Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-c654p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-30T17:31:33.645Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2014

Get access

Summary

Over the last three decades, the Arab world (hereafter referred to as the AW, as per the definition of the Arab League) has undergone a process of reverse development. It has de-developed. The quality of its capital stock has depreciated, median incomes have plummeted, unemployment has soared, and restrictions on already constrained civil liberties have tightened. When wars and civil wars in Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria are considered, the scale of humanitarian disasters could possibly compete with those of the Congo. In short, the AW has failed the test of development, broadly defined as a process of economic growth, with expanding output and employment, technological progress and institutional transformation that steadily improve the well-being of working classes (ESCCHR 2004). That the Arab ruling classes would bring about development was the lie that their bought intellectuals peddled. Instead of development, or ‘the realisation of the right to development and the fulfilment of a set of claims by people, principally on their state but also on the society at large, including the international community, in a process that enables them to realise the rights set forth in the International Bill of Human Rights’, working classes in the AW have experienced the reverse (ESCCHR 2004).

Type
Chapter
Information
Arab Development Denied
Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment
, pp. 1 - 26
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×