ABSTRACT
The GCC member states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which alternately are referenced here as the Arab Gulf states, are addressed together because their patterns of politics and government are sufficiently similar to one another to justify collec tive treatment. Furthermore, many of the same forces of history, geography and economics have come to shape these patterns of political behaviour. While their regional neighbours Iraq, Jordan and Yemen figure prominently in the Arab Gulf states social and political fabric, the modern development of each of the six member-states differs from those post-Ottoman successor states. 500This difference can be identified in three significant aspects of their social structure and political economies, namely their monarchical rule, significant economic rents garnered from petroleum resources, and the increasing regional and global influence they have achieved in the era of neoliberal globalization. All three aspects are woven throughout the examination that follows. First, they comprise the largest concentration of conservative monarchies remaining in the world. Governing without constitutional constraint they have developed state institutions across the period of European imperial domination, enshrining hereditary monarchies at the centre of their post-independence state development. While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gained recognition of its independence in 1932, the other states all maintained intimate ties with British Imperial rule until it withdrew from the region, paving the way for the relatively late independence of Kuwait in 1961 and Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE in 1971. Beyond their legacies with British imperial rule, all six states have maintained intimate relations with the United States following its supplanting British power in the region after the Second World War. While the structure of governance has developed differently in each state, and reform efforts have challenged monarchical prerogatives since independence, the popular revolts across the region that began in 2011 have challenged the Arab Gulf states and their ruling families profoundly.
