Rentier Systems Under Threat of Sabotage: Distributive Politics and Regime Stability in the Gulf

Even before the Arab Spring, the resource-rich, rentier states of the Arabian Gulf had been described as some of the most stable regimes in the world. Their apparent robustness over the last few years has only reinforced this view, and led many to conclude that these regimes have eliminated any real threat to their rule. In the following paper, I challenge this conventional wisdom and explore the threat of economic sabotage. From work stoppages and industrial strikes, to targeted protests and violent riots, sabotage can take any number of forms in the Gulf. By interrupting production, sabotage threatens the traditional rentier system and these regimes’ longterm political stability. The conditions under which sabotage occurs, and its effects on regime policy, is crucial to understanding the Gulf’s apparent stability today. To this end, I develop a formal model of rentier distribution under the threat of sabotage. The model generates a series of predictions on when we should see sabotage, what form it takes, and how rulers may respond to these threats through distributive policies.