Oil Wealth and Democratization in the Arab Gulf - Essay Example

Lecturer: Oil Wealth and Democratization in the Arab Gulf Introduction Democracy is the rule of law in which the people have asay in the running of the government and the resources. Much as there are several leadership styles, there remains no solution to effective activation of fair ruler ship in the land. The countries in the Middle East, North Africa and parts of America like Venezuela have got high level deposits of oil (Lisa 34). To a greater extend, this oil wealth has highly influenced the way leaders in the region. This paper seeks to establish whether oil wealth has affected the prospects of democracy in the Middle East region which is purely oil rich. Prospects of democracy in the Gulf Region According to ROSS (2001), oil seems to go together with a centralised rule. However, oil and democracy have no common ground of application, neither do they mix. Gray (2011) supports the same idea by indicating that there is a huge statistical significance between the dependence on oil and authoritarian leadership. In many cases, oil has been seen to impede the process of democracy especially in the gulf region although in a rare case, it developed democracy in Venezuela in America. This hinder to democracy has primarily been made to occur in different ways and by use of different mechanisms. The first mechanism that clearly indicates lack of democracy is seen on how revenue is collected in these rentier states. What happens for this to come up is embedded in the fact that these states do not tax their oil productions but the producers pay rent. Because of this, the nations are likely to lightly tax their citizens or fail totally in imposing taxes to them. This situation causes a general detachment between the government and the people. In effect, the relationship between taxation and representation breaks up. For instance, economical analysts say that Kuwait and Qatar became lost accountability to the traditional class of merchants in this manner (Gray 32). These states, considered rentier or exoteric allocates income to the people. Most of these states only allocate a small amount of wealth from the oil to the public. The state after that usually has the freedom of using the remaining revenue in whatever way it deems right. The state does not also concern itself with the legitimacy of the people on the foundation of domestic bases. Karl (2007) calls this “buying off” the population. The democratic input therefore can be said to be sacrificed by the society after a share of the wealth in rent is passed over to them. It is worth noting that there are people who do not support this “rentier bargain”. To this group, they are subdued by use of the very strong oppressive apparatus which the government can after all afford. There is therefore lack of a democratic process among the nations due to this rentier bargain. Unfortunately, the level of diminishing democracy in the region is increasing by the years. There was the traditional period of rentierism but the same has culminated into a more complex form of repression in the presence. The second dynamism that is used is through the purchase of political consensus. A lot of wealth produced on oil is spent on patronage. Representation and accountability measures are therefore killed in the people (Schwarz 601). Besides that, the otherwise generous state meets the basic needs of the population and in that sense, the population gives back loyalty and then become very politically inactive. This is how the gulf monarchs have been able to continue ruling for a very long time without political reprisals. These smaller Gulf States have such high oil reserves that larger producers like Nigeria in Africa or Venezuela cannot match. This largesse is used by the ruling regimes to suffocate any form of union that would deter their smooth running of their affairs. Given the relatively smaller populations and smaller geographical areas, the nations are governments are likely to manage the ruler ship of all the people through welfare provisions. In Kuwait and Qatar for instance, the largesse eliminated completely the decisions from the merchant class by use of the oil rent. In Iran, the agricultural classes of wealthy farmers were transformed into urban dependants as a result of the same oil proceeds from the government. This lack of democracy in these regions does not emanate from within the governments only (Gray). It also comes from the outside. For instance, a nation may fail to co-operate with another based on the political alienation with a super power. Oil richness has been seen to associate itself with military complexity. Therefore, on the international basis, all the countries that are not able to produce these weapons are alienated in the market. In fact, this lack of democracy has been able to be witnessed when American sellers of specialist warplanes bribed Saudi Arabian ruling class so that the Saudi government could buy the aeroplanes continuously from America. This is done at the expense of the patriotic citizens of these nations. The third effect is created and seen by use of the modernization effect. In the modernization effect, there is a total belief that democracy is created by changes in the social and cultural set up. The definition of the socio-cultural value may change with time and society under reference. On the same basis, scholars argue that democracy is created by changes in these. Ross (2001) alleged that there are two types of social changes that constitute a democratic change; a rise in the levels of education and a ruse the levels of specialization. Although this is not a direct issue, there is a general agreement of the fact if an education system does not help produce the required developments in the progress of an individual, then it would not have resulted in democratization. It is therefore viable that all the aspects of democracy are upheld so that there can be said to be full democracy. Although the gulf region does not have a very defined and open incidences of corruption, it is because there is lack of involvement of the people. The rulers will always support rules that support personalization of the rents (Karl 32). This works even if the rents lower the overall social welfare of the people of these nations. These rents, to a high level are shared with those that support these rulers and their subordinates to the dire expense of service to the people of these countries. This is hidden corruption. The people do not get to enjoy the full services offered by their countries’ resource allocation because most of these resources are directed to some individuals. Policy choices are purely deformed. First, where there are very high oil deposits and mining, officials favour public sectors that have very strong regulatory interventions. This increases the possibility of more rent seeking. The policies are also distorted to favour financing of mega projects in which payoffs can be partly hidden without the knowledge of the public or even those close to the in-charge (Lisa.). In this case, there is a high level of under-production in real terms leading to underperformance on the long term projects that would support the welfare of the people. This has drastically reduced the public expenditure. In this case, the people live in oil-rich countries but are living low level lives because of few individuals. Mobil Oil Company officials have been charged with corruption involving government of Kazakhstan. On the social scene, much as the beneficiaries are those outside the nation, this has led to low economic levels of the people living in the immediate oil mining environments. Moreover, there is degradation of the environment but this does not give so much care on the government officials as the rate of benefit in trying to clear the environmental hazards created go to the high level beneficiaries. Therefore, democracy in which people make decisions about the way they are supposed to be governed, from economic to social matters are totally impeded (Ross). Conclusion Much as oil has been the blessing of the gulf region in the east, it has brought about ruling families and monarchies that have overly dictated the way it benefits the entire region. Democracy has been impeded through a number of ways but the issue of rentierism has been of great cause to this lack of democracy. In fact, it has developed over phases; the classical state (1980s and early 1990s), the second phase (1990s and early 2000s) and Late Rentierism (Gray). This analysis has clearly indicated how democracy has been impeded to the level of rejecting service to the natives at the expense of personal interests. Some issues that come up as far as democracy is concerned therefore are the rentier effect, the modernization effect and the repression effect as has been highlighted. Oil therefore has had a strongly negative effect on the democracy of the Gulf region. There are therefore no positive prospects as far as democracy and oil wealth are concerned in the region, at least not when there are still monarchs and kings. Work Cited Gray, Matthew. A Theory of “Late Rentierism” in the Arab States of the Gulf. Print. Georgetown: georgetown University, Qatar, 2011. Karl, Terry L. Oil-Led Development: Social, Political, and Economic Consequences. Print. Stanford: Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford, 2007. Lisa., Anderson. "A Critique of the Political Culture Approach.” In Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World." Journal of Democracy in the Arab World 1 (1995): 77-92. Ross, Michael L. "Does Oil Hinder Democracy?" World Politics 53 (2001): 325-361. Schwarz, Rolf. "The Political Economy of State-Formation in the Arab Middle, Review of International Political Economy." Journal of Economic Reform and Democratization 15.4 (2008): 599-621. Read More