While the challenges of doing business in the Arab world are well known, the costs are especially pronounced for the region's small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Never the less, small business is the largest source of private sector employment in a region plagued by unemployment (Nasr and Pierce 2012). SMEs, defined as firms with fewer than 100 employees, represent up to 90 percent of total businesses in most Arab countries, and up to 40 percent of all employment (Saleem). Yet despite their economic weight, and shared challenges, small business owners remain politically marginal and inactive in the region. Understanding the causes of this collective inaction can speak to the political dynamics and economic outcomes that pervade the Arab world. Combining cross-country survey data with fieldwork in Jordan, I argue that small business owners' collective inaction stems from their dependence on state and the collective mistrust it breeds. . I test this argument using Arab Barometer data on the region's small business owners. To my knowledge, this is the first effort to leverage survey data to examine the collective political behavior of Arab shop owners. Through a series of model specifications, I find that small business owners are consistently less likely to engage in collective action than average survey respondents. I dig deeper into this argument's causal mechanisms through a case study of small business politics in Jordan. Drawing upon over sixty interviews with Jordanian small business owners, civil society members, and NGO officials, I find that small business owners are less collectively active because they lack institutional alternatives to illicit and personalistic solutions to their collective problems. Sources: Nasr, S. and Douglas Pearce. "SMEs for Job Creation In The Arab World: SME Access to Financial Services." Washington DC: World Bank (2012). Saleem, Qamar. “Overcoming Constraints to SME Development in MENA Countries and Enhancing Access to Finance,” International Financial Corporation, IFC0513