higher levels of political freedom and civil
rights from the 1990’s to the 2000’s as shown below. The rankings are from 1 to 7 with 1 being the
most democratic:[50]
Turkey 1999
|
Egypt 1990
|
Turkey 2015
|
Egypt 2015
|
|
Freedom
|
4.5/7
|
5.5/7
|
3.5/7
|
5.5/7
|
Civil Liberties
|
5/7
|
5/7
|
4/7
|
5/7
|
Political Rights
|
4/7
|
6/7
|
3/7
|
6/7
|
Evaluation
|
Partly Free
|
Not Free
|
Partly Free
|
Not Free
|
Whereas Turkish politicians fear not being reelected
are scrutinized more in the media, in Egypt, the government has tight control
over most media outlets and the electoral system. This has led to less accountability in the
system and more corruption, making it more difficult for the government to
engage in reforms.
Conclusion
Despite
the claims of right wing institutions like the Heritage Foundation, developing
countries will not create growth simply by cutting government spending or
opening up their economies to greater international trade. Egypt has cut government spending and
increased trade in recent decades, but it has not increased its industrial
exports or improved the competitiveness of its businesses significantly. However, some countries did have success with
neoliberal reforms. Turkey has shown
that governments can lead their countries towards export-oriented
industrialization and overall economic development with good governance.
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[1]
World Bank. data.worlbank.org,
2015.
[2]
Azmy, 3.
[3]
Waldner, 19-52.
[4]
See Aly Azmy, David Waldner, Michael Ross, and Meredith Woo Cummings.
[5]
Gregory and Stuart, 41-60.
[6]
Gregory and Stuart, Ibid.
[7]
Huntington, Samuel. “The Goals of
Development,” in Understanding Political Development by Myron Weiner and
Samuel Huntington, eds. Little, Brown
and Co.: Boston, 1987, pg 3-31.
[8]
The World Bank: Data, data.worldbank.org,
2015.
[9]
Huntington, Ibid.
[10]
Gregory and Stuart, Ibid.
[11]
United Nations Development Reports, http://hdr.undp.org/en/data, 2014.
[12]
The World Bank, Ibid.
[13]
World Economic Forum: The Global Competitiveness Report, http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-2014-2015,
2015.
[14]
Cummings, 1-31.
[15]
Transparency International: the Global Coalition Against Corruption, https://www.transparency.org/,
2015.
[16] Looney, Robert. "Governance-constrained growth in the
MENA region," in Governance in the Middle East and North Africa,
ed. Abbas Kadhim. Rutledge: New York,
2013, pg 3-32.
[17]
Al-Thawr, Sabria. "Ending
Persistent Poverty: Pathways to Reform and Empowerment," in Arab Human
Development in the Twenty-First Century: The Primacy Of Empowerment, ed.
Bahgat Korany. The American University
in Cairo Press: Egypt, 2014, pg 139-164.
[18]
World Bank, Ibid.
[19]
Azmy, 14-27.
[20]
Richter, Thomas. "The Political
Economy of Regime Maintenance in Egypt: Linking External Resources and Domestic
Legitimation," in Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability
in Nondemcoratic Regimes, ed. Oliver Schlumberger. Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2007, pg
177-193.
[21]
Gregory and Stuart, Ibid.
[22]
Azmy, 164-71.
[23]
Azmy, Ibid.
[24]
Waldner, Ibid.
[25] Niblock, Tim and Emma Murphy, eds. Economic and Political Liberalization in
the Middle East. British Academic Press: London, 1993.
[26]
Richards, Alan, John Waterbury, Melani Cammett, and Ishac Diwan. A Political Economy of the Middle East,
third edition. West View Press:
United States, 2014.
[27]
Waldner, Ibid.
[28]
Azmy, 28-69.
[29]
World Bank, Ibid.
[30]
Guzeldere, Ekrem Eddy. “Civilianizing
Turkish Policy: Civil Society in Decision-Making and Civil-Military Relations,”
in Governance in the Middle East and North Africa, Ibid, pg 218-223.
[31]
Guzeldere, Ibid.
[32]
Azmy, 187-205.
[33]
Richards, Ibid.
[34] Owen,
Roger. State, Power, and Politics in
the Making of the Modern Middle East. Rutledge: London, 2004.
[35]
Richter, Ibid.
[36]
Owen, Ibid.
[37]
Azmy, 70-115.
[38] Bishara, Dina. 2012. “The Power of Workers in Egypt’s
2007 Uprising,” In Arab Spring in Egypt, ed. Bahgat Korany and Rabab
El-Mahdi. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
[39]
Owen, Ibid.
[40]
Owen, Ibid.
[41] Ross,
Michael. "Does oil hinder democracy?" World Politics, 53 (3):
325-361.
[42]
Richter, Ibid.
[43]
Azmy, Ibid.
[44]
Waldner, Ibid.
[45] Owen,
Ibid.
[46]
Azmy, Ibid.
[47]
Richards, Ibid.
[48]
Azmy, 172-86.
[49]
Owen, Ibid and Guzeldere, Ibid.
[50] Freedom
House. https://freedomhouse.org/,
2015.
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