Neoliberalism in the Middle East and Africa: divergent banking reform trajectories, 1980s to 2000

This study aims at a better understanding of the politics of economic reform in countries that have remained on the margins of the globalising economy. The article identifies cross-national differences in patterns of financial sector reform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the 1980s and 1990s. We argue that these differences are traceable, in part, to variations in the strength and autonomy of private capital in each country. These social-structural differences are registered, albeit imperfectly, in measures of concentration and ownership structure in the commercial banking sector. Using these measures, we propose a typology of variation in banking structure in the MENA and SSA, and argue that each type tends to be associated with a characteristic pattern of financial sector reform (or non-reform). We find that the biggest struggles over banking reform occurred in countries with a history of antagonistic relations between a relatively strong domestic private sector and the state.