Making Democracy Safe for Busines
Corporate Politics During the Arab Uprisings

With in-depth interviews and surveys, this book explains why the Middle East's democratic reform movements failed to stop crony capitalism.

Robert Kubinec (Author)

9781009273527, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 July 2023

214 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.46 kg

'Kubinec articulates the dilemmas of business elites in Tunisia and Egypt's 2011 uprisings and subsequent transitions very clearly and effectively. Where political science might in other conditions expect business elites to push for democratization - that whole middle class demanding a political seat at the table thing - in these cases only well-connected businesses could thrive. Crony capitalism meant that big business both benefited from and remained existentially dependent upon the regime, which controlled access to contracts, raw materials, licenses, markets, finance and everything else needed to survive.' Marc Lynch, Substack

Businesses in the Middle East and North Africa have failed to bring sustainable development despite decades of investment from the private and public sectors. Yet we still know little about why the Arab Uprisings failed to usher in more transparent government that could break this enduring cycle of corruption and mismanagement. Examining posttransition politics in Egypt and Tunisia, Kubinec employs interviews and quantitative surveys to map out the corrupting influence of businesses on politics. He argues that businesses must respond to changes in how perks and privileges are distributed after political transitions, either by forming political coalitions or creating new informal connections to emerging politicians. Employing detailed case studies and original experiments, Making Democracy Safe for Business advances our empirical understanding of the study of the durability of corruption in general and the dismal results of the Arab Uprisings in particular.

Introduction
1. How firms respond to regime change
2. Case study: The Egyptian military as the gatekeeper
3. Case study: Broad-rent seeking and the collapse of Tunisia's anti- democratic coalition
4. Experiments on businesses and political connections.

Subject Areas: Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Political structure & processes [JPH], Politics & government [JP], Society & social sciences [J]