ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the arc of economic development in the region, a topic that links policymaking at the level of government with long-term social and human impacts felt across entire populations. Starting from the post-World War Two years, the authors discuss the predominant state-led model of industrialization and modernization, which for a brief period of time generated rapid growth and prosperity for many countries. Yet the exhaustion of this costly model, including even the wealthy oil exporters, injected relative deprivation and shocks to many populations. The consequence has been dire, though diffuse across the region. While governments enacted neoliberal reforms and market-oriented adjustments to their official economic policies, societies were forced to adjust to new privations; in the Arab world, and to a lesser degree Turkey and Iran, this has meant stubborn unemployment and rising living costs. Such struggles by the average citizen to put bread on tables and money in pockets makes the 2011–2012 Arab Spring all the more understandable.
