The Gulf economies are the product not only of hydrocarbons, geography and fate. All economies are the product of political structures and dynamics, too. Economics and commerce are, in fact, highly political affairs. States and regimes – the ruling elites at their summit – play critical roles in setting both the landscape and the climate in which economies operate and perform. The components of the state, such as leaders, political elites, institutions, state-owned firms, and others, are integral to understanding both modern economic history and a country’s economic profile. Non-state actors and societal forces engage and interact with the state and its components, and are critical too. Actors such as the business community, the clergy, tribes and families therefore also play important roles in the Gulf. Finally, political externalities shape the Gulf ’s economies, whether by the actions of specific actors such as foreign states and multinational firms or as more opaque but also important forces such as globalization.

It is these various political and social actors and forces, and the dynamics created by their interactions with each other, which are the focus of this chapter. The intention is to add to the economic profiles outlined in the previous chapter, by examining the political dynamics and recent histories of the six Arab Gulf states. In conglomeration, the two chapters seek to construct a more detailed and nuanced outline of the political economies of the Gulf. Politics and economics overlap strongly in the Gulf: the former is crucial in setting the scope and limits of economies, while economic structures and outcomes have important, sometimes profound, impacts on politics. For all the economic change that the Gulf has seen in recent decades, and the further reforms planned, the nature of their political systems has meant that ruling families and key elites have been able to ensure political continuity and a systemic durability, even in the face of social, technological, and other changes.

STATES AND REGIMES

Nation-states, and specifically the political entities at the summit of a nation-state’s political structure, arguably have been the foremost lens through which Middle Eastern politics has been analyzed in recent decades.