ABSTRACT
Kuwait's National Assembly building, like the contemporaneous parliament houses in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Sri Lanka, is a product of personal, sub national, national, and international concerns. Whereas the PNG building has played a part in what has been to date a gradual consolidation of that country's postcolonial parliamentary rule, and the Sri Lankan example may be related to violent ethnic clashes, the Kuwaiti counterpart has been produced in an increasingly turbulent context of a different kind. Kuwait was known to the world for three things: its oil, its wealth, and its precarious position in the war-torn Persian/Arabian Gulf. Because of the Gulf War of 1990-1991, the ideals and realities of democracy in Kuwait came under great international scrutiny. In the aftermath of the Iraqi ouster, Kuwaitis rebuilt their country and repaired their monumental parliament building with American assistance, even as Kuwait has become a distinctly different place, both physically and politically.
