This book is organized into six chapters, which are collapsed into three distinct parts: theoretical framework, the international realm and Maghribi political economy, and state-in-society and state-in-the-internationaleconomy. The first two chapters provide succinct theoretical overviews and political economy profiles of the two countries. Positioning his study within the broader comparative political economy literature, the author carefully reviews competing arguments, ranging from class analyses to world systems theories to the new international division of labor approaches, and finds them wanting. He provides, instead, a more culturally nuanced, historically located interpretation that integrates domestic variables with international ones viewed through the empirical prism of the state. Avoiding the common tendency to (over)stress the cultural characteristics of Arab-Islamic societies, White turns to the state as the pivotal intermediary actor that serves to mediate the tensions created by the uneven interaction of international and domestic political economy forces.

Ultimately, as his case studies so convincingly demonstrate, both Morocco and Tunisia have failed to establish and maintain dynamic progress in their social and economic growth because they have depended on a strategy of extroverted industrial development, one that relies excessively on a few industries directed at the European Union. Pushed by a liberal capitalist project emanating from above, both countries have judiciously followed International Monetary Fund and World Bank demands for structural adjustments and greater openings to the global economy. Such policies have increased their extroversion and reliance on the EU and, therefore, “amplified their vulnerability to changes emanating from Europe” (p. 3). The core-periphery dependency, so well elaborated in other Third World settings, finds its manifestation in the late-twentieth-century Maghrib, with the negative consequences so long associated with such dependency.

The book's core sections are found in Part II, providing a detailed historical and analytical accounting of the different pathways undertaken by Tunisian and Moroccan elites to meet the challenge of open-door or infitah policies. In particular, White details the interactive way in which Tunisia's shift in the 1970s from a statecentered strategy to one of economic liberalism and extroversion was the result not simply of external pressures but also the way in which domestic actors responded to global challenges and mobilized their self-interests. The experiences of the rural sector, petty bourgeoisie, commercial/industrial class, labor, religious authorities, women, and state elites are each analyzed in turn. One unintended consequence of this dynamic has been the way in which the state's autonomy to position itself to take advantage of its proximity to Europe has been circumscribed by the growing strength of the business class opposed to certain aspects of infitah policies. Such a situation complicates the otherwise single-directed causal explanation associated with a simplified dependency model.

Morocco's experience with extroversion and economic liberalism is compared with that of Tunisia with similar consequences, although the pathways are somewhat different. As a larger, poorer, and more heterogeneous society, Morocco has found it more difficult than Tunisia to overcome structural as well as political constraints in its development. In both cases, however, the infitah strategy has resulted in regional imbalances, urban migration, environmental degradation, and rural decline. In combination, these have engendered new social and political frustrations, which increasingly find their expression in militant Islamist politics.

This latter theme could have been explored in much greater detail by the author since its expression is increasingly found both in the home countries and in Europe where large numbers of North Africans live and work. How nonrepresentative state elites pursue socioeconomic policies in a context of a capitalist dependency on Europe, which catalyze into a political opposition expressed in the form of Islamist radicalism including political terrorism, cries out for investigation if not explanation. Possibly the author's initial theoretical and empirical focuses were originally narrow, leaving little room for elaborating the more political dimensions of socioeconomic discontent. Yet, in his concluding paragraph, the author does provide the connecting political link that could serve as a basis for a future study by himself or others. In any case, it correctly summarizes the ultimate social and political failures of open-door policies that are unlinked to democratic politics and its core values of representativeness, accountability, and law. White writes that the “winners” in Tunisia's and Morocco's political economies are “a thin segment of affluent elites with intricate ties to their own governments, society, and, most importantly, the international arena. The bulk of Maghribi citizens, however, are excluded from their economic and political systems, and they remain exasperated with, and alienated from, their societies. Only with their political and economic inclusion will genuine change occur” (p. 171).

This, then, is a valuable book providing insight into comparative political economy operating on a global level but having determinative consequences for state and society. It is also a fine pedagogical primer for those seeking to understand Arab political dynamics taking place at Europe's doorstep and in the shadow of its economic might, cultural influence, and political power. How this interaction ultimately works itself out will have longterm consequences, intended or otherwise, both for North Africa and Europe, if not the world.