A lot of things in life boil down to "pleasing the person above you so you get support". At work, many employees will spend more time scoring points with the manager, rather than thinking of new and innovative ways to grow revenue and profit.

I think you can see this manifest itself in the ways the humans behave politically. "How do I say the right things so that I can get elected/get paid" seems to be the relevant question here rather than "What is the ethical, rational, and equitable thing to do?"

Relevant anecdote: literally yesterday I was at my local Lebanese corner store and the patron was watching a video his friend had sent. It was of young guys shooting off AKs and RPGs in 'celebratory mourning' (if you can call it that) of the local 'regional fiefdom leader' who controls an area of Lebanon. I asked the shop owner what would happen if the police tried to stop them, he indicated that they'd just shoot the cops. Or at them. This is not some 'mafia' head that died, not the best way to put it, rather, just a 'family' that controls that region. Not political, not really religious either. Just kind of a fiefdom. These people had very powerful weapons including vehicle mounted weapons. To my Lebanese friend it was 'just stuff that happens there'. Obviously, this is probably specific to Lebanon, but it's barely the tip of the iceberg of culturally ingrained phenom that happens over there in the ME.

The ME has a totally different set of rules for everything, including what constitutes the 'truth' what is socially acceptable etc. etc. etc.. Good example is authority: if everyone you ever meet who wears a uniform, or represents the state is trying to control you, stop you, kidnap you, if you know dozens of people brought in abused by authorities ... then there is no 'legitimacy' in institutions or authority. Despite our problems, in the West, government representatives like police, fire, ambulance etc. have overwhelming respect and real legitimacy - they are (more or less) enacting the law - not arresting you because some guy on city council wants you roughed up. So imagine living in a world absent any real role models of legitimate authority, it would be basically impossible not to be cynical on a very deep level, and very difficult to try to be 'the good man' among absolute corruption.

I was going to say 'there is no social contract' but more fairly I would say ... 'they have a different social contract' than we do. One that we would deem problematic.

This is partly why the Saudi Government can just go in and kill someone willy nilly and face almost nothing in terms of repercussions.

Obviously, we have our own problems, and sub-Saharan Africa has their problems, in E. Asia it's a different set of problems, but they are different in nature.

Obviously, a point about 'resource based economies' is valid to some extent, but I think it's very secondary. Canada, Norway and Australia to name a few are also 'resource based', i.e. "Whoever sits at the top of an oil economy only needs to keep its population out of the way of drilling operations." ... well Alberta is an Oil economy and they don't have that problem.

The ME is really different and my experience there is that most of the dynamics are cultural, obviously driven in part by 'resources' and past interventions etc., but really, it's mostly comparing Apples to Oranges to Pomegranates.