The United Arab Emirates’ rulers, or more specifically the tight-knit group of brothers surrounding the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, also seem more resolute than before to tackle their opposition head on, effectively side-lining their late father’s well-honed social contract in favour of police state strategies. The dozens of political prisoners seized over the course of 2012 swelled to nearly one hundred by the beginning of 2013, with another ‘national security trial’—reminiscent of 2011’s ‘UAE Five’ trial—beginning in March 2013. Accused of trying to ‘seize power’, and at one point even accused of setting up a ‘military wing’, the detainees are likely to face heavy sentences. All foreign media have been banned, and foreign observers from non-governmental organisations and law firms were barred entry to the country. Despite comprising academics, lawyers, students, judges, and even a ruling family member, most of whom identify with a well-established and peaceful indigenous Islamist organisation that has been gently pushing for parliamentary elections, the authorities seem determined to forge a link between them and outside powers. Given the fairly homogenous, predominantly Sunni, makeup of the UAE’s national population, it has proven harder to present opposition groups through the sectarian, Iran-Arab lens, with the detainees instead being regularly portrayed in the local, state-affiliated media as in league with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Disturbingly for the authorities, the detainees appear to be enjoying growing support across the country, with widespread online discussion taking place, often in their favour, and with their extended families campaigning for their release. The past few months have also witnessed the UAE playing an increasingly active role in the collective securitisation of the Gulf monarchies, having joined Saudi Arabia in providing significant financial assistance to Bahrain and Oman, and having denied entry into the country to academics, journalists, and lawyers who have expressed support for the opposition in Bahrain.
While Oman has not yet seen further protests, the mood in early 2013 is perhaps best understood as being in a ‘holding pattern’. The various promises made by the government, especially regarding public sector employment, have not yet been fulfilled, and there is growing discussion about the sustainability of a system that has to rely on substantial Saudi and UAE grants. Youth groups appear more restive than ever, not least given the arrests and trial of several online activists accused of insulting the aging ruler, while intellectuals now openly talk of the vacuum that will develop in the wake of his death, and what political reforms will be needed to move the country forward. With billions of their dollars now invested in Oman’s survival, much will rest on the Riyadh-Abu Dhabi axis’ willingness to permit some kind of political opening at that stage without encouraging the same sort of repression that is being used in Bahrain or on their own populations.
To the surprise and disappointment of many, the past few months have weakened Qatar’s credentials as the only significant outlier, and as such its status as the region’s last remaining liberal autocracy. The detention and trial of a well-known poet who had expressed solidarity with Arab Spring movements elsewhere in the Middle East and had implicitly criticised the Gulf monarchies was followed closely, not least by the substantial expatriate population in Qatar’s branch campus foreign universities and Al-Jazeera’s journalistic community. Given Qatar’s media, financial, and even military support for the Arab revolutions of 2011 and 2012, most had expected a full pardon for the prisoner, probably in the form of a magnanimous gesture from the ruler. But to widespread dismay, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for insulting the ruler, later commuted to a fifteen year sentence. Unable to report properly on one of Qatar’s most important news stories, Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the incident was initially non-existent, then poor, reflecting the reality of having to operate within the confines of a traditional Gulf monarchy still committed to regime survival. Since then a number of other Qatari activists have been arrested and detained. With most citizens continuing to enjoy an extremely high standard of living due to gas-rich Qatar’s still rising gross domestic product per capita, the possibility of protests or large rafts of political prisoners is undoubtedly still very low. However, recent events have led to discernible tension, provoking more outspoken comments from intellectuals and sections of the elite, while youth activists seem to be following the regional trend: taking their dissent online and participating in mass, often critical discussions of ruling elites.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. According to International Monetary Fund data from 2010, the six Gulf monarchies had a combined GDP of $993 billion. This was more than half of the $1903 billion total GDP for all twenty-two Arab League member states at the time. Most dramatically, Saudi Arabia and the UAE together accounted for 35 per cent of the Arab League total. International Monetary Fund 2010; author calculations.
2. For discussions of this activity see, for example, Davidson, Christopher M., ‘Arab Nationalism and British Opposition in Dubai, 1920–1966’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 43, No. 6, 2007; Fuccaro, Nelida, Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf: Manama since 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Crystal, Jill, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
3. For a full discussion see Kerr, Malcolm, The Arab Cold War, 1958–1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
4. Saudi Arabia, already an independent state, was able to join the Arab League upon its inception in 1945. Kuwait joined in 1961, and was followed by the other Gulf monarchies in 1971.
5. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait joined OPEC upon its inception in 1960. Qatar joined in 1961, and the UAE’s principal oil-exporting emirate of Abu Dhabi joined in 1967. Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE’s other constituent members eschewed OPEC.
6. See Calabrese, John, ‘From Flyswatters to Silkworms: The Evolution of China’s Role in West Asia’, Asian Survey, No. 30, 1990. Referring to Said bin Taimur Al-Said.
7. The National Liberation Front.
8. For a good overview see Ismael, Tareq Y., The Communist Movement in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 2005).
9. Ladwig, Walter C., ‘Supporting Allies in Counterinsurgency: Britain and the Dhofar Rebellion’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2008, p. 73. Britain’s actions in Oman during this period were fictionalised by Ranulph Fiennes in his 1991 novel. See Fiennes, Ranulph, The Feather Men (London: Bloomsbury, 1991).
10. See Halliday, Fred, Arabia without Sultans (London: Saqi, 1974); Halliday, Fred, ‘Arabia Without Sultans Revisited’, Middle East Report, Vol. 27, No. 204, 1997.
11. Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (New York: The Free Press, 1958); Sigelman, Lee, ‘Lerner’s Model of Modernization: A Reanalysis’, Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 8, July 1974, p. 525.
12. Lipset, Seymour Martin, ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, No. 1, 1959; Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960).
13. Deutsch, Karl, ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 55, No. 3, 1961.
14. Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 140–142.
15. Ibid., p. 169.
16. Pollin, Robert, ‘Resurrection of the Rentier’, New Left Review, Vol. 46, July–August 2007, pp. 140–153.
17. Ross, Michael, ‘Does Oil Hinder Democracy’, World Politics, Vol. 53, No. 3, 2001, p. 329.
18. Mahdavy, Hussein, ‘The Patterns and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier States: The Case of Iran’ in Cook, M. A. (ed.), Studies in Economic History of the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 428.
19. Beblawi, Hazem, ‘The Rentier State in the Arab World’ in Beblawi, Hazem, and Luciani, Giacomo (eds.), The Rentier State (New York: Croom Helm, 1987),
p. 51.
20. Lucas, Russell E., ‘Monarchical Authoritarianism: Survival and Political Liberalization in a Middle Eastern Regime Type’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2004. As Lucas explains, small population size was previously used as a possible explanation for explaining demise of other monarchies.
21. Hertog, Steffen, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and State in Saudi Arabia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).
22. Ross, p. 331.
23. Ibid., p. 332.
24. Ibid., p. 333.
25. For a full discussion see Davidson, Christopher M., The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005), chapter 4.
26. With reference to the Bahrain system see Kinninmont, Jane, ‘Bahrain’ in Davidson, Christopher M. (ed.), Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monarchies (London: Hurst, 2011). With reference to the Omani system see Valeri, Marc, ‘Oman’ in Davidson (2011).
27. With reference to the UAE system see Davidson (2005), chapter 4.
28. See Gray, Matthew, ‘A Theory of Late Rentierism in the Arab States of the Gulf’, Georgetown University Center for International and Regional Studies Occasional Papers, No. 7, 2011, pp. 23–36.
29. See Hudson, Michael, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).
30. Fromherz, Allen J., Qatar: A Modern History (London: IB Tauris, 2012), p. 5.
31. Sharabi, Hisham, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
32. Weber, Max, ‘Politics as a Vocation (Politik als Beruf)’ (Munich: 1919). An essay originating from a lecture delivered to the Free Students Union of Munich University in January 1919.
33. Brumberg, Daniel, ‘The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2002, p. 56.
34. Ibid., p. 57.
35. See Hobbes, Thomas, The Leviathan (1660); Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government (1689); Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right (1762).
36. Kamrava, Mehran, The Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005).
37. For discussions of the Dubai and Abu Dhabi ruling bargains see Davidson, Christopher M., Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success (London: Hurst, 2008), chapter 5; Davidson, Christopher M., Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond (London: Hurst, 2009), chapter 6.
38. See for example Spooner, Lysander. ‘No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority’ (1867). In this essay Spooner argues that a genuine social contract cannot include government actions such as taxation because the collection of tax would require the government to initiate force against anyone unwilling to pay.
39. For discussions of expatriates in Dubai and Abu Dhabi see Davidson (2008), chapter 5; Davidson (2009), chapter 6.
40. Herb, Michael, All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 3. Herb claims in his comparative study of ruling families in the Middle East that the dominance of one large and cohesive family over the state, rather than oil wealth, education, military support, external political support, representative institutions, selective marriages, charismatic rulers, or any other factors is the key to survival.
41. Muhammad Idris Al-Mahdi Al-Senussi.
42. See Herb (1999).
43. Qaboos bin Said Al-Said.
44. See Valeri (2011).
45. For a fuller discussion see Lucas (2004).
46. For further discussion see Filiu, Jean-Pierre, The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising (London: Hurst, 2011), p. 3.
47. Muhammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.
48. Reuters, 24 June 2010.
49. Gulf News, 29 December 2011.
50. Filiu (2011), p. 58.
51. Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.
52. Wikileaks, US Embassy Abu Dhabi, 29 April 2006.
53. Abdullah Al-Ghaddami.
54. Ahmed Mansour Al-Shehhi.
55. Reuters, 24 June 2010.
56. Valbjørn, Morten, and Bank, André, ‘Examining the Post in Post-Democratization: The Future of Middle Eastern Political Rule through Lenses of the Past’, Middle East Critique, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2010, pp. 185–186.
1. STATE FORMATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
1. Peck, Malcolm, The United Arab Emirates: A Venture in Unity (Boulder: Westview, 1986), pp. 29–30.
2. Hawley, Donald, The Trucial States (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970), pp. 96–97.
3. Belgrave, Charles, The Pirate Coast (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1966), p. 25.
4. The defeat took place in 1818.
5. For a full discussion of the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance see Commins, David, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London: IB Tauris, 2009).
6. Bin Ali had initiated the 1916 Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. See Teitelbaum, Joshua, The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia (London: Hurst, 2001), p. 243.
7. Roberts, David, ‘Kuwait’ in Davidson, Christopher M. (ed.), Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monarchies (London: Hurst, 2011), p. 89.
8. Muhammad Al-Sabah.
9. For a full discussion see Crystal, Jill, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), chapter 1.
10. Roberts (2011), p. 90.
11. This took place in 1921.
12. Signed in 1921, the Uqair agreement required Kuwait to give up much of its territory to the Al-Saud, while also defining its borders with the British-mandated territory of Iraq. See Lauterpacht, E., Greenwood, C. J., Weller, Marc, ‘The Determination of Boundaries between Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (Najd)’ in The Kuwait Crisis: Basic Documents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 45–49.
13. See for example Davies, Charles E., The Blood Red Arab Flag: An Investigation into Qasimi Piracy, 1797–1820 (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1997); Al-Qasimi, Sultan bin Muhammad, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (London: Croom Helm, 1986).
14. Nasser Al-Makhdur. The Al-Makhdur family also ruled over Bushire, on the Persian coastline. See Hopwood, Derek, The Arabian Peninsula (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972), p. 40.
15. The rulers of Trucial States were all given gun salutes by the cannons of visiting British warships. The number of cannon blasts corresponded with Britain’s perception of a ruler’s relative power and influence in the region.
16. During this period Dubai was governed by Muhammad bin Hazza Al-Nahyan and his uncle Zayed bin Saif Al-Nahyan.
17. Davidson, Christopher M., Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success (London: Hurst, 2008), pp. 12–14.
18. See Valeri, Marc, ‘Oman’ in Davidson (2011).
19. See Davidson, Christopher M., The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005), pp. 30–31; Gause, Gregory F. Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994), p. 22.
20. Lord George Curzon.
21. Al-Sagri, Saleh Hamad, ‘Britain and the Arab Emirates, 1820–1956’ (PhD thesis. University of Kent at Canterbury, 1988), p. 70.
22. Most notably the fratricides among the sons of Abu Dhabi’s Zayed bin Khalifa Al-Nahyan.
23. Al-Sagri, p. 97.
24. Ibid., p. 92.
25. Ibid., p. 51.
26. Lorimer, John G., Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman, and Central Arabia (London: Gregg International Publishers, 1970), pp. 1450–1451.
27. Al-Sagri, p. 64.
28. Locational rent being a form of economic rent which is created by spatial variation or the location of a resource. The concept was put forward in the 1820s by Johann Heinrich von Thünen. See Von Thünen, Johann Heinrich, The Isolated State (1826). In this case, the sheikhdoms’ location en route to India and the suspected oil reserves in their territories.
29. Buxani, Ram
, Taking the High Road (Dubai: Motivate, 2003), p. 84.
30. India Office R/515/4; Abdullah, Muhammad Morsy, The United Arab Emirates: A Modern History (London: Croom Helm, 1978), p. 56.
31. Wilson, Graeme, Rashid’s Legacy: The Genesis of the Maktoum Family and the History of Dubai (Dubai: Media Prima, 2006), p. 72. In the latter case Imperial Airways was allowed to land flying boats in between buoys on the Dubai creek.
32. Most notably American Standard Oil of New Jersey. Foreign Office 371/19975.
33. The Iraqi Petroleum Company was 51 per cent owned by the British Government. Foreign Office 371/19975.
34. Petroleum Concessions Ltd. was dominated by British Petroleum. See Hawley, Donald, The Emirates: Witness to a Metamorphosis (Norwich: Michael Russell, 2007), p. 67; Heard-Bey, Frauke, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates (London: Longman, 1996), p. 295; and, (in Arabic) Al-Otaibi, Manna Said, Petroleum and the Economy of the United Arab Emirates (Kuwait: Al-Qabas Press, 1977), p. 45.
35. Al-Otaibi (1977), p. 155.
36. The first oil discoveries in Dubai were made in 1966 at the Fateh offshore field. See Butt, Gerald, ‘Oil and Gas’ in Al-Abed, Ibrahim and Hellyer, Peter (eds.), The United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective (London: Trident, 2001).
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