Abstract
Political science predicts that monarchies lack the flexibility to modernize without losing power: “the king’s dilemma.” Yet, Gulf regimes are remarkably durable, strengthened by late-stage rentierism, entrepreneurial state capitalism, careful globalization, elite-based networks, and political narratives to manage state–society interactions. These characteristics impede socioeconomic or political reform and democratization, as political and commercial elites have strong incentives for continuity. Rents provide freedom from accountability, reciprocity, or negotiation with society. But the Gulf elites are still not autonomous, in fact embedded in and reliant upon society. Revolution or political unrest remains a threat. Yet, this chapter argues that despite recent developments, as long as Gulf rentier wealth and state capitalism prove beneficial, monarchies will maintain the co-optive, repressive, and regulatory capacity to avoid substantial political change.
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Notes
- 1.
Clement M. Henry and Robert Springborg, Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 168–71.
- 2.
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968, p. 191, cited and quoted in All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies, Michael Herb. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999, p. 1.
- 3.
Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 177–91, cited in Michael Hudson, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977, pp. 166–8.
- 4.
Hudson, Arab Politics, p. 168.
- 5.
Fred Halliday, Arabia without Sultans. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974, pp. 25–9, 508–10.
- 6.
Michael Field, Inside the Arab World. London: John Murray, 1994, pp. 91–111.
- 7.
Ibid., pp. 108–11.
- 8.
This point is made in Matthew Gray, “A tale of two Middle Easts: Change and stasis in the Arab World.” Griffith Asia Quarterly 1, no. 2/3 (2013), pp. 51–76, www104.griffith.edu.au/index.php/gaq/article/view/410 (accessed 5 August 2014).
- 9.
Henry and Springborg, Globalization and the Politics of Development, pp. 170–1, 192–3.
- 10.
The most recent example of this is Christopher M. Davidson, After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies. London: Hurst, 2012.
- 11.
Michael Herb is a key proponent of such arguments, which emphasize the importance of a ruling dynasty’s historical role and legitimacy as a force for stasis, and institutional weakness or systemic barriers as a constraint on the prospects for political reform. See as examples Herb, All in the Family, especially pp. 235–54, and on institutional issues, Michael Herb, “Princes, parliaments, and the prospects for democracy in the Gulf.” In Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance, Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist ed. pp. 169–91. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005.
- 12.
A range of non-oil arguments about the Gulf states’ political economies and state–society arrangements have been made, for example in Sean Foley, The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010.
- 13.
Giacomo Luciani, “Allocation vs. production states: A theoretical framework.” In The Arab State, Giacomo Luciani ed. pp. 65–84. London: Routledge, 1990, at p. 72.
- 14.
These early works include: Hussein Mahdavy, “The patterns and problems of economic development in rentier states: The case of Iran.” In Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, M. A. Cook ed. pp. 428–67. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, which was the first work to propose rentier state theory in the sense meant by the RST literature that followed, as well as Hazem Beblawi, “The rentier state in the Arab world.” In The Rentier State: Nation, State and the Integration of the Arab World, Hazem Beblawi and Giacomo Luciani ed. pp. 63–82. London: Croom Helm, 1987; and Luciani, “Allocation vs. production states.”
- 15.
Luciani, “Allocation vs. production states,” pp. 71–2.
- 16.
Matthew Gray, “A theory of ‘late rentierism’ in the Arab states of the Gulf.” Occasional Paper No. 7. Doha: Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, 2011; Matthew Gray, Qatar: Politics and the Challenges of Development. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2013, pp. 8–10, 53–5.
- 17.
“Saudi king offers benefits as he returns from treatment.” BBC News, February 23, 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12550326 (accessed August 6, 2014).
- 18.
One of the best works on population, unemployment, and associated issues is Paul Rivlin, Arab Economies in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, especially pp. 7–35, which focuses on demographic issues, although the book overall has a central argument based on population pressures and other demographic dynamics. The unsustainability of an increasing Gulf population is noted in, among other sources, Mari Luomi, The Gulf Monarchies and Climate Change: Abu Dhabi and Qatar in an Era of Natural Unsustainability. London: Hurst, 2012, pp. 15–31, 83–5, 148–9, but especially and Gulf-wide 27–31; and Monica Malik and Tim Niblock, “Saudi Arabia’s economy: The challenge of reform.” In Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs, Paul Aarts and Gerd Nonneman ed. pp. 85–110. London: Hurst, 2005, at p. 103.
- 19.
This is a theme of Foley, The Arab Gulf States.
- 20.
This is one of several pertinent points made in Suzanne Maloney, “The Gulf’s renewed oil wealth: Getting it right this time?” Survival 50, no. 6 (2008), 129–50, at p. 133.
- 21.
Of several works on the topic and using this term, the major piece is Ian Bremmer, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? New York: Portfolio, 2010.
- 22.
Ibid., pp. 51–81.
- 23.
On this see, for example, Steffen Hertog, “Defying the resource curse: Explaining successful state-owned enterprises in rentier states.” World Politics 62, no. 2 (April 2010), pp. 261–301; and Steffen Hertog, “Lean and mean: The new breed of state-owned enterprises in the Gulf monarchies.” In Industrialization in the Gulf: A Socioeconomic Revolution, Jean-François Seznec and Mimi Kirk ed. pp. 17–29. London: Routledge, 2011.
- 24.
Martin Hvidt, “The Dubai model: An outline of key development-process elements in Dubai.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 41, no. 3 (2009), pp. 397–418, at p. 410.
- 25.
Giacomo Luciani, “From private sector to national bourgeoisie: Saudi Arabian business.” In Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs, Paul Aarts and Gerd Nonneman ed. pp. 144–81. London: Hurst, 2005, at p. 146.
- 26.
Bremmer, The End of the Free Market, pp. 67–9.
- 27.
Luciani, “From private sector to national bourgeoisie.”
- 28.
Luciani, “Allocation vs. production states,” p. 76.
- 29.
Tim Niblock with Monica Malik, The Political Economy of Saudi Arabia. London: Routledge, 2007, pp. 52–82.
- 30.
Qatar National Vision 2030. Doha: General Secretariat for Development Planning, July 2008.
- 31.
For details see the various pages published by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, marked Abu Dhabi 2030 or Abu Dhabi Capital 2030, www.upc.gov.ae/abu-dhabi-2030.aspx?lang=en-US (accessed August 19, 2014).
- 32.
On the Omani plan, see Alfred Strolla and Phaninder Peri, “Oman 20/20 Vision.” A Middle East Point of View (Fall 2013), www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/xe/Documents/About-Deloitte/mepovdocuments/mepov12/dtme_mepov12_Oman2020vision.pdf (accessed August 19, 2014).
- 33.
Xu Yi-chong, “The political economy of sovereign wealth funds.” In The Political Economy of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Xu Yi-chong and Gawdat Bahgat ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 3–7.
- 34.
“Increased momentum.” The Report: Qatar 2011. London: Oxford Business Group, 2011, p. 229.
- 35.
See Gray, Qatar, pp. 160–6, 170–80.
- 36.
Mahfoud Amara, “2006 Qatar Asian games: A ‘modernization’ project from above?” Sport in Society 8, no. 3 (2005), pp. 493–514.
- 37.
Allen J. Fromherz, Qatar: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012, pp. 12–15, 17–21, 158–61.
- 38.
Hugh Eakin, “The strange power of Qatar.” New York Review of Books 58, no. 16 (October 27, 2011), www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/oct/27/strange-power-qatar/?page=1 (accessed August 19, 2014).
- 39.
Ni’mah Isma’il Nawwab and Hussain A. Al-Ramadan, “Beit Al Qur’an: Religion, art, scholarship.” Saudi Aramco World 51, no. 3 (May/June 2000), pp. 24–31.
- 40.
What follows is drawn from James A. Bill and Robert Springborg, Politics in the Middle East, 3rd edn. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown Higher Education, 1990, pp. 152–61, although a range of sources discuss neopatrimonial dynamics in the region.
- 41.
Gero Erdmann and Ulf Engel, “Neopatrimonialism revisited – Beyond a catch-all concept.” Working Paper 16/2006. Hamburg: German Institute of Global and Area Studies, February 2006, pp. 17–20. repec.giga-hamburg.de/pdf/giga_06_wp16_erdmann-engel.pdf (accessed April 18, 2011).
- 42.
Oliver Schlumberger, “Structural reform, economic order, and development: Patrimonial capitalism.” Review of International Political Economy 15, no. 4 (2008), pp. 622–49.
- 43.
Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 20–2, 36.
- 44.
Fromherz, Qatar: A Modern History, pp. 17–19.
- 45.
Madawi Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 182–92.
- 46.
Gray, Qatar, pp. 160–6.
- 47.
Ibid., pp. 11–13, 160–6.
- 48.
Mehran Kamrava, Qatar: Small State, Big Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013, pp. 153–64.
- 49.
Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, pp. 183–90.
- 50.
There are a range of sources on Dubai’s branding and national image strategy. See, for example, Melodena Stephens Balakrishnan, “Dubai – A star in the east: A case study in strategic destination branding.” Journal of Place Management and Development 1, no. 1 (2008), pp. 62–91; William Coombe and Jad Melki, “Global media and brand Dubai.” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 8, no. 1 (February 2012), pp. 58–71; and for the wider strategic setting of branding, Hvidt, “The Dubai model.”
- 51.
Rex Brynen, Pete W. Moore, Bassel F. Salloukh and Marie-Joëlle Zahar, eds. Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism & Democratization in the Arab World. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2012, pp. 186–8.
- 52.
See the outline and discussion of this in Khalid Almezaini, “Private sector actors in the UAE and their role in the process of economic and political reform.” In Business Politics in the Middle East, Steffen Hertog, Giacomo Luciani, and Marc Valeri ed. pp. 43–66. London: Hurst, 2013.
- 53.
Even though he does not discuss the Gulf monarchies in detail, this point is made well in Charles Tripp, The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 256–319.
- 54.
See Daniel Brumberg, “The trap of liberalized autocracy.” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 4 (2002), pp. 56–68.
- 55.
The term “illiberal democracy” was coined in Fareed Zakaria, “The rise of illiberal democracy.” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 6 (November–December 1997), pp. 22–43.
- 56.
Brumberg, “The trap of liberalized autocracy,” p. 56, emphasis in original.
- 57.
Daniel Brumberg, “Beyond liberalization?” Wilson Quarterly 28, no. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 47–55, at p. 49.
- 58.
For this type of argument see, for example, Abdulaziz H. Al-Fahad, “Ornamental constitutionalism: The Saudi basic law of governance.” Yale Journal of International Law 30, no. 2 (2005), pp. 375–96, especially pp. 384–9.
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Gray, M. (2016). Political Economy Dynamics in the Arab Gulf States: Implications for Political Transition. In: Saikal, A. (eds) The Arab World and Iran. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55966-1_4
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