State and Private Sector in the GCC after the Arab Uprisings

Bibliographic Data

ID16908655
AuthorsSteffen Hertog (0000-0002-6758-9564, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume3
Issue2
Pages174-195
Publication date2013-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Arabian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2153-4764 • E-ISSN: 2153-4780
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21534764.2013.863678
OpenAlexW2030521245
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited19

While the Gulf private sector has made huge strides since the first oil boom, most of its activities still amount to more sophisticated rent recycling rather than autonomous diversification. Its interests are in stark opposition to those of the citizenry at large, as it provides no taxes, little employment and few investment opportunities for GCC nationals. Instead, business and other social forces face a zero-sum conflict over — in some cases increasingly scarce — state resources. This structural isolation of business helps to explain Gulf capitalists' weak role in today's public political arena despite a strong pre-oil history of collective action. In recent decades, business elites have either kept their heads below the parapet or have provided auxiliary public support to beleaguered local regimes. They have for the most part abstained from or failed in electoral politics; in austere times, regimes have privileged the distributional interests of the state salariat and consumers at large over those of business. Gulf business has a chance for a greater developmental role and political autonomy only if it increases its interdependence with society at large through providing a tax base, employment and investment opportunities for GCC citizens. Of the three, employment is the most important and could decide the political fate of private capital in the Gulf in the long run

Autonomy · Business · Collective action · Diversification (marketing strategy · Economic growth · Economic policy · Economics · Market economy · Opposition (politics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Private sector · State (computer science · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Natural Resources and Economic Development · Socioeconomic Development in MENA

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