This paper explores how nationalism has shaped the expression of loyalty and dissent in Oman and Bahrain since 2011, drawing from a series of over 90 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2013 with Omani and Bahraini citizens to explain how specific actors have attempted to create a sense that nationalism equates to support of the existing system, in effect marginalizing criticism as disloyal to the country. Despite some backlash, this has been an effective tool to reduce opposition during a time of political pressure. In both states the pre-existing state-society relationship emerges as critical to the effectiveness of this strategy. In Bahrain, where a culture of opposition has long existed and political parties are well established, there is a strong sense among reformers of being loyal to their country by demanding its improvement. Simultaneously, a government-driven narrative distinguishes between ‘loyal’ Bahrainis and the ‘disloyal’ opposition, whose secret allegiance lies with a foreign nation (Iran). Key to the effect of nationalism on loyalty and dissent in Bahrain is the founding myth of the nation-state – which is contested. The government’s narrative is in many ways a logical attempt to shore up traditional centres of support and prevent cross-societal opposition, yet dividing society into ‘true Bahrainis’ and ‘Iranian agents’ will have serious impacts for the nation’s cohesion in the years to come. The sense of ‘loyal opposition’ is not absent in Oman, especially among an educated elite that was heavily involved in protests in 2011. Yet this view was expressed only among a minority with greater exposure to foreign political cultures; a much greater majority equated being ‘Omani’ with being specifically loyal to the ruler (the Sultan) and in a more general sense being loyal to the system. A strong culture of Omani exceptionalism – which itself relates back to the state’s efforts at unity since 1971 – is often employed to explain Oman’s milder ‘Spring’ since 2011. Whereas in Bahrain the nationalism-as-loyalty strategy is primarily state-driven, in Oman resistance to protest often stems from society as much as from the state. Yet in both countries, criticism of specific issues like corruption have been tolerated and not denounced as unpatriotic. This paper draws on a comparative analysis based on extensive fieldwork to examine the interplay between nationalism, loyalty and dissent that has shaped Omani and Bahraini reformist movements.

Ronald Grigor Suny has written about how Joseph Stalin consolidated his personal control over the Soviet Union through “the naked exercise of unrestrained power.” Simultaneously, Stalin also “…worked to create authority and acceptance, borrowing from and supplementing the repertoire of justifications from Lenin’s day.” Similarly, Saddam Hussein consolidated his power through his relationship to Iraqi president Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, his grip over the security and intelligence services, and his willingness to take ruthless measures. All the while, he maintained that his actions corresponded to al-Bakr’s wishes, the principle of “collective leadership,” and Baʿthist founder Michel ʿAflaq’s philosophies. If “there was a fundamental discontinuity between Bolshevism and Stalinism,” there was also a discontinuity between al-Bakr and ʿAflaq’s Baʿthisms and that of Saddam Hussein. Indeed, a detailed and systematic study of the Iraqi Baʿth Party Regional Command’s internal archive—currently held at the Hoover Institution—shows that the Baʿthism practiced during Hussein’s presidency took on its own character. I call this ideology “Husseini Baʿthism.” What did Hussein Baʿthism consist of? How did it differ from its predecessors? The archives show that while Hussein retained the language, catchphrases, and moral imperative of ʿAflaqian theory, he introduced two new concepts to make Baʿthism his own: his cult of personality and the notion of “applying” (taṭbīq) Baʿthist ideals. These principles went hand-in-hand because each strengthened Hussein’s role within the Baʿthist State. Hussein’s personality cult made him the Baʿth’s chief prophet, giving him exclusive insight into the monopoly on historical truth that underlay the party’s claims to legitimacy. With this power, Hussein’s emphasis on the “application” of Baʿthist ideology allowed him to interpret ʿAflaq’s vague principles as he wished. If ideology was the keystone of the Baʿthist system, by placing himself at the center of party ideology, Hussein sat at the apex of the regime where, to paraphrase Vaclav Havel, the center of power was identical to the center of truth. Husseini Baʿthism did not only give Hussein unquestionable authority, it made the continuance of Hussein’s authority necessary to maintain the Baʿthist regime and to achieve Baʿthist ideology’s utopian goals.

In the face of popular challenges, few autocrats rely exclusively, or even principally, on repression to survive. Instead, they exploit a variety of strategies, buying popular support and co-opting elite challengers as necessary. According to existing theory, however, none of these strategies should involve targeted goods to politically disenfranchised minorities or other marginalized groups. Yet in some regimes, we find this very practice, leading us to ask: why provide benefits to the marginalized? In answering this question, I explore the puzzling case of Qatar, where the regime regularly targets distributive goods to otherwise marginalized groups. Such targeting is simply inexplicable for existing theories of authoritarianism. To explain this behavior, I offer a theory of authoritarian co-optation under the threat of economic sabotage. Even groups marginalized from traditional venues of power can influence authoritarian rule by threatening to destroy capital or undermine its growth. The theory predicts the conditions under which autocrats use distributive benefits to prevent sabotage and defuse popular challenges. In testing my theory, I draw on a unique GIS dataset from Qatar. My empirical strategy exploits the spatial segregation of groups to evaluate the relationship between distributive targeting and the location of marginalized communities. Qatar’s regime utilizes GIS data and other technologies in their spatial planning and housing policy. These technologies reinforce and facilitate selective repression and distributive targeting. Ultimately, I show how the Qatari regime provides distinct distributive goods to different communities, favoring citizens over non-citizens and potential saboteurs over groups without a credible sabotage threat.

Material Needs and Cultural Retention: Legitimation Strategies in Qatar and the UAE Classic rentier state theory argues that citizens’ silence can be bought through economic allocations alone. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), because of their levels of oil wealth, are seen as typical rentier states, spending significant sums of money on welfare benefits for their citizens, including free healthcare, education, and employment. Yet although money matters for political stability, it is not a holistic explanation for domestic politics in the Arab Gulf States. Building on qualitative and quantitative research that shows that Gulf citizens are not always content with the economic allocations they receive, this paper argues that the states of Qatar and the UAE invest significant resources in invented traditions with the aim of bolstering political stability through societal justification and legitimation. By investing considerable amounts of time and money, these Gulf states aim to legitimize their rule by providing their citizens with a sense of belonging and unity. First, the paper details examples of the means used by rulers in Qatar and the UAE to invent traditions, such as unified cultural dress and the use of museums, heritage villages, and national days to rewrite the countries’ history. These examples cast doubt on classic rentier state theory’s central claim that economic allocations are sufficient to achieve political stability. Second, the paper investigates the relative success of these heritage constructions. While the relatively small populations of Gulf nationals are often viewed as homogeneous by the outside world, the quest for a unified sense of citizenship has been hindered by a legally divided citizenship that is closely associated with inequality in economic allocations. Evidence is drawn from primary and secondary sources, including original research on Qatar’s Heritage Village and interviews with Gulf nationals affected by tiered citizenship laws. The paper concludes that Gulf citizens need an emotional attachment to their country in the same way as citizens throughout the world, and that economic allocations alone cannot ensure political stability in even the richest states of the Arab Gulf.

From the literature on authoritarianism and regime survival one can identify three dimensions that are expected to have a causal impact on regime stability (Gerschewski 2011; Merkel et al 2012). First, repression as violation of physical integrity of its people through the security apparatus (hard) or the restriction of political rights and liberties (soft) is expected to have impacts upon regime survival (Davenport 2007). Second, cooptation of relevant actors and groups through formal and informal institutions and practices affect regime stability (Davenport 2007). Thirdly, legitimacy through diffused (input) or specific support (output) has an impact upon regime stability (Gerschewski 2011). All the three aforementioned factors are endogenous in nature and I will argue in this paper that such a domestically-bound perspective is not sufficient in explaining the resilience of authoritarian regimes during the Arab Uprisings (Heydemann & Leenders 2011; Volpi 2012). Most concepts applied to explain the stability of autocrats during 2011 in the Arab World usually treat international influences as external shocks that occur randomly and destabilize a formerly stable equilibrium of authoritarian rule. In that sense they are treated as having an impact upon the three dimensions already mentioned but most likely a destabilizing one. I argue that the impacts from the international domain on domestic regime stability are manifold and increasingly important. Hence, current theorizing lacks specificity and conceptualizing attempts to grasp the complexity of causal impacts originated on the international level. In this paper I would like to sketch out an attempt on how to include a conceptually more specified relation between the international sphere and the pillars of domestic regime stability. Analog to the concept of embedded democracy (Merkel 2004) I will develop a framework that argues that regime stability has to be understood as embedded in certain international and regional contexts. From this context various effects can increase or reduce regime stability especially in critical junctures in which autocrats are facing contestation of their rule. For the empirical assessment I will rely upon mechanisms that illustrate how developments from the international level crucially influenced the stability of the Moroccan regime during the Arab Uprisings in 2011. Empirically I will trace the causal mechanism that links the emerging concept of authoritarian learning (Heydemann & Leenders: 2011; forthcoming) to the resilience of Arab autocrats through the method of process tracing in a qualitative in-depth case study of Morocco relying upon reports, sequential evidence and interview data.