ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the theoretical approaches developed to explain the politics, especially the political economy, of the six Arab monarchies of the Gulf – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – and their utility in situating and explaining patronage, clientelism, and corruption in these systems. The chapter begins with an outline of these political economies, including some of the presumptions made about the impact of oil wealth on their politics and the extent to which they vary from other Middle Eastern states. The chapter surveys four key theoretical approaches to Gulf political economy—rentier state theory and its variants, regime political narratives, state capitalism, and neopatrimonialism, showing the scope and limits of each in contextualising and explaining patronage, clientelism, and corruption. It argues that patronage is a deeply-imbedded feature of these systems, but with unique characteristics that derive from their specific form of state capitalism, unique business-government-royal relationships, social hierarchies, and political narratives.
