Political and Socio-Economic Change in the Middle East and North Africa

Roksana Bahramitash is Director of Research for the Canada Research Chair in Islam, Pluralism and Globalization at the University of Montreal, Canada. She previously worked as Faculty Lecturer on Gender and Environment with the Simone de Beauvoir Institute and Research Associate of Iranian studies at Concordia University, Canada.

Hadi Salehi Esfahani is Professor of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He holds a BSc in engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran, and a PhD in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, USA.

Political and Socio-Economic Change in the Middle East and North Africa examines the shortcomings of the economic development policies in the region before and after the Arab uprisings. Many MENA countries tried to pursue neoliberal policies to boost economic growth. However, the outcome was associated with rising and disproportionate unemployment among the youth and women. The focal point of the book is the role of gender and the ways in which policies translate into economic outcomes. Particular attention is paid to women's entrepreneurship, especially as owners of small and medium enterprises, which, as the authors argue, can potentially reduce unemployment and poverty for the population as a whole. The book offers perspectives on wholesome policies that take account of issues concerning gender and youth and, thus, contribute to lower unemployment and reduced poverty and inequity.