After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies

Description

The Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia and its five smaller neighbours: the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain) have long been governed by highly autocratic and seemingly anachronistic regimes. Yet despite bloody conflicts on their doorsteps, fast-growing populations, and powerful modernising and globalising forces impacting on their largely conservative societies, they have demonstrated remarkable resilience. Obituaries for these traditional monarchies have frequently been penned, but even now these absolutist, almost medieval, entities still appear to pose the same conundrum as before: in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring and the fall of incumbent presidents in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, the apparently steadfast Gulf monarchies have, at first glance, re-affirmed their status as the Middle East s only real bastions of stability. In this book, however, noted Gulf expert Christopher Davidson contends that the collapse of these kings, emirs, and sultans is going to happen, and was always going to. While the revolutionary movements in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen will undeniably serve as important, if indirect, catalysts for the coming upheaval, many of the same socio-economic pressures that were building up in the Arab republics are now also very much present in the Gulf monarchies. It is now no longer a matter of if but when the West s steadfast allies fall. This is a bold claim to make but Davidson, who accurately forecast the economic turmoil that afflicted Dubai in 2009, has an enviable record in diagnosing social and political changes afoot in the region. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Preface and Acknowledgements......Page 8 Acronyms......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 The revolutions that never came......Page 16 Explaining monarchical survival......Page 18 Further explanations......Page 25 1. State Formation and Economic Development......Page 30 Origins of the Gulf monarchies......Page 31 Britain and the early order......Page 35 Independence and state formation......Page 39 Economic development trajectories......Page 53 2. Explaining Survival—Domestic Matters......Page 62 Distributing wealth......Page 63 National elites......Page 71 Co-opting expatriates......Page 75 Cults of personality......Page 79 Heritage and history......Page 83 Co-opting religion......Page 85 Environmental credentials......Page 88 3. Explaining Survival—External Matters......Page 92 Development assistance and international charity......Page 94 Active neutrality: peacekeeping and mediation......Page 98 Soft power in the West: strategic investments and development assistance......Page 103 Soft power in the West: cultural institutions......Page 108 Soft power in the West: financing universities and manipulating research......Page 111 Soft power in the East: China and Japan......Page 117 4. Mounting Internal Pressures......Page 124 Resources, populations, and subsidies......Page 125 Voluntary unemployment......Page 130 Squandering wealth......Page 134 Poverty and real unemployment......Page 142 Discrimination, statelessness, and sectarianism......Page 147 Censorship and limiting expression......Page 158 5. Mounting External Pressures......Page 168 Welcoming foreigners and eroding legitimacy......Page 169 Western bases and armaments......Page 176 Antagonising Iran......Page 182 Israel: the unholy alliance......Page 188 Division and disunity......Page 192 Interference and coups d’état......Page 195 6. The Coming Collapse......Page 204 Evolving opposition......Page 206 Modernising forces......Page 209 Countering the Arab Spring: the wrong side of history......Page 214 Bahrain: rage and revolution......Page 218 Oman: protests and promises......Page 222 Saudi Arabia: the cracks appearing......Page 224 Kuwait: ‘The People’s Spring’......Page 229 United Arab Emirates: opposition emerges......Page 233 Qatar: champion or charlatan?......Page 239 Conclusion......Page 242 Postscript......Page 252 Notes......Page 258 Bibliography......Page 294 A......Page 302 B......Page 303 C......Page 304 E......Page 305 G......Page 306 I......Page 307 K......Page 308 M......Page 309 N......Page 310 P......Page 311 Q......Page 312 S......Page 313 U......Page 316 Z......Page 317