Abstract
THE GULF CRISIS (1990-91) & THE KUWAITI REGIME - LEGITIMACY AND STABILITY IN A RENTIER STATE
Among the central questions I address are:
What are the factors that contribute to regime stability in Kuwait? How do we understand the relationship between rulers and ruled? In which ways did the regime maintain political authority during the Crisis, and how does it ensure its stability after the experience of the Crisis?
It is argued that the legitimacy of the Kuwaiti regime could be seen as based on a political clientelistic contract between rulers and ruled where the former offers economic welfare in exchange for the latter's political support. The clientelistic arrangement endowed the Kuwaiti regime with legitimacy and ensured its stability before the Crisis. Throughout the thesis I argue that the contract is still existent in post-war Kuwait, ensuring the stability of the regime.
Two conditions enable the regime to perpetuate its rule and maintain the clientelistic contract; the existence of oil revenues which finance an elaborate and extremely generous (non-tax-based) welfare system, and the availability of non-Kuwaiti manpower which constitutes the majority of the labor force in the country. These two conditions are defined as the 'structure of economy' and the 'structure of demography' and constitute the two independent variables of the thesis, whereas the stability of the Kuwaiti regime is the dependent variable. The pre- and post-war economic and demographic structures of Kuwait are considered in order to analyze their impact on the stability of the regime.
On the economic level, income from foreign investments played a dominant role in financing the policies of the Kuwaiti government-in-exile during the Crisis. External revenue secured the regime's financial basis and enabled it to maintain the political clientelistic contract with its citizens ensuring thus its legitimacy and stability after liberation. Despite the destruction of the domestic economic infrastructure (oil wells and refineries), and the depletion of a part of the country's investments, the economic structure has recovered from the damages caused by the war.
The Crisis illustrates the extent to which the Kuwaiti regime exhibits ultimate authority made possible by its control over the country's main extractive channels; the oil and investment sectors. Income from external revenue which characterizes the nature of the rentier state, renders the Kuwaiti regime financially independent, and thereby authoritative in its decision-making. This situation existed before the Crisis, and was reinforced after the Crisis.
On the demographic level, dramatic alterations occured following the Crisis. Kuwait was inhabited by a citizen-majority for the first time after independence in 1961. The policy of citizenship which the Kuwaiti regime practiced functioned as an effective social engineering instrument which formed the demographic constituency of the population. The size of the citizenry was kept artificially low (by denying long-term residents the right to obtain a citizenship) in order to maintain the political interests of the Sabbah rulership and the economic interests of Kuwaiti citizens. Post-war Kuwait showed that the regime relied heavily on a strict control system, based on the use of coercive measures applied against the non-privileged groups, that is those denied citizenship and residency permits despite long-term residency in the country.
One of the major findings in this thesis is that approximately 200,000 persons were excluded from the official population censuses after liberation. These persons correspond to one third of the present Kuwaiti population. An important fact was thereby revealed: Post-war population censuses showed the minimalistic size of the Kuwaiti citizenry which actually received the economic privileges included in the clientelistic contract in pre-war Kuwait. This privileged group constitutes roughly 300 000 - 400 000 individuals depending on the estimates of the size of the Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti populations.
The new citizenship policy notifies that the regime is reinforcing the multi-tiered citizenship cleavages already existent within Kuwaiti society whereby Kuwaitis are divided into first-, second-, and third-class citizens.
The political implications of this policy is evident. First, social cohesiveness experienced by Kuwaitis who endured the occupation is effectively destroyed. Second, the policy of differentiation bolsters the position of the Kuwaiti regime, and ensures its stability.
The stability of the Kuwaiti regimes appears to be maintained after the Crisis because status-quo ensures not only the political objectives of the regime (most important is the maintenance of the hereditary rule of the Sabbah family), but also the economic interests of the Kuwaiti citizenry who are the major beneficiaries of the extensive welfare goods and services included in the clientelistic contract.