Kuwait and Al-Sabah

The Emirate of Kuwait hardly resembles the city-State it was at the start of the 20th century. The discovery of oil in 1938 rapidly transformed the tiny tribal sheikhdom of the Al-Sabah into a modern oil-producing state where, by the early 1980s, citizens were enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the world. While much has been written on the reasons why and how the Al-Sabah became a ruling dynasty, little is known about the nature of their authority and its relationship to Kuwait's social structure. Rivka Azoulay shows how despite the rapidity of change in the oil-rich, family-run emirate, it is the pre-oil dynamics of social and political life that dictate how society operates. The author shows that Kuwait's ambitious diversification plans to reduce oil-dependence by 2035 require a renegotiation of the regime's pact with society, which threatens the pre-oil alliances upon which the Al-Sabah's regime has been built.

Autorentext
Rivka Azoulay is a postdoctoral fellow at Sciences Po Paris where she is working on a project to reform the social safety net system in Kuwait. Previously she was a lecturer at Leiden University and worked in advisory roles for international organizations in the Middle East and in Geneva.

Inhalt
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Authoritarian regimes and the crucial role of the periphery

Part I: When the past holds a mirror to the present: traditional politics and the pre-oil authority system of the Al-Sabah (1716-1938)
I: Deconstructing the dominant Sunna hadar narrative
II: Communal segregation and stratification in pre-oil Kuwait: hadar, Shi'a and the early-settled tribes
III. Changes in the authority system: Mubarak Al-Sabah, colonialism and alliances with non-core elites
IV. The crystallization of alliances with non-core elites: the 1938 Majlis movement

Part II. Oil and the consolidation of a tribal authoritarian shaykhdom: Ruler-ruled relations 1961-1990
I: External threat consolidates inter-elite power-sharing (musharaka)
II: External threat consolidates inter-elite power-sharing (musharaka)
III: The rise of new middle-class elites and the decline of the hadar elites
IV: Socio-political change within Kuwait's Shi'a population
V. Competitive authoritarians: parliamentary life (1961-1990)

Part III. New forces of globalization and the rise of the tribal periphery in Kuwait (1990-2014)
I: The birth of a tribal opposition
II. Beyond tribalism: social dimensions of a broader middle-class struggle
III. Splits in the regime's 'asabiyya: royal infighting and succession
IV. Limits of political patronage vis-à-vis non-core elites (2011-2014)

Conclusion
Bibliography

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