Abstract
Since the 1980s, many developing countries started economic restructuring and an opening up towards global markets, following partly the receipt of the ruling neoliberal economic theory. The results of these processes were mostly ambiguous, however, especially regarding the social consequences. The North African countries, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt were no exceptions. Being strongly connected to the EU economy, these countries have signed free trade agreements to create better access to the European Single Market, but they were opening up their economies to a growing competition as well. Maybe it is not a surprise that the Arab Spring, with a growing social unrest in its background, was started in Tunisia, and was followed with similar events in other North African countries. This chapter examines trade opening in North Africa and presents the impacts of these agreements on North African economies and societies. It puts the trade opening in its domestic political economic environment, why governing elites and insiders were interested in the liberalisation process, and how they were able to transform trade policy reforms in their own interest.
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Szigetvári, T. (2021). Development and Trade Policy in North Africa. In: Gerőcs, T., Ricz, J. (eds) The Post-Crisis Developmental State . International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71987-6_13
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