As the previous chapters have implied, while there are many features of the Gulf economies that are generic to economies around the world or shared with certain other economies, there are also a range of particularities that are very specific, even unique, to the Gulf or to certain Gulf political economies. Some are the product of state policies, and the subregion has certainly tried its share of poor policies in the past. Many others, however, are exclusively or predominantly beyond the control of states and societies: they can be addressed to some extent by policy, and adaptations can be made in response to them, but they are also a product of fate. This chapter explores these features of the subregion and how they link to economic dynamics and prospects. It examines the very personalized nature of politics and societal interactions, past shortcomings in economic policy-making and political reform, and some of the issues that have been neglected in the past. Among the issues over which the region has little control are its geography, where the Gulf is inextricably linked to events and dynamics in the wider Middle East, and emerging threats such as from climate change, where the best that the region can do, in all likelihood, is to adapt to change that now appears all but inevitable.

“RICHER THAN THEY ARE DEVELOPED”?

As already discussed in the previous chapter, the inaugural Arab Human Development Report quite directly, and somewhat controversially, described the Middle East as “richer than it is developed”. Sentiments along similar lines are found in scholarly work and, even more often, in mass media and other sources, where it is taken at face value that the region’s economies suffer from particular, and very serious, ills and shortcomings. The region includes some of the poorest countries in the world, has pockets of poverty in even the wealthiest, and is confronted by a series of social, political, and other challenges that will have a profound impact on its future development. In the Gulf, the story is more positive, but there too there are a range of challenges and uncertainties that must be addressed.