After the Arab Spring shook governments throughout the Middle East in the early 2010s, youth activism has increased as states across the Gulf region witness their youth majorities evolve into a working-age population with simmering tensions over corruption, obstacles to economic empowerment, and the deteriorating welfare state. With the wealth of the Gulf States based largely on hydrocarbon resources, these states share a unique economic situation, and often are termed “rentier economies.” The resulting institutional ecosystem is extractive by design and undermines innovation at its core. Thus, the capacity of the young to attain a demographic dividend-- a sweet spot in the age structure that can be the highest opportunity for economic productivity--will be limited for decades to come if not framed by the appropriate institutional design and policies. This opportunity to capitalize on this productive age structure and increase economic productivity is an exigent matter of both political and economic stability in the Gulf rentier states along with the broader Middle East. Existing currents of thinking are asking broad questions related to how rentier economies can diversify, why the resource curse results in various deterministic pathways of economic development, and how the demographic dividend contributes to economic growth. Yet, the literature on the resource curse, rentier economies, and the demographic dividend has failed to highlight the connection between political forces and the economic policies that affect societies with youth bulges. Economic reform focused on innovation-led development is key to reaping the demographic dividend. A central goal of this study is to illuminate this gap and to point to alternative strategies to make the most of an extraordinary moment of opportunity that may only arise once in a society’s history. Theoretically, the dependency on oil wealth creates distinct interactions between the institutional environment of the private sector and the political logic of stakeholders such as the business elite and the labor force. In this context, my research question is: How does state-business relations affect the necessary economic reform to foster economic development needed for rentier economies to convert youth bulges into demographic dividends? In this study, through 46 semi-structured interviews and a comparison of three case studies –Kuwait, Qatar, and Kuwait –during the post-Arab Spring era, I will draw on theoretical literature on the resource curse to explain how state-business relations impact the prospect of attaining a demographic dividend in rentier states.

Iraq and Kuwait are arguably the only rentier nations in the Gulf region with legitimate representative legislative authority. While the histories and regime-classification of each country's democratic systems are different, the two parliaments have several similarities. Both parliaments are clearly subject to tribal and religious influences, affecting both the election of MPs, as well as ministerial appointments. However, unlike Kuwaiti democracy, which came about as the result of a power-sharing agreement between society and the royal family, Iraqi democracy is the forced result of the U.S.’ 2003 war. Iraq and Kuwait are among the top five producers of OPEC, yet Kuwait is ranked number one in oil wealth per capita and Iraq is ranked seventh globally. While both are considered rentier states, the former has a higher level of rentierism. The aim of this paper is to study how state-society relationships are framed by legislative branches in states with varying levels of rentier wealth. Specifically, it will look at how this dynamic shapes foreign policy behavior. The main question posed by this paper will be to determine whether the level of rentierism correlates with the level of foreign policy influence exercised by a given parliament. Therefore, this paper will utilize historical comparative analysis to examine patterns of legislative power that have contributed to these states divergent foreign policies. This study hypothesizes that legislative authority in Kuwait has had little role in shaping foreign policy outcomes, while in Iraq the legislature has played an integral role in defining state foreign policy.

In the past century, Kuwaiti society has undergone state-formation coinciding with oil discovery, while also experiencing numerous social and political movements that affect conceptions of privilege and the status of discrimination. On more than one occasion, Kuwait has received negative attention due to reports of xenophobic remarks directed primarily at the bidoon (stateless people) and expatriate residents. Moreover, in recent years, Kuwait’s Bedouins (Arabs with a nomadic background) have also been on the receiving end of these attacks. The content of these remarks largely pertain to notions of Kuwaiti citizenship and identity being linked to certain privileges, and has caused the singling-out of those seemingly not belonging to these categories. In this context, it is important to trace how such attitudes toward non-Kuwaitis are linked to a broader socioeconomic history framed by the rentier state. Given its status as a rentier state, it is possible that the state-benefits received by Kuwaitis have contributed to a heightened sense of ‘Kuwaiti’ citizenship as a privileged status. Whether inadvertently or not, this has caused ‘outsiders’ to commonly be viewed as part of an ‘inferior’ class in which are competitors for rent distribution and social benefits of the Kuwaiti rentier state. Concurrent to this underlying element of competition for resources, there has been a long history of Pan-Arabism. Understanding the present debates surrounding Kuwaiti national identity cannot disregard the legacies of the pan-Arab movement. Consequently, as a methodological approach, an archival historical review of pan-Arabist publications in Kuwait from 1950-1960 indicates that other groups have been subject to Kuwaiti xenophobia as well, including Iranian immigrants. This paper will trace this history in Kuwait by examining pan-Arabist discourses, (particularly the weekly newspaper al-Tali’a from 1961-1971), in order to understand how pan-Arabism interacts with rentierism, and how this dynamic has affected state-society relations with regards to national identity and privilege.

In his monograph entitled The Wages of Oil, the American political scientist Michael Herb argues that Kuwait’s high degree of political participation, relative to the neighboring Gulf states, owes itself to the Iraqi threat on two occasions (first in 1961, then the Iraqi Occupation in 1990). The resultant political institution derived from these two episodes of external threat is Kuwait’s National Assembly, which sets the stage for the ruling family’s “[in]ability to return to absolutism”. Such an irreversible trajectory is indicative of “path dependence” in political studies, which specifies that institutions and policies have a tendency towards inertia. In other words, when a political path is set on its course, it requires significant effort to divert them elsewhere, constraining future choices in the process. By analyzing windows of possible change, known as “critical junctures” in a path-dependent model, this paper seeks to compare the regime-building trajectories in Kuwait and Oman. Two critical junctures are singled out in order to decipher the room for political participation and regime resilience. First, the context that led to state-building (1961 for Kuwait, and 1970 for Oman), and second, the impact of the 2011 Arab Spring, which generated civic pressures but resulted in little genuine reform. This paper will show that regime resilience was reinforced at the onset of state-building, following a path-dependent model which prescribes long periods of stability but also punctuated by brief phases of institutional flux. Personalized sultanistic rule in Oman with little leeway for civil liberties meant that situations of flux had higher stakes. For Kuwait, the regime built on tenets of joint governance and pluralism allows a degree of political maneuvering, but only to a level acceptable to the executive power. This paper will also consider how al-Nahda (the Renaissance or the Awakening) in both Kuwait and Oman is recast under different myths that set the stage for the chosen regime type. The notion of path dependence is then reassessed in terms of structure and agency, with the latter being increasingly noticeable in an active citizenry.

If postcolonial states aim to create a low-risk image of themselves by democratizing in order to attract foreign direct investment, it is important to identify the democratic attributes that enable an attractive investment environment. Through an empirical analysis of all members of the United Nations, and a case study analysis of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states, this research demonstrates that democracy that emphasizes respect for civil liberties reduces country risk in all states, including postcolonial states, while democracy that emphasizes form over substance has a weaker effect in postcolonial states. This research contributes to the literature on economic development by highlighting how different conceptualizations of democracy weigh on country risk in the postcolonial context.