Institutional transition in Arab Mediterranean and eastern European countries. A comparative analysis of national governance systems

This paper analyses institutional changes in the Arab Mediterranean countries (AMC) compared to the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). We focus on the evolution of their national systems of governance (NSG) defined as the combination of corporate governance systems (micro-gouvernance) and state governance systems (macro-gouvernance). We use the "Institutional Profils" database of the French Ministry of the Economy. We highlight empirically the diversity of the NSG in 51 countries using a statistical multidimensional method (Principal Component Analysis). We describe the main features of the institutional changes in the governance systems of the AMC and the CEECs: between 2001 and 2006. According to the recent litterature focusing on the origins of the divergence of institutional changes, we discuss the main factors (legal, political, cultural and economic) that explain the slow institutional transition in the AMC. We argue that, contrary to CEECs, the lack of European anchoring partnership may explain the laborious transition of the AMC from informal-based systems into formal rules-based systems and more transparent governance mechanisms.