ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background of the political and social contexts from which new states emerged in the region, focusing on key features of the Ottoman and colonial periods across what is now the contemporary Middle East. It illustrates the evolution of political regimes across the region in the post-colonial period, organizing these regimes using the three country classifications as well as the two Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies in the region, Turkey and Israel. The classifications are resource-poor labor-abundant (RPLA), resource-rich labor-abundant (RRLA), and resource-rich labor-poor (RRLP). The chapter shows several key dimensions of governance, such as the rule of law, government effectiveness, and political repression and freedoms, in order to assess patterns across distinct types of political economies and governing institutions. It integrates the political regime type into the typology of political economies in the region.
