Transformation of the corporatist state in the Middle East

Abstract

root. The article seeks to demonstrate that this may be a function of the disarticulation of corporatist models for political organisation adopted in bureaucratic-bourgeois states. As the state seeks to build a wider political base in support of its economic policies, it is itself responsible for the breakdown of the corporatist structures which have provided political stability. The political protest and challenges to the regime which result cannot be contained without resort ultimately to the authoritarian assets of the state, reversing attempts at political reform. The corporatist state is transformed into an overtly authoritarian state. Corporatist states in the Middle East Our starting point must therefore be the nature of the state in the Middle East before the era of economic liberalisation. For many countries in the Middle East and North Africa independence ultimately led to the transfer of power from traditional (usually urban-based land-owning) elites to nationalist and populist regimes. It brought with it a move towards import-substitution industrialisation (isi) strategies for development which were seen as a way of breaking away from dependence on exporting cash crops and commodities and concentrating instead on domestic industrialisation and production diversification.' The implementation of isi carried with it considerable implications for the organisation and role of the state. New regimes were drawn from populist national movements which claimed to be classless in as much as they represented all classes, thereby making class struggle irrelevant. In practice, however, isi strategies, with the emphasis on rapid catch-up industrialisation to supply the domestic market, resulted in the growing importance of the industrial bourgeoisie. In most cases, however, the existing industrial bourgeoisie was either weak and relatively unformed or, in the case of previously colonised countries like Egypt, had largely included foreign bourgeois elements which left or were disappropriated with independence. When the state assumed the responsibility for planning and resource allocation in development, and later for production and distribution, it became in effect the