ABSTRACT
Studies of the domestic political consequences of global economic crises usually advance broad generalizations that contribute little to our understanding of the peculiar events that occur in any one country at a particular moment in time. Economists for the most part agree that the aspects of the 2008–09 global financial crisis had the greatest impact on the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). MENA countries that exported manufactured goods and agricultural products to Europe experienced a steep decline in the value of such exports from 2008 to 2009. As a result, the International Labor Organization estimates that the rate of unemployment in the Middle East jumped 25 percent between 2007 and 2009, and rose 13 percent in North Africa during that same period. It is clear that the popular Uprising in Syria emerged from a conjunction of economic trends that took shape beginning in the mid-1990s.
