Ballot Boxes and Other Forms of Participation in Five Countries of the GCC

This chapter was presented as a paper at the Gulf Panel of the MESA conference in December 2007 in Montreal. It was the basis for a book entitled From Tribe to State. The Transformation of Political Structure in Five States of the GCC, published as vol. II of a CRiSSMA working paper N.15 of 2008. The institute is the ‘Centro di Ricerche sul Sistema sud e il Mediterraneo Allargato’ of the Catholic University in Milano. The sub-title for the two volumes together is Perspectives of Identity, Social and Cultural Dynamics in Eastern Arabia. Nearly a decade has passed since the first draft of this paper was written. During that time, ballot boxes were again with us: Elections –including municipal elections – have taken place on several occasions in all five countries. (Some updates are given in additional notes at the end of the main text). Although the events of the Arab Spring have influenced some aspects of the election procedures the fundamentals of the political system have not changed. In spite of some challenges to this system, in particular in Bahrain and Kuwait, most of the citizenry and the authorities in these five states appeared to see no necessity to embrace western style democracy in its entirety. 1. The Forces for Political Change 1.1 Historical: After the 1971 British Withdrawal the Sovereign States had to Assess Their Political Structure This paper is concerned with the five countries of the GCC, which have shared a common history prior to becoming sovereign states. They are: Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Oman. Becoming sovereign states was initiated by outside events – in effect by decisions taken in London. In each one of these states, the response to the British decision to withdraw finally from the Gulf region by the end of 1971, developed its own dynamic. In each sheikhdom a new political structure had to be found in order to project the country's sovereignty, and to give a backbone to its domestic political life. The form which was institutionalized for these new beginnings – whether a constitution or other sets of basic laws – was novel for the local society. But in every case, vital existing societal links were incorporated in some way or other into the newly formulized structures. Over the more than three decades since then, internal and external developments and events have helped to re-arrange the political and social dynamics in every one of the five states.

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