Conclusion and Synthesis: What Can Be Learnt from our Four Country Studies?

Abstract

We set out at the start of this book to explore two themes in the globalisation debate. Firstly, whether the flow of international finance from the IMF and the World Bank to the Arab region has been partly determined by geo-political factors, namely Washington’s desire to support pro-Western regimes. Secondly, whether the economic reforms attached to these financial flows have stimulated sustained economic growth. In order to investigate these hypotheses we chose four countries to study in-depth: Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco. These were chosen as they have been put forward by both the IMF and the World Bank as successful reformers (Pfiefer 1999), who, for prolonged periods carried out World Bank and IMF guided economic reform programmes.