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ABSTRACT
Political economy explanations of regime resilience often look at domestic support bases and patronage systems. Foreign aid to the state is seen as a direct form of propping up regimes. This article attempts to track the flow of foreign assistance to one part of the domestic support base of a regime, namely the economic elite, thereby making a connection between domestic explanations and foreign support explanations of regime resilience. The core argument of this article is that multilateral financial flows from Western dominated institutions may preserve regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. Multilateral flows from the World Bank Group, the European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development went to regime insiders and thus potentially strengthened existing economic elites during the time in which the former Islamist opposition party led a coalition government. I draw on the linkage dimension of Levitsky and Way’s model to show the importance of specifying the nature and destination of multilateral financial ties with Morocco’s private sector. This contribution helps us link the international dimension to the domestic political economy. It thus potentially adds to our understanding of monarchical regime resilience post-Arab Spring by highlighting how multilateral financial institutions support an important part of the economic elite.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the three anonymous reviewers and comments received from Dr Ferdinand Eibl (Kings College, London) and from colleagues in the political economy and transnational governance research seminar at the University of Amsterdam and the European Consortium for Political Research workshop on Authoritarianism beyond the state.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2. Raja Casablanca Fans Singing ‘To whom I can Express my sufferings’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMFP6UuEsfA)
3. Economic (‘flows of trade, investment, and credit’); intergovernmental (‘including bilateral diplomatic ties as well as participation in Western-led alliances, treaties, and international organizations’); technocratic (‘the share of the country’s elite that is educated in the West and/or has professional ties to Western universities or Western-led multilateral institutions’), social (‘flows of people across borders, including tourism, immigration, and refugee flows, and diaspora networks’); information (‘flows of information across borders via telecommunications, Internet connections, and Western media penetration’); and civil society (‘local ties to Western-based NGOs, international religious and party organizations, and other transnational networks’) (Levitsky & Way, Citation2010, pp. 43–44).
8. Annual Report, Bank of Africa/BMCE Group (Citation2022).
9. This was my experience as a policy advisor on the EIB for the Dutch ministry of finance. Large sums were often provided to large banks in Europe which helped the EIB reach its targets. Whether there was a trickle-down effect of these loans for smaller businesses was not necessarily clear.