Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor, Department of Regional Studies, University of Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Kuwait is a rentier state which obtains most of its income from oil revenues. However, and despite the arguments that suggest rentier states hinder democracy, the Kuwaiti system almost exclusively among the GCC states, could maintain a relatively good reputation concerning the development of its democracy. What helped Kuwait overcome its rentier state tendency for authoritarian rule, is the focus of this paper. While many scholars have emphasized the role of citizens' taxation as the most important driver of political participation and, at the same time, promoter the legitimacy of government, my paper focuses on the historical process from the perspective of historical institutionalism and emphasizes that the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the Kuwaiti public, based on a parliamentary model, and the organization of the Kuwaiti parliament itself, have been institutionalized in a historical process, and what we see from the progress of democracy and the outcomes of these two institutions in the political sphere of Kuwait today, is the result of this historical institutionalization. Now the fundamental question is how to evaluate the rentier state dynamics in relation to the historical institutionalization of parliament in Kuwait, and what is the role of a variable called a consolidated institution in this regard?
Keywords
الف( فارسی
- کاظمی، حجت، (1392)، «نهادگرایی به‌عنوان الگویی برای تحلیل سیاسی»، پژوهش سیاست نظری، ش 13، ص 1-27.
ب( عربی
- ابوحاکمه، احمد مصطفی، (1984)، تاریخ الکویت الحدیث 1750-1965، کویت: ذات السلاسل.
- اسیری، عبدالرضا، (1993)، الکویت فی السیاسة الدولیة المعاصرة انجازات اخفاقات و تحدیات، کویت: القبس.
- اسیری، عبدالرضا، (2017)، النظام السیاسی فی الکویت: مبادئ و ممارسات، کویت: القبس.
- الصالح، عثمان عبدالملک، (2003)، النظام الدستوری و المؤسساتالسیاسیة فی الکویت، کویت: دارالکتب.
- الغبرا، شفیق ناظم، (2016)، «مستقبل مطالب الإصلاح فی الکویت»، مجلة المستقبل العربی، 444، 117-135.
- القبس، (2017)، «الکویتیون ثلث السکان.. ونواب مستمرون فی التهدید!»، تاریخ دسترسی: 2018/02/23، https://alqabas.com/435319.
- القبس، (2021)، «7 % زیادة فی تحصیل الضرائب.. رغم «کورونا»»، تاریخ دسترسی: 06/09/2021، https://alqabas.com/article/5862501.
- الانباء، (2018)، «تأجیل القیمة المضافة و استعجال الضریبة الانتقائیة»، تاریخ دسترسی: 06/09/2021، http://www.alanba.com.kw/ar/economy-news/832965/15-05-2018.
ج( انگلیسی
- Al Jazeera, (2020, December 6), “Kuwait Polls: Opposition Makes Gains, Gov't Resignation Accepted”, https://www.aljazeera.com/news, Accessed on 06/09/2021.
- Alsuwailan, Zaha, (2019), “Work and Social Justice: The Demands of Welfare in Kuwaiti Society”, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 38 (6): 629-639.
- Arthur, W. Brian, (1994), Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economic, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Azoulay, R., & Beaugrand, C, (2015), “Limits of Political Clientelism: Elites’ Struggles in Kuwait Fragmenting Politics”, Arabian Humanities, available at: Accessed on: 12/04/2018, https://journals.openedition.org/cy/2827.
- Beblawi, Hazem, (1987), “The Rentier State in the Arab World”, The Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 04, pp. 383-398.
- Cok, Corrado, (2020, November 2), “Kuwait Succession: Keeping the boat Steady in Troubled Waters”, Fair Observer, from https://www.fairobserver.com, Accessed on 06/09/2021.
- Crystal, Jill, (1990), Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Crystal, Jill, (1992), Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State, Boulder: Westview.
- David, Paul A, (1994), “Why Are Institutions the Carriers of History? Path Dependence and the Evolution of Conventions, Organizations and Institutions”, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 5.2: 205-220.
- Herb, Michael, (2005), “No Representation Without Taxation? Rents, Development and Democracy”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 37, No. 03, pp. 297-316.
- Herb, M, (2014), The Wages of Oil: Parliaments and Economic Development in Kuwait and the UAE, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press.
- Held, D., & Ulrichsen, K, (2013), Transformation of the Gulf: Politics, Economics and the Global Order, Florence: Taylor and Francis.
- Hodgson, G. M, (2006), “What Are Institutions?”, Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 1-25.
- Huntington, Samuel P, (1991), The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Norman: Oklahoma University Press.
- David, P, “Path Dependence Its Critics and the Quest for Historical Economics”, in Garrouste, P., Ioannides, S. eds, (2001), Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas: Past and Present, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
- Gray, M., & Georgetown University, (2011), A Theory of "Late Rentierism" in the Arab States of the Gulf, Doha, Qatar: Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
- Clemens, Chay, (2020), “Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait”, in Kamrava, M, Routledge Handbook of Persian Gulf Politics, New York: Routledge
- Lane, J.-E., & Ersson, S. O, (2000), The New Institutional Politics: Outcomes and Consequences, New York: Routledge.
- Luciani, Giacomo, (1994), “The Oil Rent, The Fiscal Crisis of the State and Democratization”, in Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World, in Ghassan Salamé (ed), London: I. B. Taurus, pp. 130-155.
- Luciani, Giacomo, (1990), “Allocation vs Production States: A Theoretical Framework”, In Giacomo Luciani (ed), The Arab State, Routledge: London, pp. 65-84.
- Mahoney, J., & Thelen, K. A, (2010), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, Cambridge [etc.], Cambridge University Press.
- Al-Najjar, Ghanim, (2000), “The Challenges Facing Kuwaiti Democracy”, Middle East Journal, Vol. 54, No. 02, pp. 242-258.
- Al-Najjar, Ghanim, (2008), “Struggle over Parliament in Kuwait”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Available at: http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/20845, Accessed on: 16/04/2018.
- Orfeo Fioretos, (2001), “The Domestic Sources of Multilateral Preferences: Varieties of Capitalism in the European Community”, in Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Edited by Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, New York: Oxford University Press: 213-244.
- Pierson, P, (2004), Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis, Princeton, N.J., Princeton: University Press.
- Ulrichsen, K, (2014), “Politics and Opposition in Kuwait: Continuity and Change”, Journal of Arabian Studies, 4, No. 2, pp. 214-230.
- (2021, July 2), “Kuwait's LIFE-AFTER-OIL Fund Rises to Record $700B”. https://www.aljazeera.com, Accessed on: 23/08/2021.
- Bottom of Form
- Ross, Michael, (2001), “Does Oil hinder Democracy?”, World Politics, Vol. 53, No. 03, pp. 325–361.
- Schlüter, A., & Theesfeld, I, (2010), “The grammar of institutions: The Challenge of Distinguishing between Strategies, Norms and Rules”, Rationality and Society, 22, No. 4, pp. 445-475.Top of Form
-
Schwarz, R, (2008), “The Political Economy of State-formation in the Arab Middle East: Rentier States, Economic Reform, and Democratization”, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 599-621.
- Steinmo, S., Longstreth, F., & Thelen, K, (1992), Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Stoakes, Frank, (1972), “Social and Political Change in the Third World: Some Peculiarities of Oil-Producing Principalities of the Persian Gulf”, in Derek Hopwood (ed), The Arabian Peninsula: Society and Politics, Routledge: London, pp. 189-215.
)