This volume explores the role of informal networks in the politics of Middle Eastern economic reform. The editor's introduction demonstrates how network-based models overcome limitations in existing approaches to the politics of economic reform. The following chapters show how business-state networks in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan have affected privatization programs and the reform of fiscal policies. They help us understand patterns and variation in the organization and outcome of economic reform programs, including the opportunities that economic reforms offered for reorganizing networks of economic privilege across the Middle East.

Introduction - Networks of Privilege: Rethinking the Politics of Economic Reform in the Middle East
S.Heydemann - Business-State Networks and the Politics of Economic Reform - The Formation and Development of Economic Networks in Syria: Implications for Economic and Fiscal Reforms, 1986-2000
B.Haddad - The Whales of the Nile: Networks, Businessmen, and Bureaucrats during the Era of Privatization in Egypt
J.Sfakianakis - Patterns of Resistance: Economic Actors and Fiscal Policy Reform in Egypt in the 1990s
U.G.Wurzel - From Negotiation to Rent Seeking, and Back?: Patterns of State-Business Interaction and Fiscal Policy Reform in Jordan
O.Wils - Fiscality, Economic Reforms, and the Role of Networks: Nobody Having Too Much To Answer For: Laissez-Faire, Networks, and Post-War Reconstruction in Lebanon
R.Leenders - Fiscal Trajectories in Morocco and Tunisia
B.Hibou - Participatory Development and Liberal Reforms in Tunisia: The Partial Incorporation of Economic Networks
J.Cassarino - The Limits of Network-Based Approaches: Challenges to Networks of Privilege in Morocco: Implications for Network - Analysis
M.Cammett - Reconciling Privilege and Reform: Fiscal Policy in Egypt, 1991-2000
E.Kienle - Contributors - Bibliograph y