ABSTRACT
It is undeniable that the Sultanate of Oman made tremendous progress between 1970 and 1996. The questions that this study has addressed are the extent to which this success is attributable to the personal involvement of Sultan Qaboos b. Sa’id Al-Sa’id and the similarity of Oman’s development to other rentier states. What we have argued is that Oman does not fit the rentier pattern experienced by its near neighbors such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and that the political, economic, and social development of the sultanate cannot be understood by focusing on the sultan as the grand architect of the Omani renaissance, but must be analyzed in light of the paternalistic tradition of sultanic rule in Oman and the need to balance the historical relationships among religious, tribal, and commercial elites who have remained important actors within the ‘rent’-based economy.
