A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, at Stanford University. Bassam Haddad is Associate Professor at the Schar School for Policy and Government at George Mason University. Sherene Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"This book offers the first critical engagement with the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Challenging conventional wisdom on the origins and contemporary dynamics of capitalism in the region, these cutting-edge essays demonstrate how critical political economy can illuminate both historical and contemporary dynamics of the region and contribute to wider political economy debates from the vantage point of the Middle East. Leading scholars, representing several disciplines, contribute both thematic and country-specific analyses. Their writings critically examine major issues in political economy-notably, the mutual constitution of states, markets, and classes; the co-constitution of class, race, gender, and other forms of identity; varying modes of capital accumulation and the legal, political, and cultural forms of their regulation; relations among local, national, and global forms of capital, class, and culture; technopolitics; the role of war in the constitution of states and classes; and practices and cultures of domination and resistance"--

Introduction—Joel Beinin1. Landed Property, Capital Accumulation, and Polymorphous Capitalism: Egypt—Kristen Alff2. State, Market, and Class: Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia—Max Ajl, Bassam Haddad, and Zeinab Abul-Magd3. Ten Propositions on Oil—Timothy Mitchell4. Regional Militaries and the Global Military-Industrial Complex—Shana Marshall5. Rethinking Class and State in the Gulf Cooperation Council—Adam Hanieh6. Capitalism in Egypt, Not Egyptian Capitalism—Aaron Jakes and Ahmad Shokr7. State, Oil, and War in the Formation of Iraq—Nida Alahmad8. Colonial Capitalism and Imperial Myth in French North Africa—Muriam Haleh Davis9. Lebanon Beyond Exceptionalism—Ziad M. Abu-Rish10. The US-Israeli Alliance—Joel Beinin11. Repercussions of Colonialism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories—Samia Al-Botmeh