The countries of the Middle East and North Africa, like other developing countries, are being transformed under the forces of globalization. New socioeconomic relations are being forged. The old economic models and strategies have been questioned - and, by and large, abandoned. But as yet, there is no coherent vision and strategy of development.
Since the 1980s, in the so-called post-oil-boom era, most countries of the Middle East and North Africa region have been facing a crisis of integration in the global economy. Social policy is likely to play a critical role both in the resolution of social conflicts during the transition period, and in the formation and long-term functioning of the new economic systems that are taking shape.
Nevertheless, in the large and growing literature on economic reform in the region, social policy has often taken a back seat. It is treated as a residual, or an afterthought to economic reform, in the shape of safety nets or safeguards to reintegrate marginalized groups dislocated by the reform process. This volume brings the social back in as a central theme in the analysis of economic reform in the Middle East and North Africa.
This book provides political and economic perspectives on social policy and its evolution in the Middle East and North Africa. Chapters on Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey analyse its origins in populist or modernizing state activities, its decline in the era of neoliberalism and prospects for its renewal in a democratizing and development context.
The collection offers unique historical and comparative data, as well as a gender analysis of social policy, that will be of relevance to specialists in social policy, development and the Middle East.
Contents
Social Policy in the Middle East: Introduction and Overview,
M. Karshenas and V.M. Moghadam
Social Policy and Development in Tunisia since Independence: A Political Perspective,
M.B. Romdhan
Algeria: Crisis, Transition, and Social Policy Outcomes,
A. Layachi
Social Policy in Morocco: History, Politics, and Social Development,
M. Ennaji
The Political Economy of Social Policy in Egypt,
A. Bayat
Social Policies and Distributional Dynamics in Turkey: 1923-2002,
K. Boratav and M. Özugurlu
Constitutionalism, Modernization, and Islamization: The Political Economy of Social Policy in Iran,
M. Messkoub
Gender and Social Policy: Family Law and Women's Economic Citizenship in the Middle East,
V.M. Moghadam
Massoud Karshenas is Professor of Economics at the University of London, United Kingdom, and the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, the Netherlands.
Valentine M. Moghadam is Director of Women’s Studies and Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University, United States (on leave) and Chief of the Gender Equality and Development Section, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO, France.
Social Policy in the Middle East: Economic, Political and Gender Dynamics is copublished with Palgrave Macmillan; hardback, ISBN 1-4039-4165-3, 280 pages, 2006, £55.
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This volume is part of the UNRISD series,
Social Policy in a Development Context, which examines ways in which social policy can be instrumental to economic development while maintaining its intrinsic goal of social protection and equity.