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Put bluntly, the issue boils dovvn to the reluctance of established authoritarianelites to relinquish political povver vvithin the context of a diminishedrole for the state in economic affairs. At a more sophisticatedlevel, the issue is more accurately described as fınding and developingthe optimum relationship betvveen political and economic subsystems. Itmust be kept in mind that the Arab World's svvitch to neoliberal modelsof economic development has been part of a generalized trend markingthe so-called Third World for över tvvo decades and, furthermore, that itremains yet unknovvn vvhether this market-oriented approach vvill be thekey to self-sustained economic grovvth. In any event, vvhile it is clear that"economic liberalization" must have political consequences, it is by nomeans evident that these vvill necessarily promote "political liberalization"(defined as "democratization". indeed, I have argued elsevvhere thatcomparative empirical evidence so far tends to indicate a high probabilitythat-depending on cultural and historical factors—the politically liberalizingimpact of economic liberalization measures vvill vary vvidely. In othervvords, in some national contexts, economic liberalization may leave authoritarianpatterns of political life virtually unchanged, or perhaps evenstrengthened, vvhile in others economic and political liberalization maycorrelate positively to varying degrees 2 .On the vvhole, the Arab World's "deep history" as vvell as its morerecent experience appear to give little reason to hope that economic liberalizationvvill correlate smoothly, or to any great degree, vvith political liberalization.The contemporary vveakness of civil societies in the ArabWorld strengthens this conclusion.The most likely prognosis must therefore be that despite its pursuitof economic development through neoliberal market-oriented measures,the political environment in the Arab World vvill remain predominantlyauthoritarian. Thus, the preservation of regime legitimacy can be expectedto remain an immediate and high-priority concern of governmentsthroughout the region. The inevitable corollary is that most of the ArabWorld can also be expected to continue being characterized by relativelyvveak levels of political institutionalization.Apart from such generalities, there is little that can be maintainedvvith any strong probability regarding the likely political impact of economicon the Arab World in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, the caseof Egypt-currently the leading Arab state that has most seriously committeditself to eradicating a command economy legacy through economicliberalization—provides a possible scenario of more general import.While Egypt's experience obviously need not necessarily herald vvhat is2. Dan Tschirgi (ed.), Development in the Age of Liberalization: Egypt and Mexico.(Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1996).594