The Idea Department

The West has had its eyes fixed on the Arab World since January 2011, when the wave of upheavals started, promising to change the geo politics of the region. No doubts that the future of the region will now depend on the turn that Europe and theUS’s attitude towards the region will take. Project Syndicate explores the possibilities the West has, and the actions it must undergo.

In “The Arab Spring and Europe’s Turn”, Ana Palacio warns the West against accommodating with Arabic dictatorship in order to promote economic development and instead stresses on the important role it could play in promoting and reforming education, emphasizing democracy and the rule of law in order to achieve more sustainable development in the region. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/palacio1/English

 Edmund Phelps in “the corporatist threat to the Arab Spring” rejects the West’s erroneous prescription on how to help the middle east get back on its feet, and presents two steps that Europe and the US should instead take to alleviate the corporatist threat: first, to put an end to elitism in the business sector, and second to promote self employment in order to remove “barriers to jobs and rewarding careers”, thus modernizing the economy. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/phelps12/English

 Finally, Franco Frattina talks about a Marshall Plan for the Arab world that would entail tearing down trade and economic barriers, integrating those economies into the EU’s internal markets, and promote confidence building in the region in order to assure peace and stability in the region and prevent , a resurgence of terrorism, the rise of radical Islamism, and massive waves of immigration towards Europe http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/frattini3/English

 

 

For more on the matter, visit Project Syndicate’s website http://www.project-syndicate.org/or join us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/projectsyndicate