- 12 May 2016
MEI Prominent Speaker Series: On the Economic Causes of the Arab Spring and its Possible Developments
ABSTRACT :
The Arab Spring has been analysed primarily as a phenomenon motivated by the quest for freedom and dignity, but its economic causes have been under-researched. The discussion of economic causes of the Arab Spring presents a puzzle, because several economic indicators seemingly tell us that the previous decade had seen rather positive developments in many of the countries involved. In this lecture, Professor Luciani recommends to go beyond the surface and conduct a country by country analysis to understand how the cycle of high oil prices, which started in 2004 and came to an end in 2014, resulted to the plunging of the entire region into political disarray and conflict. Attention must be paid to the specific mechanism for rent redistribution that were adopted (or not adopted) at the national and, especially, regional level to understand the root causes of the regional turmoil.
About the Speakers
Giacomo Luciani leads the Master in International Energy at the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po; and is adjunct professor of interdisciplinary studies at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. In 2010-13 he was Princeton Global Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Near Eastern Studies.
His work has focused on the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. With Hazem Beblawi, he edited a book on “The Rentier State” (1987), which is frequently cited as one of the origins of the concept. In his subsequent work he has focused on the linkage between evolving sources of government revenue and democratization, on the emergence of a GCC bourgeoisie, and on the economic causes of the Arab Spring. He just recently finished editing a book on “Combining Economic and Political Development” which discusses which economic policies may support democratic transitions and address popular expectations.
