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Crony capitalism in the Palestinian Authority: a deal among friends

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journal contribution
submitted on 2024-03-17, 06:56 and posted on 2024-03-17, 06:56 authored by Tariq Dana

This article interrogates the multifaceted political–economic networks entrenched within the multiple structures of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA). The main argument of this article is that crony capitalism is a defining feature of the PA’s relations with a handful of capitalists and business groups. The demonstration of this argument is exhibited through the large-scale public and private monopolistic practices in strategic sectors of the Palestinian economy, which function within the framework of Israel’s settler-colonial reality and the persistent patterns of international aid to the occupied West Bank. While acknowledging the existence of cronyism as a feature of the capitalist system in its diverse typologies, crony capitalism may be more pronounced in situations characterised by political uncertainty, whereby political–business collusion strategizes the expansion of neo-patrimonial networks and rent-seeking opportunities as a meta-mechanism for social control and political stabilisation. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, crony capitalism was developed as part of the political allegiances and economic alliances that underpin the structures created by the Oslo process, which are fostered by Israeli policies and the international donor community to maintain the cohesiveness of the PA regime.

Other Information

Published in: Third World Quarterly
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2019.1618705

Additional institutions affiliated with: Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies - ACRPS

Funding

Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

History

Language

  • English

Publisher

Routledge

Publication Year

  • 2019

License statement

This Item is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Institution affiliated with

  • Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
  • Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies - DI

Geographic coverage

Palestine

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