Empirical evidence shows that countries richly endowed with natural resources like oil and gas tend to have slower economic growth than resource poor countries. The present paper focuses on rentseeking as a source of the "resource curse", using Iran as a case in point. Iran is an interesting case, both because it is a rentier economy in the oil rich Middle East, and because its political system is highly factionalized. The distortions from the factionalized political system are threefold. First, resources are wasted in the competition for rents. Second, the lack of property rights protection results in less (private) investment at the aggregate level. Third, imbalances in the distribution of political power between groups lead to a distortion in the allocation of investment funds.

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The article explores the promotion and reception of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Arab world, taking Syria and Dubai as “most different” case studies. It observes that government-connected organizations have taken the lead in promoting CSR but are facing difficulties in rooting the concept beyond the ranks of crony capitalists. It argues that businessmen remain attached to an Islamic framework of social responsibility that contrasts with CSR as currently promoted. Extracting key themes in the businessmen’s approach and comparing them with the UN Global Compact the article proposes an ideal-typical comparison of what it calls the Zakat and the CSR models. It discusses their relative utility as symbolic resource for the different actors.