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Future Trends in the Gulf Chatham House Report Jane Kinninmont Future Trends in the Gulf Chatham House Report Jane Kinninmont February 2015 Future Trends in the Gulf Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is an independent policy institute based in London. Our mission is to help build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world. The Royal Institute of International Affairs ISBN 978 1 78413 029 9 Chatham House A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. 10 St James’s Square London SW1Y 4LE Cover image © ArabianEye/Getty Images T: +44 (0) 20 7957 5700 Typeset by Soapbox, www.soapbox.co.uk F: + 44 (0) 20 7957 5710 www.chathamhouse.org Printed and bound in Great Britain by Latimer Trend Charity Registration No. 208223 The material selected for the printing of this report is manufactured from 100% genuine de-inked post-consumer waste by an ISO 14001 certified mill © The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2015 and is Process Chlorine Free. Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Please direct all enquiries to the publishers. ii | Chatham House Contents About the Authors iv Preface and Acknowledgments v Executive Summary and Recommendations vi 1 Introduction 1 2 Understanding Political Stability in the Gulf: A Literature Review 9 3 Resource and Population Pressures: Economic and Demographic Trends 16 4 Information and Participation: Informed Citizens and Changing Societies 32 5 Political Participation, Ideas and Organization 44 6 Regional Dynamics: Politics, Identity and Security 55 7 Global Connections: Gulf States and Globalization 62 8 Conclusions 66 Gulf commentaries 1 Fiscal sustainability in the Gulf: political and economic implications 20 Ghassan Saeed and Abdulla Abdulaal 2 Expatriates in the Gulf: temporary but permanent 23 Abbas Al Lawati 3 Undoing labour market reform in the Gulf states: ‘business as usual’ 26 Hasan Alhasan 4 Social Saudis: uses and implications of new media in the kingdom 36 Sara Masry 5 Young artists in the GCC 39 Sultan Al Qassemi Chatham House | iii About the Authors Jane Kinninmont is senior research fellow and deputy Contributors head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, where she directs the Future Trends Abdulla Abdulaal is a Bahraini economist undertaking in the GCC project. She has been researching political PhD research at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and economic trends in the Gulf Arab countries since University of London. 2003. She spent several years as a political and economic forecaster for the Economist Intelligence Unit before Hasan Alhasan is a Bahraini political economist and running a corporate briefing service for senior executives researcher who studied at Sciences Po, Paris, and the based in Dubai. She was an external consultant to the UN London School of Economics, and is a regular contributor Industrial Development Organization on Saudi Arabia’s to openDemocracy. industrial clusters strategy, and has carried out bespoke Abbas Al Lawati is a journalist from Oman, based in Dubai economic and business consultancy projects for a number and specializing in GCC affairs. of Gulf companies. Since 2011 she has been based at Chatham House, with a research focus on the dynamics Sultan Al Qassemi is a writer and art collector from of change in the Gulf, Gulf relations with Iraq and Iran, Sharjah, UAE. the political and socio-economic drivers of sectarian Sara Masry is a researcher from Saudi Arabia, and a politics and conflict, and international policy towards former intern with Chatham House’s Middle East and North the Middle East. Africa Programme. Ghassan Saeed is a Bahraini economist undertaking PhD research at the University of Warwick. iv | Chatham House Preface and Acknowledgments This report is based on three years of research under the discussions in the region and in the UK: the King auspices of Chatham House’s Future Trends in the GCC Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Saudi project, with a particular focus on youth perspectives. Arabia; the Institute of Diplomatic Studies, Saudi Arabia; the Gulf Center for Development Policies, Gulf University The research has included a series of workshops in of Science and Technology, Kuwait; the Alsalam Center partnership with local research centres in Kuwait, Qatar for Strategic and Developmental Studies, Kuwait; the and Saudi Arabia, focusing on the themes of citizenship Gulf Research Center; and the Gulf Studies Center, and the economy; citizenship and the law; foreign policy Qatar University. and internal community relations; and political Islam. In addition, the project team organized workshops and The project was managed by Jamil De Dominicis, and seminars in London and Scotland, shared findings and Omar Sirri, Jessica Forsythe, Amanda Kadlec, Elham ideas with researchers from around the world who focus Fakhro, Sara Masry, Ghazaleh Djafari-Marbini, Farah Al on the Gulf, and carried out field research and interviews Farhan and Gazwan Aldafai provided valuable project in each of the six GCC countries. management and research assistance along the way. Neil Quilliam, head of the Middle East and North Africa The project team would like to thank the many Gulf Programme at Chatham House, has also helped to direct nationals and scholars of Gulf studies who have participated the project. Thanks are due to Margaret May for her since 2011 in research workshops, roundtables and skilled editing of this report, to Jo Maher for managing its interviews for the project. publication, and to Dr Claire Spencer for her comments In particular, we would like to thank the following on early drafts. organizations for partnering with us on events and Chatham House | v Executive Summary and Recommendations Politics in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in the private sector, and considering the introduction will be significantly transformed in the coming decade. of taxation, all of which will have implications for their Generational change, with 60 per cent of the population social contracts. under the age of 30, is placing strain on traditional Yet the trend since the Arab uprisings has been a political structures. The revenues from energy resources return to short-termist policies of increasing public- are not sufficient to sustain the current political-economic sector spending and employment – in 2011 the GCC bargain in the medium to long term: three of the six GCC countries made new public spending commitments worth countries need oil at US$100 per barrel in order to balance US$150 billion, or 12.8 per cent of GDP and created tens of their budgets, and, crucially, these ‘break-even’ prices are thousands of new public-sector jobs, many in the security rising as population growth adds to public-sector wage forces. This is essentially because the declared economic and subsidy bills. In four of the GCC states, hydrocarbons policy visions, entailing radical revisions to the role of the resources will run out within the lifetime of citizens born state, are not matched by visions of the political and social today. Current and future shifts in the structure of the changes that would be required. political economy, demographics, education and the availability of information will all affect power relations Even at a time of plenty, GCC countries are already feeling between states and citizens, citizens and expatriates, and growing internal, bottom-up pressure for greater popular different social groups. Citizens in these six states – Bahrain, participation, and in particular for representation of specific Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab marginalized groups, including young people, women, Emirates (UAE) – will expect more of a say in how they are religious minorities and citizens living in the less well-off areas governed and how their countries’ resources are managed. of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and the UAE. Such pressures are likely to intensify in a context of lower oil revenues, even Since 2011, much of the analysis of political stability if prices stabilize at US$100 per barrel. Citizens who will in across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has future need to make a greater contribution to their economies, focused on an oversimplified division between the region’s and receive fewer economic benefits from the state, are republics, some of which have seen their rulers overthrown likely to have very different expectations about government after popular revolutionary uprisings, and the monarchies, transparency and accountability. which have not. There is a prevailing narrative that the monarchies are especially stable, and that their resilience Changes in the availability of education and in the past means they will also be resilient in the future. information are adding to expectations of greater However, a more nuanced approach is needed to transparency, freedom of expression and political understand the potential for political transformation, participation, including among women and traditionally which should not be conflated with street protests or marginalized groups. The global trend of far greater changes of elites.
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