Is an "Islamic Political Economy" in the Making across the Middle East and North Africa?: A Path-Dependent Institutional Change Analysis

Abstract

The Arab Uprisings and their transformational impact across MENA have generated immense debate about the future of the region's countries during a period of reorganizational crisis in the international political economy. At this stage of the unfolding region-wide transition in the MENA, this paper performs a two-step theoreticopractical examination of the processes between and after the Uprisings. Firstly it crystallizes the ambiguous manifestations between the theory of Islamic political economy and the praxis of these Muslim-majority countries: the high-income Arab Gulf States, upper-middle-income Tunisia, and lower-middle-income Egypt. Secondly it contextualizes the evolving continuities and