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Rise of Populism in Kuwait
Abstract by Ms. Kaori Mita
Coauthors: Hirotake Ishiguro
On Session IV-14  (Populist Movements and Democracy Formation)

On Friday, December 2 at 11:00 am

2022 Annual Meeting

Abstract
The rise of populism has been seen around the world recently. Kuwait is no exception and has seemed to experience the rise of populism over the two decades. In the case of Kuwait, populists dominated parliament debilitates function of the government and weakens the governance of the State. The number of interpellations against ministers has gone up since 2000s. While the media speculates performance of PMs through grilling sessions, on the other hand, some grieve loss of significance of interpellations and show concern the quality of representation. Should “us against the elites”, “people against a small group of privileged and corrupted people” be the cause of populist discourse as seen in other places of the world, the inequality has always existed in the Kuwaiti society since the inception of national assembly and constitution. Why is populism rising in Kuwait? What has contributed to this change since 2000s? The cause of populism has been explored by several authors in context of consolidated democracies across the regions and overtime; however, researches on the relationship between democracy and populism in different phases of democratization is understudied (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018). While some previous studies touch upon inner experiences from the MPs themselves(Alnufaishan & Alrashidi, 2019), populist policy itself (Nordenson, 2020), or the affect from the politics itself (Abdalla & Al-Homoud, 2012; Aljarallah, 2020), there not many studies have not considered causal relationship between Kuwaiti democracy and the rise of populism. This study analyses the factors contributing the rise of populism and the phase of Kuwaiti democracy by considering quality of representation as an independent variable. In the premises of “the populism is in many ways an illiberal democratic response to undemocratic liberalism” (P.1670, Mudde & Rovira Kaltwassar, 2018), quality of representation here includes political participation, social participation, level of corruption, gathered from previous studies, governmental websites, newspapers, data collected by international organization, and/or by private consulting firms. The study implies common conditions in which populism derives regardless of difference phases and levels of democratization.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Kuwait
Sub Area
Gulf Studies