The Persistence of Authoritarianism and the Politics of Oil
Jason Brownlee, Tarek Masoud, and Andrew Reynolds, The Arab Spring: pathways of Repression and Reform (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 40-63.
Zahra Babar and Andrew Gardner, “Circular Migration and the Gulf States,” in Impact of Circular Migration on Human, Political, and Civil Rights: A Global Perspective, C. Sole, et. al. (Springer: 2016), 45-62.
Ahmed Kanna, “Dubai in a Jagged World,” Middle East Report, 243 (Summer 2007): 22-29.
Lucas Wyman, “The Mercenary University,” Jacobin, June 2, 2016.
Toby Jones, “Our Friends in Riyadh,” Jacobin, October 22, 2014.
Prompts for Reading Responses:
Which two variables do Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds offer in their explanation of the persistence of authoritarianism among some Arab regimes? How would Toby Jones explain the persistence of authoritarianism in Saudi Arabia? According to Lucas Wyman, how do institutions in Abu Dhabi, such as NYU, the Guggenheim, and the Louvre, work to legitimize the authoritarianism of the Emirati regime?
Or...
From the moment one steps off the airplane in Dubai, the process of making certain people and economic practices invisible (illegible) and others visible (legible) begins. What does Ahmed Kanna mean by this? In what sense are migrant workers simultaneously socially and morally invisible, yet legally “legible”? How does this paradox fit into Babar and Gardner’s argument that the "circular migration framework" of the kafala system is a “fantasy”?
Steven Lukes, a profound sociology, once described there are three dimensions of power. In his work, he described the second dimension of power, which is the power to control agenda. In the case of immigrants workers in UAE, the wealthy emiratis clearly process the second dimension of power. On one hand, wealthy emiratis completely ignore the immigrants workers. “To most Emiratis and wealthier expatriates, these workers do not exist, either physically or in the moral sense” (Kanna 27). On the other hand, in the institution that hires immigrants workers, they keep a close watch to them. “Their passports are expropriated the moment a company hires them. After this, they are warehoused in closely watched camps, sorted into wage categories that seem to parallel their nationalities” (Kanna 27). In the eyes of emiratis in UAE, the immigrants workers are no different from commodities. Compare to immigrants workers, capital in UAE is illegible in any means. The float of the capital is control by the top elites group. “Speculation and money laundering, as well as legitimate rent, fueled
ReplyDeletethe boom. Capital and the state reaffirmed the agreement of 1938…...The agreement was made easier by the state itself…...became an enormous stakeholder in the private sector.
When Kanna said from the moment one steps off the airplane in Dubai, the process of making certain people and economic practices invisible (illegible) and others visible (legible) begins, he means the way that emiratis process the second dimension of power, the way that emiratis make capital and immigrants workers invisible yet beware the damage the immigrants workers can make visible, has been planted deeply into this city.
Emiratis’ ignorants of immigrant workers can be seen in the lack of their human rights. Also the class the race of one also largely determine his/her mobility. And the institutions that hires immigrants workers also supervise them in a strict way. Their passports will be taken to prevent them from “abscond”. They will live in a closely watched camp. And their only means of transportation is the company bus.
What Kanna described can clearly shows the failure of kafala system. Kafala system is the system that control the immigration process. This system associate an immigrant to an resident or sponsor of the Gulf. According to Babar and Gardner, the system has “longstanding roots in the culture traditions of the region” (Babar 48). The failure of the system is, as I mentioned, the huge power gap between the immigrants and the sponsor. Also the lack of the social mobility for the immigrants also prevent success of the system. For now, the kafala’s circular migration framework is a fantasy.
Travelers arriving in Dubai International are almost immediately physically separated at passport control. Holders of Gulf Cooperation Council passports, as well as Americans, Europeans, and citizens of other affluent nations, are processed in an elegant atrium organized into 40 orderly queues (Kanna, 23). Below, literally at the bottom of the escalator is “a grimmer, tighter reservoir for passengers who had to apply for a visa before flying to Dubai”(Kanna, 23).
ReplyDeleteZahra Babar and Andrew Gardner note that the six states that make up the GCC, comprise the third largest migratory destination in the world and have hosted large transient “populations that, in some manner or another, appear to fit the definition of circular migration” (Babar & Gardner, 45). However, circular migration in the Gulf is different because of the peculiar institution of the Kafala System. The Kafil, or sponsor, is able to legally lock a migrant worker into a contract that is deliberately exploitative. The UAE is able to successfully
meet its labor needs while mitigating the overall impact of migrants on society. But, the guest worker program is regulated in a way to delimit the basic human rights of the migrant worker. The “win/ win/ win implications of the circular migration discourse fail to account for a system” that is designed solely for profit (Babar & Gardner, 59).
Dubai is a destination for ‘freed capital’, both financial and human, and the city center is a bona fide “tabula rasa onto which massive buildings, wild, themed architecture and clusters of free trade zones” are constantly being etched (Kenna, 24). However, while the financial
ReplyDelete‘free capital’ is illegible, the migrant worker population is not only legible, but also invisible, “and all too manipulated”(Kenna, 24). Ahmed Kanna argues that to most Emiratis and the wealthier expatriates, “these workers do not exist, either physically or in the moral sense”(Kanna, 27). They are regulated by the state, and segregated into camps that lie outside the city, in often a remote, isolated area. Although Dubai is dependent on the inexpensive pool of labor, the worker is a non-citizen, unable to integrate socially. The unskilled and low-skilled workforce is visible, in the legal sense “that visibility is a condition for the merchant-state’s ability to control workers”(Kanna, 28). Capital, according to James Scott, is illegible, where legibility is the necessary condition for centralized control (Kanna, 23). In Dubai, therefore, labor is a basic commodity, like coffee or copper.
While, “the fantasy of circular migration assuages nationalist anxieties in its promise that migrants will eventually leave”(Babar & Gardner, 46), with income and agency, in reality, the worker is trapped in an extremely unequal relationship characterized by abuse. He or she is neither empowered nor independent, face non-payment, or underpayment of wages, and exist in a “never ending cycle of debt driven servitude”(Babar & Gardner, 58). In the UAE, the employer, who is always an Emirati, can lawfully confiscate a passport, cancel an issued visa, and as a sponsor, has the right to arbitrarily deport a worker. The worker population is unable to profit in an environment that, by design, offers the foreign migrant no guarantee of success.
In responses to prompt #2:
ReplyDeleteAuthoritarianism - according to Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds - persists in certain Arab countries based on two variables: oil rents and hereditary rule (Brownlee, 2015, pg. 41). If an Arab country did produced sufficient crude oil (Libya and Saudi Arabia), it is most likely that it is one of the wealthier nations of the Middle East (Brownlee, 2015, pg. 60). And if there is continued repression by a regime that does not have a lot of wealth, there is a strong chance that the regime in question will be ousted eventually. If an Arab regime is hereditary (Morocco and Qatar), it is most likely that it will be considered legitimate (Brownlee, 2015, pg. 60). And if a government continues to impose harmful policies whilst not being a hereditary regime, it will be more vulnerable to opposition from their citizens. So if an Arab country neither has an hereditary regime or oil rents (Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen), it is most likely going to be subjected to a ton of instability in due time (Brownlee, 2015, pg. 41). But if an Arab country had one or even both of these variables, authoritarianism will be accepted by the population. As noted by Toby Jones, the major reason why Saudi Arabia persists in authoritarianism is to suppress the Shiite population within the kingdom (Jones, Jacobin, 2014). As Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaging in a war of influence in the Middle East, stability is all too crucial for the Saudi regime, lest it fall to an Islamic revolution like what happened in Iran in 1979 (Jones, Jacobin, 2014). As exemplified in Baathist Iraq, the Shiite population had to be subjected to brutal suppression from Saddam Hussein in order to keep the state of Iraq stable, and the same is true to a lesser extent in eastern Saudi Arabia (Jones, Jacobin, 2014). But the importance of it has grown exponentially recently due to the rising chaos in the Middle East from ISIS. So the Saudi regime has to take grand steps to make sure that such dissent does not grow, including the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shia cleric who was one of the most prominent critics of the House of Saud (Jones, Jacobin, 2014). And the existence of Western institutions in Abu Dhabi, particularly the satellite campus of New York University, legitimizes the authoritarianism of the Emirati regime because it ultimately shows how much America is willing to turn a blind eye for the sake of maintaining stability and good ties with strategic regional powers (Wyman, Jacobin, 2016). After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the American invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS, plenty of Arab regimes have good reason to be cautious, since they could face similar bouts of instability. And since America needs these regimes as well, it mostly ignores human rights issues in these countries to maintain good relations (Wyman, Jacobin, 2016). NYU, in particular, has benefitted much from having a satellite campus in Abu Dhabi, so it'd be hurtful for them to speak out against the regime (Wyman, Jacobin, 2016). So with these foreign institutions supporting the power of the United Arab Emirates, then it appears all the more legitimate (Wyman, Jacobin, 2016).
The two greatest variables for the success of an Arab regime throughout the late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st (particularly during the Arab Spring) are the oil wealth of a regime and whether or not it’s ruler has established hereditary rule (Brownlee, Masoud, Reynolds). The combinations of these two variables is incredibly interesting. For instance, the longevity of Egyptian Mubarak and the Syrian al-Assads can be juxtaposed by the nature of their regimes. Both are oil-poor countries, thus al-Assad’s power is derived from the strong allegiances of the military and elites to the familial rule; Mubarak, on the other hand, could never acquire the consent of the Egyptian military and elite class for the succession of his son. This is evidences by Hafez al-Assad’s honorific title “Abu Basil” versus Mubarak’s son’s public declaration that, “this story of father and son has nothing to do with reality.” Both were strong states, but when revolution came Mubarak was ousted and Bashar al-Assad persevered and continues to do so, despite and rampant proxy civil war and horrific destabilization; his power persists. Oil wealth, on the other hand, gives regimes such as Saudi Arabia access to huge resources in tandem with unwavering support from the United States.
ReplyDeleteToby Jones makes a very simple and strait forward argument in regards to the persistence of the Saudi regime, closely tying it with the interests of Saudi elites / ruling class as well as Washington D.C. Historically, two points are critical to Jones’ thesis: firstly, the U.S. has historically had its hands very deep in the Saudi oil resources, secondly, sectarian issues were never really an issue in the largely Sunni peninsula until Shia Iran began extending it’s influence into the gulf (Jones). Therefore, Saudi Arabia’s power comes from the security of it’s oil economy complimented by the opposition of Iranian intentions. This very nicely buttresses Washington’s desires in the peninsula: stability. The stability of the Saudi regime is deeply more important to the U.S. interests than any accountability of human rights abuses or authoritarianism because it secures oil exports and checks Iranian growth (Jones).
Abu Dhabi, and by extension the UAE, has been using its massive oil wealth and Western connections to build flashy and advanced cities out of perceived “tabula rasas” (blank slates) (Kanna, 24). The most prestigious and name-catching building projects, such as NYU, the Guggenheim, and the Louvre serve to legitimize the shoddy and toxic labor practices of the UAE in the eyes of the West because of these institutions’ abilities to recruit extremely high profile and influential allies to erase the perception under attack from the “slick [Emiriti] marketing campaign that frames the monarchy as an enlightened cadre of modernizing technocrats and mutes calls for more transparent and participatory governance” (Wyman, 3). The most potent example is when NYU recruited Bill Clinton to give the first commencement of the Abu Dhabi campus, where he absolved the UAE of any perceived transgression and solidified their relationship with NYU, despite the UAE’s brutal crackdown on free speech (Wyman, 7). Beyond this elaborate marketing campaign are very tangible goals to multiply the UAE’s petrodollars via an impressive web of domestic and foreign elites combined with devious real estate deals that result in an “enormous project of capital recycling” (Wyman, 6).
Ahmed Kanna's argument about legible and illegible 'people and economic practices' is rooted in the extent to which these people and economic practices are integrated into the society and context they are embedded in. Essentially, migrant workers come into the UAE and are only recognized and integrated into society through their jobs and in their work places, however, outside of their working life they are grouped up and housed together in isolated areas. This isolation disconnects migrant workers from society and creates a sort of secondary realm within which they operate. This leads to the next dilemma migrant workers face when traveling to GCC countries such as the UAE, which is being legally legible whilst simultaneously being socially and morally invisible. Migrant workers are invisible socially in terms of involvement with the local community, the relationship established between the workers and the host country has led to a societal disconnect between the migrant workers and the host country as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThis has a direct link to Babar and Gardner's argument about circular migration because circular migration is a result of the clash between migrant worker's social and moral invisibility and their legal legibility. It ends in the migrant workers eventually returning to their home country due to the feeling of isolation they experience. This phenomenon can be labeled as a fantasy due to the lack of integration in the current system put in place for migrant workers, as they never feel at home or any degree of comfort being grouped together with other migrant workers in subpar living conditions.
Mahmoud AlQadi
ReplyDeleteIn Ahmed Kanna’s piece about the “people and economic practices in Dubai being invisible or visible”, he mainly focuses on the subject of migrant workers and ‘freed’ capital, which according to James Scott is illegible, where legibility is the necessary condition to for centralized control (Kanna, 23). Kanna uses the example of how capital enters Dubai and often disappears. He implies that locals welcome those who possess capital are brought in as ‘lords’, especially those who are Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, Americans, Europeans, and Canadians. These people are followed by a tight reservoir for those who had to retrieve a visa to enter Dubai (Kanna, 23). This capital, both human and financial, comes to the city and have a tabula rasa (blank slate), onto which tend to go to the direction of real estate, constructing massive buildings, and wild architecture, making the visible city into a business-friendly Dubai (Kanna, 24). However, this visible side does not truly apply to the migrant workers, since the ones who built the city are all too legible and too manipulated. The ‘construction boom’ of the 90’s brought in thousands of migrant workers, of which are mainly from Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. These workers are isolated, and located in ‘invisible’/remote areas of the city. They are regulated by the state and are visualized as ‘guest workers’ and are not really able to integrate with the rest of society (Kanna, 24). Kanna argues that Emiratis and the wealthier expatriates view the workers sort of as commodities, nothing more. “These workers do not exist, either physically, or in the moral sense (Kanna, 27).
This connects back to the piece by Badar and Gardner, where their arguments is based on the concept of circular migration rose from the conditions brought forth by the way migrants have been treated in the GCC. This concept of an ideal work relationship is that it assuages nationalist anxieties in its promise that migrants will eventually leave and it assuages neoliberal anxieties by maintaining an inexpensive pool of available labor (Badar, 46). Overall it essentially means that these migrant workers will have more rights and will be able to go back home. This fantasy framework is a criticism to the Kafala system, which is the system the that manages immigration process. This fantasy is highly unlikely and has failed to provides possibly because the employer and/or sponsor did not meet the needs of the migrant by providing sufficient wages or even revoking their eligibility of remaining in the country by either canceling their visa, or even just taking away their passport. This essentially prevents the Kafala system from succeding, which pushes for a more ideal system similar to that of circular motivation
Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds offered two variables to explain the persistence of authoritarianism in some Arab regimes and these two variables are oil rents and hereditary succession. According to them oil rents and hereditary succession has provided them to maintain control through despotic power. Oil rents have allowed the Arab government to control power because they are able to maintain their resources without getting from other countries. Their oil reserves have also allowed them to keep their militaries stronger as compared to non-oil countries. Another variable is the hereditary succession wherein Arab royalties has the ability to concentrate their power within their families. The succession allows their ruling styles to continue as long as they remain in power and receive support from their people.
ReplyDeleteToby Jones used the case of Shia Cleric Sheik Nimr al-Nimr to explain how Saudi Arabia keeps authoritarianism. The Shia Cleric was sentenced to death because he bravely expressed his opposition to the government. The problem with the Arab government is that they do not allow their people to express their opinions about their governance. Along with their opposition to activism, they also remain adamant to allow their people to experience modernization and help from other countries such as the United States. According to Jones, the democracy in Saudi Arabia will only happen if they do not control their people from their American energy needs (Jones, 2014).
Lucas Wyman said that institutions in Abu Dhabi such as NYU, the Guggenheim, and Louvre create an opportunity for the locals for education. Through this, they allow the people to learn more about their government and understand their ruling strategies. Their main goal is to let the locals understand the importance of higher education and this will in return make them know their rights as well as how to protect them.
Alec Haley
ReplyDeleteWhen Ahmen Hanna discusses invisible/illegible and visible/legible people and economic practices he is referring to how the government of Dubai recognizes those of different net worth and social standing and how, through legal economic practices, they are treated. We read about the different ways of entry through the city’s main airport, keeping citizens of what they deem as lesser countries, far away from the businessmen and women and luxury tourists that they have worked so hard to attract (Hanna 23). She then discusses what she calls “The Invisible City” (24) which is where hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are kept far from sight of the rest of the city. Here these guest workers, who build the “visible city,” are forced to live during their work contract in cramped conditions, typically with little to no say over their wages or anything else. This economic practice of construction companies, even where the larger ones keep “stricter surveillance of workers” (25), is completely legal in Dubai, since as mentioned before, they are the ones that built the visible cities that has made the state so prosperous, and very cheaply at that.
We see that these migrant workers are both socially invisible, as they are restricted to their off-site camps on their time off, not to be seen by anyone but each other, and morally, since the UAE and countries around the world (like NYU) have turned a blind eye to the practices. Yet they are legally “legible” as they have been recruited through perfectly legal channels and their construction companies and Dubai government, often holding their passports, have constant knowledge of their whereabouts and have absolute power over their future in the country.
This fits in with Zahra Babar and Andrew Gardner’s discussion of the kafala system of circular migration framework. They bring into light the use of sponsorships, passport confiscation, switching jobs upon arrival, and deportation of workers when injustices are brought forward, all ignored by GCC countries. It is so commonly ignored because it is like a fantasy for GCC countries and its developers alike, as they get to reap the profits of large new buildings built at record lows and run massive new metropolises built entirely of slave-like labor without a consequence in sight. There are labor organizations under the UN, such as the International Labour Organization (Babar Gardner 53) that recognize the atmosphere and it effect on states everywhere, but thus far we have seen very little done to actually combat the issues at hand, and to this day circular migration and kafala system continue in many GCC countries.
Michelle Cao Response to Prompt One
ReplyDeleteIn 2010, a number of Arab states erupted in revolutionary turmoil. Regimes fell as the people turned against the autocracies but with varying degrees of repressive controls. The traits of countries that did not experience any leadership changes can be broken down and analyzed into two variables. Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds traces despotic power, that does not falter in light of state violence, back to oil rents and hereditary rule. Although these variables only account for the capacity of Arab rulers to maintain control rather than explain why uprisings occur. The authors state that oil rents give affluent dictators the power to take down the uprisings that occur. With this power and money security is ensured because, as the author states in a study, the connection between oil wealth and military spending is significantly high. Furthermore, another article by Benjamin Smith states that there is a negative relationship between oil wealth and social protest which gives evidence to the importance of the variable of power in maintaining despotic power. However, countries rich in oil wealth that have significantly higher despotic power regimes are also susceptible to mass revolt because of the inherently repressive nature which will come with opposition from the repressed. Alongside this, countries rich with oil are also vulnerable to the “dutch disease” in which the state becomes too reliable to oil and other economic sectors decline. In which the variable of hereditary despotic powers are introduced. The authors cite Michael Mann who states despotic power as the capacity of a state to coerce. The regimes that have hereditary power have less corruption because of the transcendence of a personality that creates a durability of the policies. A respectability also transcends rulers among the regime, “where dynasties exist, we argue, despotic power follows”. These two hand in hand create a regime that curbs revolution in authoritarian states.
Saudi Arabia is a prime example of the persistence of authoritarianism in the time of the Arab spring. Toby Jones cites very specific variables that allow the consistence of Saudi Arabia as an authoritarian state. Particularly the relationship of Saudi Arabian oil and the United States security. The United States depend on Saudi oil that creates a state of sponsored ignorance to the authoritarianism in Saudi Arabian politics. This relationship persists because Saudi Arabia is not willing to change due to the fact the status quo is very profitable. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has both oil and hereditary power which are the two variables that Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds cites as the traits that authoritarian states persists.
Lucas Wyman exposes institutions such as NYUAD, the Guggenheim, and the Louvre for the corruption and propaganda it imposes on student. Western institutions are ideal for Saudi Arabia because of public relations and self enrichment (Wyman 3). Because the Saudi Arabian government was repressive and faced unpopular majorities, so the institutions act as a public relations machine that pumps positive propaganda toward the government. These institutions also benefit the population of Saudi Arabia because it conditions the people for more prestigious jobs with undertones of government support. Which is how Saudi Arabia legitimizes its authoritarian control (by mind control). On another hand, institutions like these affiliate itself with Saudi Arabia because of the large contributions (money contributions) from the Saudi government.