Status Updates From Making Sense of the Arab State

“Across MENA, [asymmetric governance] most often takes the form of bargaining between regimes and citizens over access to collective goods and the benefits of social provision, over the distribution of selective benefits.”

relevant in countries pursuing insane real estate projects while starving the rest of the land

“…rulers viewed citizenship as transactional and segmented and treated legitimacy as a contingent outcome of transactional relationships that defined and organized state-society relations.”