Mark Levine: Arab Revolutions Mask Continuance of Economic Status Quo

In an article in Al Jazeera Mark Levine a history professor at the University of California in Irvine argues that to a considerable extent the economic status quo remains after Arab Spring revolutions. The worst off in society will remain badly off and without power even given the politcial changes since the economic underpinnings of these countries remains oriented toward pleasing international investors and lending institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

Levine notes that the World Bank and IMF have been restructuring the economies of the Middle East for decades, with largely negative results. Yet they are poised to play a major role in the post-revolutionary efforts to stabilise Egypt, Tunisia and other post-authoritarian states.

After 1967 there has been a turn towards market liberalization throughout the Middle East going back as far as the Nasser period. From the start of the 1970s-era infitah, or opening, under Anwar Sadat, there have been over a dozen episodes of mass protest and even revolt against IMF and World Bank-imposed austerity measures.l.

Local governments often made some effort to resist the imposition of what is today referred to as "Washington Consensus" policies, which advocate trade liberalisation, privatisation, opening economies to foreign goods and investment, stabilising budgets and exchange rates, and cutting government expenditures and presence in the economy.

Mubarak cronies held great power and also influence within the IMF. In fact one of the main reasons the army was willing to sacrifice Mubarak according to some sources was because of its anger at the increasing power of his son Gamal and his colleagues, such as former - and recently convicted - IMF official Youssef Boutros-Ghali, who were accruing significant power through the financialisation of the economy and other policies that weaken the power of the army and the more traditional national capitalist elite.

Despite the less than encouraging history of involvement in the region, the World Bank, IMF and other mainstream institutions have all sought to insert themselves into the economic reform process that most observers believe must accompany political reform in order for the latter to succeed.

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