The struggle for influence in the Middle East: The Arab Uprisings and foreign assistance.

• Author: Bicchi, Federica
• Position: Book review

The book reviewed here is one of the most beneficial examples of studies made on Foreign Assistance to the Middle East, especially for researchers who are intrigued by the question of whether or not the Arab Uprisings made an impact on the preceding trends in foreign assistance to the region. The book includes ten chapters which deal with the most important aspects of the topic. The most salient case studies seem to be Tunisia and Egypt as the recipient countries with U.S., EU and Turkey having their own chapters in terms of elaborating the debate in these examples. The Gulf Cooperation Council seems to be the structure investing the most in the Middle East before and after the Arab Uprisings and according to Heydemann, this regional assistance dwarfs both U.S. and EU aid together (p. 24). Although the chapters purport to be different from each other, since the focus is recipient countries, some chapters overlap with each other.

The first chapter of the book is also another indication that there is going to be versatility in the following chapters since all of the authors have their own methods and preferences. It must be emphasized that the first chapter of this book is one of most informative about the topic studied when compared to previously published books. The book defines the concept of aid as "the financial or material support given by the governments of advanced capitalist countries, multilateral agencies or official bodies with a view to promote the welfare or the economy of low-income countries" (p. 5). Such a definition also possesses problems in itself but it seems that authors have attempted to keep the definition as comprehensive as possible in terms of not struggling to operationalize it in the case studies. Aid is also defined broadly as not only following the political event but also a tool that precedes and sometimes leads to these events as well (p. 6). The main purpose of the study is to understand the continuity in foreign assistance through the region by analyzing such a huge event as the Arab Uprisings. Even these types of events are not enough to interrupt the foreign intervention in the region and in fact the uprisings were the result of the preceding changes in the amounts of foreign assistance to the recipient states. It is also argued that aid is a two edged sword (p. 11) which is not only about giving but also taking, indicating that the study is focused on both the beginning and the end of this mostly...