A Long Convergence

Timur Kuran’s The Long Divergence is a history of comparative “organizational development.” While the Middle East was once “globally optimal” with its kit of waqfs and legal pluralism, Western Europe soon emerged as the unchallenged dynamo, sporting tools like joint-stock companies and consolidative inheritance schemes. For centuries after, the Middle East stagnated amidst its “structural rigidities,” the divergence being a matter of economic relativity as the West prospered and left the torpid Arab countries in its commercial dust. Kuran, an economist, documents this process with reams of financial statistics, but also meticulous historical, legal, and theological detail; The Long Divergence is Middle East history viewed through a kaleidoscope of the social sciences.
As Kuran notes in his conclusion, however, the Arab world of today has largely implemented the advantageous institutional matrix of the West. “Yet,” he continues, “the Middle East remains an economically backward region.” If a long divergence defines the area’s past, a slow convergence will likely be its future. Writes Kuran in the midst of the Arab Spring: “If the region’s autocratic regimes were to magically fall, the development of strong private sectors and civil societies could take decades.” The constrictive culprit lies in a lasting difference between informal institutions in the Middle East and the West. “Trust in strangers and in organizations, essential to impersonal exchange, is low by today’s global standards; this stands as an obstacle to efficient economic cooperation,” the author diagnoses.
Kuran keenly identifies the Arab societal structures outside the formal framework, and candidly deems them “bad news.” Nevertheless, his book ends on a high note: Modern capitalism’s stock markets and interest banking seem less and less foreign to the region; Islamist political parties are steadily succumbing to the popular tide of free enterprise; as emphasized from cover to cover, the Islamic world’s history offers “abundant precedents” in favor of commerce and development.
But it’s a protracted course, a trend more likely to be captured in decades of data than tomorrow’s headlines. A Long Divergence, then, is as extensive and insightful a study of the Middle East as it is a sobering one.