ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one particular pocket of effectiveness in a particular type of country: state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in oil-rich states. It deals with profit-oriented and often internationalized entities, the focus is not on public services, but the main explanandum is effectiveness. Although SOEs in the oil monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been subsidized in various ways, and often enjoyed local monopolies or duopolies, several of them are increasingly proving themselves competitive, both in a liberalized domestic setting and in international markets. Economic populism is more than mere patronage: drawing on anti-elitist rhetoric, it implies the targeted mass political mobilization of 'marginalized' classes and uses SOEs to rectify perceived social injustice. Gulf SOEs show that rent inflows do not automatically lead to institutional stagnation or decay, as 'resource curse' theorists have posited.
