Globalization and Business Politics in Arab North Africa: A Comparative Perspective

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Can production for global markets help business groups to mobilize collectively? Under what conditions does globalization enable the private sector to develop independent organizational bases and create effective relationships with the state? Focusing on varied Moroccan and Tunisian responses to trade liberalization in the 1990s, Melani Cammett argues that two constitutive dimensions of business-government relations shape business responses to global economic opening: the balance of power between business and the state before economic opening and the preexisting business class structure. These two dimensions combine to form different configurations of business-government relations, including 'distant' and 'close' linkages, leading to divergent interests and, hence, strategic behavior by industrialists. The book also extends the analysis to additional country cases, including India, Turkey, and Taiwan, and examines how different patterns of business-government relations affect processes of industrial upgrading.

Melani Cammett, Kutayba Alghanim Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brown University, is the recipient of numerous accolades for her research into Maghrib and Middle Eastern business and politics. An expert in the field, Cammett has published pieces on related subjects for Comparative Politics, Foreign Policy, and Arab Studies Journal, among others; she is an active participant in the American Political Science Association, the International Studies Association, and the Middle East Studies Association. Her first book has been funded by the Social Science Research Council and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, as well as the University of California, Berkeley, and Brown University. In addition to teaching at Brown University, Cammett serves as an Academy Scholar at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center.

"For nearly two hundred years, students of politics have debated what determines when and how capitalists influence state policy. In drawing on the experience of developing country manufacturers--the textile industries of Morocco and Tunisia--Melani Cammett both deepens both the theoretical sophistication and broadens the empirical reach of these debates. Incorporating how the opportunities and challenges of the export market shape both business horizons and government incentives, she draws subtle portraits of the changing outlooks of business communities of Tunisia and Morocco. In doing so, she deftly outlines when and why industrialists mobilize, and when and why they are effective. This book is valuable not only for what it tells us about North African textile exporters but what we learn about the global dynamics of business-state relations in the twenty-first century." -Lisa Anderson, Columbia University "As developing countries open to the world economy, the organization and political activity of local business communities, and their relationship with national governments, have become ever more important. Globalization and Business Politics in Arab North Africa is a serious contribution to our understanding of this central feature of the political economy of developing nations. In it, Melani Claire Cammett carries out a careful and nuanced study of the economics and politics of the crucial textile and garment industries in Tunisia and Morocco as the two countries were drawn into the world economy. She contrasts the relative political passivity of the Tunisian industrialists with the striking activism of their counterparts in Morocco. Cammett invokes a sophisticated mix of economic, political, and sociological factors to explain the differences in the behavior of the two countries' industrialists. Along the way, she provides us with a detailed analysis of the global textile and apparel trade, and of the developing world's place in it; and an extension of her two-country comparison to other developing nations. Globalization and Business Politics in Arab North Africa will be of great relevance to all those interested in the political economy of development." -Jeffry Frieden, Harvard University "An impressive scholarly contribution. Cammett's careful and theoretically-informed study, based on in-depth fieldwork in Tunisia and Morocco, provides not only valuable analytical insights but also important real-world lessons about how, why, and with what domestic political implications industrialists in developing countries respond to globalization and trade liberalization." -Mark Tessler, University of Michigan "Professor Cammett has presented a richly documented analysis of the domestic conditions under which forces of global competition may encourage business groups in developing countries to organize collectively[...]Cammett's story is a fascinating contrast of two rather different business and political environments in the same region and culture and faced with similar challenges and similar policy preferences among the individual actors." -Clement M. Henry, Middle East Journal "Melani Cammett has provided a superb account of impact globalization on manufacturers in developing countries. [...]Globalization and Business Politics in Arab North Africa is an invaluable, stimulating scholarly contribution. It will surely be a welcome addition to advanced undergraduate- and graduate level courses on international and comparative political economy, as well as courses on North African and Mediterranean politics. Cammett is to be applauded for a stimulating, insightful book." -Gregory White, Smith College, Perspectives on Politics