Book

Despite decades of theoretical analysis and empirical research, the governance-development nexus is a non-univocal issue, particularly when examined through the lens of transitional economies, where institutional legacies, cultural specificities, and geopolitical vulnerabilities intersect in ways that challenge universalist policy prescriptions. This work addresses this gap by presenting three empirical investigations of the governance-development nexus across the globalized MEDA transitional economies—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey—over the period 1996-2019. These countries, united by their membership in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership launched with the “Barcelona Declaration” of 1995, remain profoundly heterogeneous in their institutional and business environments, resource endowments, and sociocultural habits—offering a particularly instructive laboratory for examining the macro-determinants of governance climate and development paths—however they may also share common history, traditions, and religious foundations. The contribution of these investigations is both empirical and theoretical: first, it provides novel empirical evidence on the governance-development nexus in an under-researched region, employing rigorous econometric methods that address issues of heterogeneity, persistence, and causal precedence. Second, it theoretically advances the integration of neo-institutionalism and cultural specificity, considering the globalization process, demonstrating that institutional analysis cannot be divorced from the sociocultural contexts in which institutions are embedded. Finally, the overall composite index of governance climate, as recalled by the studies, proves valuable in summarizing the three dimensions of governance—political, economic, and institutional—without incurring the disadvantage of multicollinearity between its components.