ABSTRACT
Under the combined impacts of globalization and regionalization, the economic boundaries between different nations have been in considerable flux for several decades. Thanks to its long history of attempts at greater economic integration and its pivotal role in world energy supplies, the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries have been far from immune to these forces. In the Arab world, regional integration has been a frequently stated policy goal, acting as a yardstick for evaluating the achievements of post-independence nationalism. Elsewhere in the region, too, there is a rich history of attempts at economic integration. Yet, despite numerous initiatives at the regional and sub-regional levels and hundreds of bilateral agreements, there is broad consensus that progress has been painfully slow and the record of economic integration in the MENA region is largely beset by a catalogue of failures.
