ABSTRACT
The inter-Arab stratification system with all its incongruencies is replete with overt and covert sources of tension. Saudi Arabia’s link with the US represents a different modality, but in many ways is similar in outcome to that of Egypt. The impressive socioeconomic growth of the Arab World has been neither evenly distributed nor accompanied by increased political participation. The quadrupling of oil prices, meant at the time as a pressure tactic on the West to expedite an honorable resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, triggered instead the birth of a new Arab order. Arab dreams of national unification gave way to vigorous country-state building by ruling elite. Some of the ruling elite in the Arab World have used their country’s wealth and/or efficient bureaucracies to deal with chronic problems of illiteracy, housing, unemployment, and infrastructure.
