Past political science work on Kuwait has focused less on what Kuwait’s parliament does and more on how it is situated within other organs of state power. Few studies, barring Mary Tétreault’s Stories of Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2000), have sought to understand Kuwaiti citizens’ deeply held political views and what motivates their political activity and voting patterns. We know broadly what Kuwaitis do in parliament, in terms of policies they support, but less about what Kuwaitis seek to achieve through democratic action or around parliament, and so seek to link the two through this study of ideological trends. We therefore propose examining the political ideologies that have dominated in Kuwait as a means of understanding its political system and how exactly policymaking takes place. As such, this paper will situate the dynamics of Kuwaiti politics within broader political science debates about whether democratic institutions in “hybrid regimes” are meaningful arenas for popular contestation or only serve to enhance authoritarian rule. Given the varying portrayals of Kuwait as robust authoritarianism (Yom, 2016), “upgraded” authoritarianism (Gandhi, 2010), or a noteworthy site of democratic participation (Tétreault), this paper will examine the roles of ideologies in mobilizing social movements and political blocs, as well as effecting policy changes, rather than focusing solely on the institutions of political power themselves or on the ability of the ruling family to co-opt independent movements with oil rents. To that end, the paper will also assess the rise and fall of ideological strands in the country as a means of understanding the constraints and opportunities they present to Kuwaiti social movements.

How do social movements achieve policy victories under authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa? While existing work has focused on the whether nonviolent social movements can bring about regime change or secure direct concessions from authoritarian regimes, they can also place particular issues or social concerns on the political agenda for a given country - rendering them susceptible to foreign pressure or providing an opportunity for entrepreneurial political elites to curry favor with a particular constituency. In this paper, we focus on the ability of social movements to secure indirect concessions in two cases: Kuwait activists' efforts to secure women the right to vote and and Saudi activists efforts to secure women the right to drive. In both cases, we utilize process tracing to argue that social movements were necessary, albeit not sufficient, conditions for policy change to occur.

Within the past decade, the leaders of most Arab monarchies have conducted foreign interventions in Libya, Syria, and Yemen to secure their interests and counter threats. During each intervention, some leaders have changed their strategies, undermining coalition cohesion. Why do members of coalitions change their intervention strategies? The existing literature on interventions mostly focuses on Western states and structural shifts in systemic balance, domestic legislation, or bureaucratic competition. Elizabeth Saunders (2009) departs from these international or state level explanations by assessing the personal threat perceptions of U.S. presidents. In this paper, I adopt this individual level of analysis, focus on the leaders of Arab monarchies, and argue that leaders’ unique material and ideational perceptions of threat and pursuits of opportunities produce distinct intervention strategies. I test this argument by assessing the individual level causes for divergence between Saudi Arabia and the UAE following their intervention into Yemen’s ongoing civil war. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) perceived a material threat from the Iranian-backed Houthis and pursued the ideational opportunity for a pliant northern Yemen, committing to a “non-transformative” strategy to restore the ousted President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. Alternatively, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed (MbZ) perceived an ideational threat of Sunni Islamist diffusion and pursued the material opportunity for a sovereign southern Yemen. Consequently, the UAE shifted to a “transformative” strategy to reshape Yemeni politics and support a separatist governing entity known as the Southern Transitional Council. This paper aims to demonstrate that the anxieties and ambitions of leaders are essential determinants in both their states’ intervention strategies and the political outcomes of the states into which they intervene.

While repression figures prominently in the policy toolbox of all authoritarian regimes, not all those who run afoul of red lines can be targeted for repression. Instead, regimes must rely on self-censorship. Yet while much has been written about repression and its effects on political stability and protest, we know little about how regimes of self-censorship are reproduced and, importantly, how they erode over time. Using Morocco as a case study, I investigate this process of self-censorship erosion, attributing it to the co-optation and declining credibility of organized ‘loyal opposition’ forces and the increasingly conspicuous intervention of the king in political affairs, which has left the monarchy more exposed to criticism, especially as repression increases. Alongside these developments, a broader process of vulgarization of the king’s image, facilitated by the rapid spread of internet access and social media use over the past decade, has further denaturalized red lines while providing ordinary Morocans with both the basis and the means for critiquing the monarchy. Details from the Moroccan case help support this argument. When protesters took to the streets in 2013 to protest King Mohammed VI’s decision to pardon Spanish pedophile Daniel Galvan, it marked the first time in recent history that the monarch was the direct target of public protest. The pardon was eventually revoked, but not before security forces violently dispersed protesters. In the years since, the regime has increasingly responded to criticism and protest with repression, while continuing its efforts to co-opt or restrict the few remaining ‘loyal opposition’ forces in the kingdom. Yet despite the regime’s sharp turn towards repression and its sidelining of organized opposition, the incidence of protest in the kingdom continues to climb. Alongside these developments, criticism of the king has become more widespread, especially online, where rumors, insults, and memes about the monarch have become commonplace. In a country where criticism of the king — let alone jokes or insults — has long been understood to be a red line, these developments suggest an unprecedented erosion of self-censorship among ordinary Moroccans. Based on extensive interview and documentary analysis — including analysis of social media content and popular culture — collected over the course of 16 months of ethnographic research in Morocco, this project helps bring a societal perspective to the literature on policy change in non-democracies while also speaking more broadly to questions of resistance and social control under authoritarianism.