ABSTRACT
The Middle East today is characterised by the divisions between oil-rich and oil-poor countries, and (largely parallel) that between thinly and more heavily populated ones. The capital-surplus oil-exporters can be described as rent-economies, dependent as they are on the sell-off of their oil reserves. This prevalence of rent-economy and oil-dependence has to an important degree spread to the non-oil countries. The latter have become dependent on the direct inflow of funds either as assistance or as investment, and on the labour markets of, and flow of remittances from, the wealthier states. This dependence on unpredictable factors, coupled to the perceived need for an open economy in order to attract remittances and investment, has led to a certain loss of control by governments over their national economies. This trend has been reinforced by a conscious opting for infitah — as a natural result of the above factors, as well as of the on-going integration of the Middle East into the world economy, and of political imperatives for (or predilections of) ruling groups.
