Steve L. Monroe, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore, dives deep into the intricacies of trade policies in the Arab world. He reveals how elite protectionism shapes governance and the economy. Monroe discusses the deceptive nature of neoliberal reforms that fail to enhance trade, underscoring the paradoxes in economic strategies shaped by both local elites and global powers. He also explores Jordan's unique trade challenges and the importance of social connections in influencing policy outcomes.
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insights INSIGHT
Paper Reform Often Isn’t Real Reform
Paper liberalization often fails to increase real trade integration in Arab markets.
Formal policies can exist while goods and competition remain blocked by informal practices.
insights INSIGHT
Connected Industries Get Cosmetic Liberalization
Industries with stronger ties to policymakers often show more documented reform.
Yet those same industries remain insulated via informal protections, producing a mirage of liberalization.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Fieldwork Revealed The Puzzle
Monroe recounts finding that weaker-connected industries saw less reform, contrary to expectations.
That discovery shifted his project from a conventional expectation to the book's central puzzle.
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In Mirages of Reform: The Politics of Elite Protectionism in the Arab World (Cornell UP, 2025), Steve L. Monroe argues that geopolitics and social connections between state and capital underpin the Arab world's uneven trade policies. Despite decades of international pressure, neoliberal trade policy reform in the Arab world has been varied, selective, and often ineffective. Neoliberal trade policies have not deepened international trade in many of the region's markets. This book explains why.
When the region's regimes have strong support from global powers and strong social connections to the industrial elite, they engage in extensive but deceptive trade policy reform. Behind an edifice of neoliberal trade policies, neopatrimonial forms of protectionism like tax evasion and noncompetitive procurement shield the socially connected from international competition and obstruct actual trade liberalization. Industrialists are less trustful of regime promises of neopatrimonial protectionism after reform when they have weak social connections to their regime and their regime has low support from global powers. They are more likely to defend existing protectionist policies under these conditions, resulting in less trade policy reform.
Drawing on interviews, firm- and industry-level data, and evidence from Jordan to Morocco, Mirages of Reform reveals how international and domestic factors interact to shape the Arab world's rugged trade policy terrain. Insightful and well researched, this book imparts important lessons and warnings about the repercussions of economic reform in the region.
Steve L. Monroe is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He is a scholar of development, with a primary focus on the Arab world. Monroe's scholarship examines two of the region's most pressing developmental challenges: limited economic integration, and gender inequality.
New Books in Middle Eastern Studies 