| Date: | March 21, 2012 | Time: | 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM | |
| Speaker(s): | Dr. Ali Kadri Senior Research Fellow Middle East Institute, Singapore |
Venue: | Middle East Institute (Seminar Room) Tower Block Level 2 Bukit Timah Campus, National University of Singapore 469A Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259770 |
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Abstract
Despite vast financial wealth, the Arab economy failed to develop. In fact, Arab economies came to represent cases of reverse development or “de-development”. Of the two paths of capital accumulation — accumulation by market expansion or commodity realisation and accumulation by encroachment— the Arab world appears to fall principally subject to the diktat of the latter process. A tight cross-border alliance between Western elites and Arab regimes has long been at play, to support a process that undermines development and that draws resources out of this region. In this lecture, which draws on my ongoing research, I will trace the developmental experience of the Arab world and attempt to explain its setbacks in terms of anti-labour institutional bias combined with an inadequate policy framework.
About the Speaker
Prior to joining the Middle East Institute, Ali Kadri was visiting fellow at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and head of the Economic Analysis Section at the United Nations regional office for Western Asia. Dr. Kadri is presently in the process of conducting research on the political economy of development in the Arab World. During his work at the United Nations, he was the lead author of the UN flagship publication dealing with the economic and social conditions of Arab Western Asia. Dr. Kadri has published on issues of the labour process in the Arab world. His forthcoming work, entitled ‘Arab development denied,’ looks into the formidable obstacles facing development in the Arab world.
