Abstract
On the eve of the ‘Arab Spring’, late 2010, most Arab governments were faithfully implementing economic measures similar to those included in the much-touted policy package known as the ‘Washington Consensus’ (Williamson, 1990).1 Some had faithfully been doing that for a very long time, even before Professor Williamson coined the term, and others were latecomers doing their best to make up for lost time. The IMF, and other self-appointed spokespersons of the Washington gospel, hailed Tunisia as a success story. Other Arab governments were busy sending their economists to Tunis to learn from the Tunisian experiment, which was on the verge of being declared the ‘Tunisian Miracle’. Soon enough, a watershed moment did happen when Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed 26-year-old, set fire to himself outside a municipal office in the town of Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia, protesting his inhuman environment, and triggering street protests throughout the AW that shattered the half-century stagnant political and social structure of the whole area. For a brief moment, a brief shining moment, it seemed as if the Arab masses re-entered history and were on their way to resuming their historical march, which started at the end of the nineteenth century and was crushed twice before,2 towards building free independent democratic societies.
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© 2016 Fadle Naqib
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Naqib, F. (2016). The Failure of Arab Macro Policy. In: Kadri, A. (eds) Development Challenges and Solutions after the Arab Spring. Rethinking International Development Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137541406_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137541406_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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