The Resilience of Royalism: Exploring the Arab Monarchies (original) (raw)
Related papers
Kings for All Seasons: How the Middle East Monarchies Survived the Arab Spring
The real story of monarchical longevity in the Arab Spring is the strategies these regimes have utilized to stay in power. Monarchies are, in fact, little different from other authoritarian regimes that work to ensure their own survival. Claims of the Arab monarchies’ special cultural legitimacy tend to be ahistorical and circular, and there is little to suggest these systems’ superior performance. Rather, the Arab monarchies have deployed their ample hydrocarbon wealth to blunt popular demand for reform; even the kingdoms that are comparatively resource-poor have been backstopped by their wealthier allies. And each Arab monarchy has maintained a powerful supporting coalition of domestic interest groups, regional allies, and (typically Western) foreign patrons to buttress regime stability.
IDEOLOGY AND POLITICS JOURNAL, 2021
During the Arab Spring the idea of the Middle East as an authoritarian exception appeared to be no longer valid. Yet the Gulf states seem to be safe from political turmoil. This paper examines the persistence of authoritarianism in the Gulf states. It has been suggested that various factors explain the resiliency of authoritarianism in the Gulf monarchies, the most prominent the rentier-state-system hypothesis. This paper examines whether the cultural and Islamic values of the Gulf states have led to the entrenchment of authoritarianism; it also seeks to understand whether high living standards and economic growth in the Gulf states have helped these regimes to maintain their authoritarian power and to avoid strong opposition. The paper argues that in the near future these states seem likely to survive and maintain popular consensus, unless they face substantial economic crisis or an external circumstance such as war or political pressure. However, the longer-term threat to the security of the Gulf states is their dependency on natural resources which are declining while their populations are growing rapidly. Hence, modifying the rentier system's social contract is essential to maintain stability in the long term.
Durable, Yet Different: Monarchies in the Arab Spring
Journal of Arabian Studies, 2014
Over three years into the Arab Spring, the Middle East is characterized by a striking difference in durability between monarchies and republics. Beyond this difference, some significant gaps within the group of the eight Middle East monarchies have so far been overlooked. Drawing on the existing monarchy research, we first make the case that there were three distinct types of durable monarchies prior to the Arab Spring. Confronted with social and political crises, each type reacted differently to the challenges presented to them after 2011. While five “rentier” and “dynastic” Gulf monarchies (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (United Arab Emirates)) mainly rely on material distribution and family rule, the non-oil “linchpins” of Jordan and Morocco, attracting additional external funds, undertook constitutional changes in an attempt at procedural legitimation. The Sultanate of Oman, however, falls in between. This “linchtier” monarchy used modest material cooptation, a selected personal reshuffling at the top of the regime as well as targeted institutional adaptations. We illustrate our findings with similarly structured brief case studies of the three prototypes of Qatar, Jordan and Oman.
Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On
Here, we instead offer a strategic explanation for monarchical exceptionalism, one that links the historical legacy of domestic choices with a permissive international environment. First, many of these royal houses have historically mobilized cross-cutting coalitions of popular support, coalitions that have helped to forestall mass opposition and to bolster the ruling family against whatever opposition has emerged. Second, most have also reaped ample rents from oil or foreign aid, allowing them to pay for welfare and development programs meant to alleviate public discord. Finally, when all else fails, these kingdoms have enjoyed the backing of foreign patrons who assist them through diplomatic assurances, economic grants, and military interventions.
Hereditary Oil Monarchies: Why Arab Spring Fails in GCC Arabian States?
This study tries to reveal the reasons of why Arab Spring could not change the hereditary oil monarchies regimes in Persian Gulf, when compare with other countries in region. The strong cooperation between Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman, hereditary monarchies for long years, high oil and natural gas income and sharing with lower social class that did not cause to improve strong demand among public to change regime of countries, also the external powers such as America and European Union restrained to spread Arabic Spring out in these countries due to their energy benefits.
Long-term monarchical survival in the Middle East: a configurational comparison, 1945–2012
Democratization, 2015
The survival of eight monarchies during the “Arab Uprisings” has put centre stage the fundamental question about the durability of this subtype of authoritarian regime. Seen from a broader historical perspective, however, the idea that monarchies have an inherent advantage in retaining power is less evident: a number of authoritarian monarchies broke down and subsequently became republics (Egypt 1952, Iraq 1958, North Yemen 1962, Libya 1969, Iran 1979), while others survived (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates). To account for these divergent long-term pathways we systematically compare the 13 current and former Middle East monarchies. Using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we concentrate on five central explanatory factors derived from previous research – namely, external support, rent revenues, family participation, the monarch's claim to legitimate rule, and hard repression. Our findings highlight the existence of three broad pathways to monarchical survival – linchpin monarchies, like Jordan and Morocco, versus the dynastic Gulf monarchies – and also reveal a possible hybrid third pathway, one which shares linchpin characteristics, but relates to cases on the Arabian Peninsula (Oman and the historical Imamate in North Yemen).
Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 2014
During the Arab Spring, revolutionary insurrections targeted republican dictatorships while largely bypassing the eight ruling monarchies. Popular domestic explanations for such royal exceptionalism, such as cultural legitimacy and economic wealth, not only lack analytic validity but also ignore the most pertinent reason for monarchical persistence-more effective strategies of opposition management. Presidential regimes reacted against protests with mass coercion, which radicalized opposition and mobilized further resistance, while most ruling kingships refrained from systematic violence and neutralized dissent through nonrepressive means, such as co-optation. What accounts for such striking policy convergence? This essay suggests an innovative answer: the royal leaderships atop the Arab monarchical regimes constitute an epistemic community, one predicated on not just a collective perception of threat from regional democratization, but also shared normative beliefs regarding their historical rarity and dynastic superiority. Under this framework, dense communal ties facilitated the diffusion of noncoercive strategies of opposition management, and helped enshrine promises of mutual security within existing institutions such as the Gulf Cooperation Council. Based upon a combination of historical analysis and fieldwork, this essay argues that such transnational circulation of ideas and strategies did not merely aim to prevent democracy, but specifically promoted a special subtype of authoritarianism-ruling monarchism-as a viable type of political order.