The Modern Middle East (44 page)

The oil monarchies have been better equipped than the civic myth monarchies to deal with potential challenges arising from within. The historical
processes of state formation in the oil monarchies have been decisive in giving them their current institutional characteristics and determining their patterns of rule. By the time independence came to the Persian Gulf states—beginning in the late 1880s in what later became Saudi Arabia but not until 1961 for Kuwait and 1971 for Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE—most of the ruling families had already established their supremacy over the tribal areas that later became independent states.
⁶⁵
British support was a critical factor in transforming ruling clans into royal families. With independence came the institutionalization of the tribal chieftaincy and its simultaneous transformation into the leadership of an increasingly modern and differentiated state. Up until the 1950s and 1960s, the ruling families governed through a combination of British material and diplomatic protection, traditional, tribal legitimacy, and a reservoir of tribal recruits who could be relied upon if a domestic military challenge arose. The discovery and later sale of oil in the 1950s and 1960s changed the political equation considerably, resulting, among other things, in a steady bureaucratization of the monarchy and the development of a modern civil service. A modern armed forces was created almost overnight, providing for yet another official institution through which tribal support could be channeled and maintained. A pyramidal power structure emerged, with the royal family at the top, supported by the civil service and the armed forces.

Key to the relative stability of the oil monarchies has been the successful cultivation of a sense of legitimacy among the larger population in general and among tribes in particular. This is not to suggest that these states enjoy unsurpassed and unchallenged legitimacy, as recent, repeated episodes of protests and acts of political opposition in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and to a lesser extent in Kuwait, demonstrate. Nevertheless, the oil monarchies have developed institutions and patterns of rule that have considerably cushioned their vulnerability against popular uprisings or other similar domestic threats. Their rule is largely considered legitimate on grounds of what Max Weber labeled traditional authority: “an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of the status of those exercising authority under them.”
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In such polities, “obedience is owed to the
person
of the chief who occupies the traditionally sanctioned position of authority and who is (within its sphere) bound by tradition. The obligation of obedience is a matter of personal loyalty.”
⁶⁷
In the oil monarchies of the Middle East, this type of traditional authority would not have been possible without the pervasive social and political influence of tribalism.

Despite growing sedentarization and modernization of tribes in recent decades, tribal and clan identity and values continue to figure prominently
in politics. At the level of political institutions, tribalism is epitomized by the royal family, even though the monarchy has become highly institutionalized and has far less direct contact with the tribes than ever before. Nevertheless, tribal practices such as
shura
(consultation) and institutions such as the
majlis
(an informal, advisory council) remain important symbolic elements in the state’s modus operandi. Even more significant is the way “tribal corporations” have been formally or informally integrated into the political structure. In Kuwait, tribal corporations operate unofficially and through existing political institutions such as the National Assembly, the Municipal Council, and some of the loosely organized political clubs and voluntary associations. In Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain, tribal corporations are semiofficial and are heavily represented in the police force and the National Guard. In the UAE, meanwhile, they are considered one of the institutions of the state itself, their status having been codified through legislation.
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Finally, as if incorporation were not enough, all oil monarchies use the offerings and patronage of the state—education, medical treatment, subsidized food, housing, and employment—to establish and reinforce direct clientelistic ties with social actors and to strengthen existing bonds with their own and with other tribes.
⁶⁹
Patronage enables the ruler to court the support of other tribal leaders (sheikhs) and to maintain his own position as the paramount sheikh (
sheikh al-masha
ʾ
ikh
).
⁷⁰

Further reinforcing the strength of the royal family is its essentially corporate nature. A product of its genesis as a tribal chieftaincy, the corporate character of each of the royal families differs on the basis of the overall characteristics of the family itself and the specific personality and capabilities of the
amir
(or king) in power. The Al-Sabah of Kuwait, for example, have such a strong corporate identity and interests that they have evolved an intricate set of organizations, epitomized by a Family Council specifically designed to run the affairs of the royal family.
⁷¹
In contrast, up until Sheikh Hamad took over in 1995, in Qatar members of the Al-Thani ruling family had often shown little regard for the ruler’s authority and had demonstrated little corporate identity.
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Saudi Arabia’s unusually large ruling family is estimated to number between fifteen thousand and twentyfive thousand individuals, although it is controlled by only about two hundred senior princes.
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This large size presents challenges as well as advantages. On the one hand, it increases the possibilities of court intrigue and personal rivalries among members of the royal family, as the six-year public feud between King Saud, his half brother Faisal, and Prince Talal demonstrated from 1958 to 1964. On the other hand, it allows the royal family to monopolize all important bureaucratic, military, and provincial institutions. These
include cabinet ministries and other high-level positions within the civil service, command of the various branches of the armed forces, and the governship of the different provinces.

This is not unique to Saudi Arabia.
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In Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE, the offices of the prime minister, foreign minister, interior minister, and defense minister are all occupied by members of the royal family, in some cases by the king himself. Moreover, in all the monarchies, including Bahrain, where the royal family is not as wealthy as in the other states, princes and princesses are deeply involved in a variety of commercial and business activities.
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This strengthens their ability to maintain clientelistic ties with wealthy merchants and consequently with the larger society. Further reinforcing the royal family’s dominant position in relation to various social groups is the state’s central role in the real estate market. “Land gifts” have long been a regular policy of the Saudi state, and the governments of Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE have systematically manipulated the real estate market to benefit wealthy merchants and other important personalities.
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Patronage offers the state yet another means of maintaining its hegemony and legitimacy in relation to society.

Despite declining oil revenues beginning in the 1980s and the shock of the Gulf War in 1990–91, oil monarchies continue to placate domestic pressures for liberalization. Even in Kuwait, where the resumption of parliamentary politics after the end of the Gulf War has not translated into a curtailment of the Al-Sabahs’ arbitrary powers, there has so far been little apparent backlash from the population. Admittedly, the impact of declining rent revenues is far more pronounced on the economies of civic myth monarchies. Nevertheless, the near-complete absence of demands for liberalization in the oil monarchies, at least in normal times, is as much a product of the state’s continued institutional strength as it is a result of the comparatively robust nature of the economy. The royal family is synonymous with the state, not just in terms of the government’s representation of the royals to their subjects, but in the very real ways in which royal personages control powerful state institutions.

More importantly, the royal family relies on the profoundly salient and resonant tradition of tribalism, portraying itself as the embodiment of traditional and tribal values, practices, and heritage. The bureaucratization of the monarchy and its transplantation into opulent palaces have not destroyed its ability to manipulate social and cultural norms that are valued—often romanticized—by society. In Saudi Arabia, the royal family has the added advantage of claiming the guardianship of Islam and its two holiest sites.
⁷⁷
With its survival not seeming threatened by forces that can
easily be subdued through repression, the monarchy has little reason or incentive to liberalize or even to make a pretense of liberalizing.

The structural differences between the oil monarchies and the civic myth monarchies are striking. Neither Jordan nor Morocco has the institutional characteristics that would enable it to easily ride out economic or political crises. Both, especially Jordan, lack the resonant tribal tradition that has expedited the state-building process in the oil monarchies. Monarchy has, in a sense, seemed less “natural” to these states than it has in the Arabian peninsula. Therefore, Jordanian and Moroccan claims to legitimacy based on traditional authority come into even sharper contradiction with the realities of modernity than is the case in the oil monarchies. To this category also belonged Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty, which ultimately collapsed despite its best efforts at balancing traditional politics with modern economic and sociocultural development. Moreover, the monopoly over state institutions by the Jordanian and Moroccan royal families has been incomplete because of their comparatively small size.

While fragile, the ensuing civic myth monarchies have generally shown staying power so long as rent revenues continue flowing into the economy. In recent decades, however, declining rents have exacerbated the structural limitations of the two states. Within this context, in the mid-1990s the Jordanian and Moroccan monarchies initiated some liberalization efforts. These moves were designed to transform the monarchies’ legitimacy from one based on anachronistic claims to traditional authority into one that would be increasingly democratic. As we saw earlier, the reforms in Morocco were more substantive and, as a result, more effective in shielding the state from serious disturbances in 2011–12.

For Jordan, the problem of creating a civic myth supportive of the monarchy has been particularly acute. In the oil monarchies, state building occurred concurrently with the formation of a national identity. In fact, the two processes complemented and reinforced one another. Even the existence of many foreign nationals throughout the Persian Gulf countries, countered by some of the most stringent citizenship laws in the world, has not hampered the evolution of, say, Saudi, Kuwaiti, or Qatari identity. In Jordan, however, the process of state formation, from the 1920s until full independence from Britain in 1948, took place during the steady dissolution of Palestine and the growth of a sizable Palestinian community in Jordan. By and large, the Jordanian state is still trying to carve out a distinct sense of Jordanian national identity and nationalism. Only in July 1988 did King Hussein renounce any claims to Palestine and decide to end the subsidies he had paid to the West Bank for years. Time and again, the security of King
Hussein’s reign was threatened because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Given that Jordan has a population that is at least 60 to 70 percent Palestinian in origin, geographic proximity to Palestinian territories, and a history of clashes with Palestinian (and Israeli) forces, the question of its national identity and the ultimate legitimacy of the monarchy before the citizenry is not yet settled.

This problem is compounded by two additional developments. First, in Jordan the state and the ruling family have no tangible tribal and/or religious reference points to serve as sources of traditional legitimacy and support. The Jordanian state tries actively to perpetuate national and historic symbols that are meant to enhance the legitimacy of the regime. For example, the colors of the Jordanian flag represent Hashemite rule as part of a much longer historic tradition. King Hussein often appeared in public and in photographs wearing the bedouin headgear (
kaffiya
). Other forms of creating and reinforcing nationalist symbols—naming public buildings and monuments after the king, celebrating national holidays, manipulating school textbooks for political purposes—abound. But these and other efforts are mostly symbolic, often grounded in the state’s interpretation of reality rather than in reality itself. In the past, bedouin tribes in the southern parts of the country have shown loyalty to the king. However, as their extensive participation in the riots of 1989 demonstrated, this loyalty is based more on the strength of economic patronage than on blood ties and kinship. In the oil monarchies, clientelistic bonds play an important role in linking the tribes to the royal family. The royal family itself has extensive tribal connections, maintained by ʿ
asabiyya
(blood ties and relations of mutual support). The Jordanian monarchy, however, does not have access to vast oil revenues. The rentier political economy on which it relies is at best indirect and is often frequently affected negatively by developments in the international political economy beyond its own control (e.g., remittances sent home by Jordanians working in the Persian Gulf oil monarchies). Instead, to ensure the loyalty of the country’s southern tribes, it must make a greater effort to emphasize the royal family’s tribal and religious roots.