Melani Cammett has provided a superb account of the impact of globalization on manufacturers in developing countries. Focusing on the cases of Tunisia and Morocco, and drilling down into the countries' textile and apparel sectors, Cammett offers a nuanced and provocative analysis of private-sector responses to state policy and trade liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s. Tunisia and Morocco share fundamental similarities in terms of a relatively analogous colonial experience (French and Spanish for Morocco and French for Tunisia), political culture, postcolonial periodicity, geographical location, production profile, and close ties with the United States and European Union. Nonetheless, she argues, the private sectors in both countries had strikingly different responses to the challenges of trade liberalization in the 1980s. These responses were conditioned by the character of prereform state–business relations, but also by the nature of the business classes within the countries and the character of the respective regimes.

Specifically, Cammett finds that Tunisian industrialists have been relatively ineffective in organizing and expressing their interests to state policymakers. This docility on the part of business interests emerged because of the regime's unwillingness or inability to tolerate opposition from any quarter, as well as the state's leading role in providing relatively pro-market policies. Such dynamics were evident under President Habib Bourguiba, especially beginning in the early 1970s with his liberal prime minister, Hédi Nouira. The policies continued well into the 1980s and even deepened after Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali replaced Bourguiba in November 1987. For Cammett, Tunisia's industrialists remain distant from the state; the state is able to remain aloof and relatively autonomous from business interests. Ultimate acquiescence to state policy is a result of business's relatively dispersed structure. The industrial class is also compliant because of the state's arbitrary enforcement of business laws, as well as the use of harassment, blackmail, and framed plots to silence critics.

By contrast, Morocco displays close business–state relations in that its business class is more concentrated and better able to influence state policymakers. This may seem counterintuitive, as one might imagine that a monarchical system would have greater authority over business interests. Nonetheless, because of King Hassan II's relative legitimacy (as well as his own efficiency in suppressing dissent, in contrast to Tunisia's blanket approach), an emerging class of business elites in the 1980s drew strength from their outsider status. In turn, they were able to forge a shared class identity that provided them with the political resources to pressure and influence state policy. More precisely, industrialists in the export-oriented apparel sector felt themselves to be “self-made” and distinct from the influential “fat cats” in the textile sector who had enjoyed import substitution industrialization (ISI) protection in the national market after the “Moroccanization” efforts of the 1970s.

To develop this argument, Cammett relies on extensive firm-level interviews, as well as careful historical analyses of the two cases. In so doing, she plumbs the variegated character of North Africa's bourgeoisie, offering a sophisticated sociology of capital in these sectors. The lessons offered are significant. For example, the paradox is that the presence of an entrenched ISI elite can give rise to a vibrant class that displays an oppositional class identity. Although Cammett does not put it in these terms, it is almost as if newly emerging entrepreneurs have a giant chip on their collective shoulder. The ultimate result is a more developmentalist and market-friendly orientation vis-à-vis the pressures of globalization. By contrast, the relative absence of an ISI elite in an authoritarian context (e.g., Tunisia) can impede the emergence of a vibrant business class. In this regard, therefore, business-sector mobilization to liberal reforms is not a given; one must examine a specific context in order to assess the prospects for collective (in)action by business. Cammett also makes a persuasive case that the promotion of sector-specific clusters has had some positive effects on textile and apparel production.

The author does a fine job of nestling the Tunisian and Moroccan cases in a broader comparative context. This occurs throughout the monograph but is especially evident in an early chapter on apparel manufacturing networks, as well as a final chapter that extends the cases to other country cases. Here, she focuses expressly on Taiwan, India, and Turkey. Taiwan exhibited a historical pattern similar to Tunisia's in terms of the “distance” of business–state relations; India's and Turkey's relations, by contrast, were analogous to Morocco's “closeness.”

Despite its manifold strengths and insights, Globalization and Business Politics in Arab North Africa prompts four concerns—three substantive and one stylistic. First, Cammett does not make explicit the implications of her findings. Given the fact that Tunisia's economic growth has largely outstripped Morocco's, one might be tempted to argue that Ben Ali's brand of authoritarianism and Tunisia's “distant” business–government relations is a preferable response to the international market. On the other hand, with respect to the case of Taiwan, where the historical distance between the state and government has changed in the postdemocratization period, the degree to which this has spelled a change in economic performance is not well elaborated. Perhaps it is impossible to know the long-term implications of Tunisia's and Morocco's divergent response to trade liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s—we may need some decades to gain perspective—but whether one model is more advantageous, sustainable, and/or normatively desirable is not fully elucidated.

A second, related issue is the degree to which the business–government relations that Cammett analyzes so well in the textile and apparel sectors are generalizable to other sectors of the economies. The reasons for studying the sectors are clear; their role in a global factory is obviously central. At the same time, whether or not the experience in other extroverted, vulnerable, and globalizing sectors—for example, pharmaceuticals, tourism, electronics, and agro-business—are analogous or dissimilar remains unclear. One has the feeling at times that the book is carefully comparing the string sections of two orchestras—and their respective relationships with conductors and orchestra managements—yet ignoring the brass, wind, or percussion sections. The strength of sectoral analyses is unquestionable, as others have demonstrated (e.g., Michael Shafer, Winners and Losers: How Sectors Shape the Development Prospect of States, 1994; and Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation, 1995). Yet the theoretical and empirical linkages to other sectors in the North African economy need clarification.

The third substantive issue is relatively minor, yet important. It is never really clear why the title of the book highlights “Arab.” It seems an odd, unnecessary adjective. There is nothing particularly Arab about the politics that Cammett examines. Indeed, that is one of the lessons of the book's comparative framework. Moreover, Morocco's status as an Arab country remains questionable given its sizable (perhaps even majority) Tamazight (Berber) population. Including the category in the title seems unnecessary to the book's project.

The fourth concern is stylistic and, again, relatively minor. The book is rigorously documented and engages the theoretical literature. At the same time, however, it interrupts itself with extensive, expository footnotes. Sometimes, the footnotes have crucial points that could or should even be elevated into the main text. The result is that the reader is sometimes left unsure how to weigh the importance of the digressions or tangents.

In the end, these few drawbacks do not undermine the volume's essential strengths. Globalization and Business Politics in Arab North Africa is an invaluable, stimulating scholarly contribution. It will surely be a welcome addition to advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on international and comparative political economy, as well as courses on North African and Mediterranean politics. Cammett is to be applauded for a stimulating, insightful book.