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Allarakia-Dissertation-2016 THREE ESSAYS ON THE DYNAMICS OF LEGISLATURES IN MONARCHICAL REGIMES: KUWAIT’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY _______________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Political Science University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy _______________ By Luai A Allarakia December 2016 THREE ESSAYS ON THE DYNAMICS OF LEGISLATURES IN MONARCHICAL REGIMES: KUWAIT’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY _________________________ Luai Allarakia APPROVED: _________________________ Ryan Kennedy, Ph.D. Committee Chair _________________________ Eduardo Aleman, Ph.D. _________________________ Francisco Cantu , Ph.D. _________________________ Justin Kirkland, PhD. _________________________ Michael Herb, Ph.D. Georgia State University _________________________ Steven G. Craig, Ph.D. Interim Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Department of Economics THREE ESSAYS ON THE DYNAMICS OF LEGISLATURES IN MONARCHICAL REGIMES: KUWAIT’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY _______________ An Abstract of a Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Political Science University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy _______________ By Luai A Allarakia December 2016 ABSTRACT The Literature on institutions in authoritarian regimes has made important advances in terms of our understanding of how these institutions affect political and economic outcomes, like regime survival, stability, and economic growth. Despite these important advances the literature’s macro approach has often mean that we know very little about the actual internal dynamics of these institutions. For example, how are legislators actually selected in authoritarian assemblies? And how do these legislatures behave once they make it into an authoritarian assembly? Moreover, there is often an assumption that these institutions have a uniform effect regardless of the authoritarian regime type. To be sure a few studies have attempted to rectify this shortcoming by examining the internal dynamics of legislatures using single case studies. Yet these studies focused on single party regimes leaving other regime types unexplored. I attempt to fill this gap by examining these dynamics within the context of monarchical regimes. I use the case of the Kuwaiti National Assembly (KNA) to answer three important questions about the internal dynamics of legislatures in monarchical regimes. In the first paper I examine the function of these legislatures using votes on economic issues. I find that monarchical regimes contrary to conventional wisdom are not just simply venues for the distribution of rent but also serve as venues to contest long term economic policies. In the second paper I examine how legislators are selected in monarchical regimes with no dominant ruling parties. I show that these types of regimes deliberately choose electoral formulas that not only encourage the multiplication and fragmentation of political blocs and electoral lists, but also disadvantage larger political blocs and electoral lists by discouraging coordination between them. In the third paper I explore how legislators in authoritarian regimes behave and vote once they make it into the assembly. In find that dimensions of conflict are and voting in monarchical regimes is multidimensional. One dimension is based on a social divide dimension that stems from the lack of an institutionalized party structure, and another dimensions is based on a pro- and anti- government divide that is based on the positions legislators take vis-à-vis the government in motions of confidence. These findings are important because they facilitate a comparison with other authoritarian regimes types especially with the available studies on single party regimes. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The journey to finish my PhD was a long and difficult one but through this process several people have made it easier and manageable despite all the hardships. I would like to thank my wonderful parents without whom I could not have even embarked on this journey in the first place. I thank my mother whose love, unyielding faith, encouragement, and prayers helped sustain me throughout this process. My father who, as early as 2001 when I was an undergraduate just starting out, promised to support me and kept his promise 9 years later. I would not have been able to be in the US to pursue my PhD if it were not for his support. He taught me never to be afraid of failure and to never despair. Instead, he told me to transform failure into an opportunity, and create an effective plan of attack for the next step. For this my parents deserve my love and gratitude. I want to thank my dissertation advisor Dr. Ryan Kennedy for his patience, time, and support through this process. He has been a great help and asset to me both for the development of the theory and all the logistics involved. My dissertation committee members Dr. Eduardo Aleman, Dr. Francisco Cantu and Dr. Justin Kirkland all deserve my gratitude for their comments, insights and support. My outside dissertation committee reader Dr. Michael Herb, who went above and beyond his role as an outside reader, served in many ways as an informal second advisor to me. He tirelessly read through my work time and again, and gave me excellent and detailed feedback, in addition to his constant support and encouragement. I want to also thank Dr. Marwa Shalaby and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy for giving me a summer grant to do my research and for also allowing me an opportunity to work with the center for two consecutive summers. The staff and alumni of the 2015 APSA MENA workshops also deserve to be thanked for their invaluable comments on my dissertation and for supporting me with a professional development grant to help me extend my research beyond the dissertation phase. I also want to extend my gratitude and appreciation to my friends and colleagues in Kuwait for aiding in my data collection and field works process. Dr. Ghanem Al-Najjar in particular has been instrumental in facilitating access to many important individuals and archives in Kuwait and I owe him a great deal for that access. Finally, I would like to thank the following individuals for aiding me in gaining access to valuable data and for helping me understand the often puzzling and perplexing nature of Kuwaiti politics: Hamza al-Olayan at Al-Qabas Newspaper’s archives, Dr. Hamid Al-Baloshi, Dr. Farah Al-Nakib, Dr. Saleh Al-Saidi, Mr.Awad Al-Mutairi, Mr. Talal Al-Keshti and Eitjahat Center, Mr. Fawwaz Ebil, Kuwaiti MP Dr. Khalil Ebil, Mr. Khalefah Al-Ghanim and Mr. Badr Al- Najjar. Last but not least my lovely dedicated wife Dana El Kurd deserves a special mention. Without her this dissertation simply would not have seen the light. She has been my right hand and my life support throughout this whole process. She has read my work, edited it, and given me feedback time and again from the very first moment I started writing this dissertation. She has also worked tirelessly and sacrificed her own comfort to provide me with an environment that is comfortable and conducive to working on my dissertation. I am eternally grateful to her for her love and dedication. Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 Regime Type and the Micro Logic of Legislatures in Authoritarian Regimes .......... 3 The Dynamics of Legislatures in Monarchical Regimes ........................................................ 5 References ......................................................................................................................................................... 11 1. Rent Distribution as an Epiphenomenon of Regime Type: Economic Voting in Kuwait's 12th and 13th National Assembly ........................................................................................... 14 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 15 Legislatures in Authoritarian Regimes as a Tool for Co-Optation ................................ 17 Legislatures in Monarchical Regimes: Reductionist Generalizations ........................ 21 Theory and Empirical Implications: Legislatures in Rentier Monarchies ................ 22 Research Design and Case Selection .................................................................................................... 28 Kuwaiti Political Development: The Cooptation of a Broad Social Coalition ............... 32 Co-Opting the Economic Powerhouse through Private Goods: Sunni Hadar ............. 33 Co-opting through Non-Exclusionary State Provided Benefits: The Underprivileged ............................................................................................................................................................................... 39 The Role of the Kuwaiti National Assembly ................................................................................... 42 Empirical Analysis ........................................................................................................................................ 48 Discussion and Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 53 References ........................................................................................................................................................
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