Looking for the bigger picture

by Shadi Hamid*

I just returned from Cairo, where I was meeting with opposition activists. The transition has taken a sharp turn for the worse. A sense of frustration and lost momentum is pervasive, particularly after the events of Maspero, where over 20 Christian protesters were killed, many of them crushed by military vehicles. Across the region, whether in Bahrain, Syria, or Yemen, it looks even worse, offering a stark contrast to the early optimism of February and March 2011.

When participants in the World Economic Forum meeting gather together next week, this is what they will have to grapple with. The stakes are always high. But this year they’re higher.

Middle East scholars and analysts tend to focus either on the economic or political dimension of change in the Arab world. So, sometimes the bigger picture seems smaller than it should. The Arab spring has shown us that the two are intimately connected, with the economic shaping the political, and the political shaping the economic. On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a fruit seller, set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. In Bouazizi’s story, it all came together – economic grievances, an unaccountable regime, and an attack on the dignity of ordinary Tunisians.

Let’s backtrack one year. Tunisia and Egypt were hailed as economic success stories, with impressive annual GDP growth of around 5 to 7 percent. In 2008, former head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn called the Tunisian economy an “example for emerging countries,” while the World Bank named it a “top reformer” in regulatory reform. But with economic growth came economic inequality and growing regional discrepancies between coastal cities, such as Tunis, and the poorer interior, including the town of Sidi Bouzid.

Egypt and Tunisia, with all of their apparent economic success, were the first countries to experience revolutions. This was no accident. And, as governments in Egypt and Tunisia begin the difficult work of rebuilding their battered countries, their ability and willingness to engage in structural reforms will be shaped and constrained – for the first time – by what voters want. New political parties and new governments will need as many practical, innovative ideas they can get on fighting poverty, reforming the tax system, and overhauling education. For better or worse, those ideas also need to be politically feasible and in tune with popular sentiment. The ideas and recommendations that come out of next week’s World Economic Forum meeting can help push those conversations forward at a critical, uncertain time.

*Shadi Hamid is director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He will be attending the World Economic Forum Special Meeting on Economic Growth and Job Creation.