Abstract
This paper qualitatively revisits the thesis that rentier regimes can draw on their non-tax revenues to buy political legitimacy and stability. Exploring the material/moral interplay in Mideast rentier politics, I show why and how rents may provide for provisional, but not sustainable, stability for authoritarian rentier regimes. I propose distinguishing between negative and positive political legitimacy, the former being about ‘what is legitimate’ (liberty vs security), and the latter about ‘who is the legitimator’ (divine/hereditary right vs popular sovereignty). Sustainable stability is predicated on having both legitimacies. Rentier regimes, however, often draw exclusively on negative political legitimacy. These regimes can use rents to buy time — through coercion and expediency — contriving an imagery of a lusty Leviathan. But due to the diversity of rents and the temporal shifts in their revenues, this social contract is materially contingent and morally frail — rendering authoritarian rentier regimes, not least in the Middle East, more mortal than they, and many observers, are ready to admit.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abulof, Uriel (2014) ‘Normative Concepts Analysis: Unpacking the Language of Legitimation’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 18(1): 73–89.
Ahmed, Faisal Z. (2012) ‘The Perils of Unearned Foreign Income: Aid, Remittances, and Government Survival’, American Political Science Review 106(1): 146–65.
Akbarzadeh, Shahram, ed. (2013) American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East: From Bush to Obama, London and New York: Routledge.
Al-Farsi, Sulaiman (2013) Democracy and Youth in the Middle East: Islam, Tribalism and the Rentier State in Oman, London: I.B. Tauris.
Alexeev, Michael and Robert Conrad (2009) ‘The Elusive Curse of Oil’, Review of Economics and Statistics 91(3): 586–98.
Amineh, Mehdi Parvizi and Shmuel N. Eisenstadt (2007) ‘The Iranian Revolution: The Multiple Contexts of the Iranian Revolution’, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 6(1): 129–57.
Andersen, Jørgen J. and Michael L. Ross (2014) ‘The Big Oil Change: A Closer Look at the Haber–Menaldo Analysis’, Comparative Political Studies 47(7): 993–1021.
Arnson, Cynthia and I. William Zartman, eds (2005) Rethinking the Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed, Washington DC: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Aslaksen, Silje (2010) ‘Oil and Democracy: More Than a Cross-Country Correlation?’ Journal of Peace Research 47(4): 421–31.
Barany, Zoltan (2013) ‘Unrest and State Response in Arab Monarchies’, Mediterranean Quarterly 24(2): 5–38.
Basedau, Matthias, Annegret Mähler and Miriam Shabafrouz (2013) ‘Drilling Deeper: A Systematic, Context-Sensitive Investigation of Causal Mechanisms in the Oil — Conflict Link’, Journal of Development Studies 50(1): 1–13.
Basedau, Matthias and Jann Lay (2009) ‘Resource Curse or Rentier Peace? The Ambiguous Effects of Oil Wealth and Oil Dependence on Violent Conflict’, Journal of Peace Research 46(6): 757–76.
Basedau, Matthias and Thomas Richter (2011) Why Do Some Oil Exporters Experience Civil War but Others Do Not? A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Net Oil-Exporting Countries, Giga Working Paper 157, edited by B. Hoffmann, Hamburg: GIGA Research Programme, Violence and Security.
Beblawi, Hazem (1990) ‘The Rentier State in the Arab World’, in Giacomo Luciani ed., The Arab State, 85–98, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Beblawi, Hazem and Giacomo Luciani, eds, (1987) The Rentier State, New York: Croom Helm.
Bellin, Eva (2012) ‘Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Lessons from the Arab Spring’, Comparative Politics 44(2): 127–49.
Berdal, Mats R. and David Malone, eds (2000) Greed & Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Berlin, Isaiah (2002) Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty Edited by Henry Hardy and Ian Harris Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bjorvatn, Kjetil and Alireza Naghavi (2011) ‘Rent-Seeking and Regime Stability in Rentier States’, European Journal of Political Economy 27(4): 740–748.
Burke, Edmund (2001) Reflections on the Revolution in France, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Central Intelligence Agency (USA) (2014) The World Factbook. Washington DC: Central Intelligence Agency.
Chaudhry, Kiren Aziz (1994) ‘Economic Liberalization and the Lineages of the Rentier State’, Comparative Politics 27(1): 1–25.
Chaudhry, Kiren Aziz (1997) The Price of Wealth: Economies and Institutions in the Middle East, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Colgan, Jeff D. (2010) ‘Oil and Revolutionary Governments: Fuel for International Conflict’, International Organization 64(4): 661–94.
Collier, Paul and Anke Hoeffler (2004) ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 56(4): 563–95.
Cooley, Alexander A. (2001) ‘Booms and Busts: Theorizing Institutional Formation and Change in Oil States’, Review of International Political Economy 8(1): 163–80.
Davidson, Christopher M. (2009) Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, New York: Columbia University Press.
Davidson, Christopher M. (2012) After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies, London: Hurst & Co.
De Soysa, Indra and Eric Neumayer (2007) ‘Resource Wealth and the Risk of Civil War Onset: Results from a New Dataset of Natural Resource Rents, 1970–1999’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 24(3): 201–18.
Di John, Jonathan (2007) ‘Oil Abundance and Violent Political Conflict: A Critical Assessment’, Journal of Development Studies 43(6): 961–86.
Di John, Jonathan (2011) ‘Is There Really a Resource Curse? A Critical Survey of Theory and Evidence’, Global Governance 17(2): 167–84.
Dogan, Mattei (2009) ‘Political Legitimacy: New Criteria and Anachronistic Theories’, International Social Science Journal 60(196): 195–210.
Ebel, Robert E. (2010) Geopolitics and Energy in Iraq: Where Politics Rules, Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Eifert, Benn, Alan Gelb and Nils Borje Tallroth (2003) ‘The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy and Economic Management in Oil-Exporting Countries’, in Jeffrey M. Davis, Rolando Ossowski and Annalisa Fedelino eds, Fiscal Policy Formulation and Implementation in Oil-Producing Countries, 82–122, Washington: International Monetary Fund.
Etzioni, Amitai (1988) The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics, New York: Collier Macmillan.
Fearon, James D. (2005) ‘Primary Commodity Exports and Civil War’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 49(4): 483–507.
Filmer, Robert (1680/1991) Patriarcha and Other Writings, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fjelde, Hanne (2009) ‘Buying Peace? Oil Wealth, Corruption and Civil War, 1985–99’, Journal of Peace Research 46(2): 199–218.
Foley, Sean (2010) The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Friedman, Thomas L. (2006) ‘The First Law of Petropolitics’, Foreign Policy 154(May/June): 28–36.
Gerschewski, Johannes (2013) ‘The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Co-Optation in Autocratic Regimes’, Democratization 20(1): 13–38.
Ghobadzadeh, Naser and Lily Zubaidah Rahim (2011) ‘Islamic Reformation Discourses: Popular Sovereignty and Religious Secularisation in Iran’, Democratization 19(2): 1–18.
Haber, Stephen and Victor Menaldo (2011) ‘Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse’, American Political Science Review 105(1): 1–26.
Hardy, Roger (2008) ‘Ambivalent Ally: Saudi Arabia and the “War on Terror”’, in Madawi Al-Rasheed ed., Kingdom without Borders: Saudi Political, Religious and Media Frontiers, 99–112, New York: Columbia University Press.
Hegghammer, Thomas and Stéphane Lacroix (2011) The Meccan Rebellion: The Story of Juhayman Al-*Utaybi Revisited, Bristol: Amal Press.
Hegre, Håvard, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates and Nils P. Gleditsch (2001) ‘Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992’, American Political Science Review 95(1): 33–48.
Herb, Michael (2005) ‘No Representation without Taxation? Rents, Development, and Democracy’, Comparative Politics 37(3): 297–316.
Heritage Foundation (2013) Index of Economic Freedom 2013, http://www.heritage.org/index/ (cited 1 May, 2013).
Hertog, Steffen (2010a) ‘Defying the Resource Curse: Explaining Successful State-Owned Enterprises in Rentier States’, World Politics 62(2): 261–301.
Hertog, Steffen (2010b) Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hobbes, Thomas (1651/2006) Leviathan, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Humphreys, Macartan (2005) ‘Natural Resources, Conflict, and Conflict Resolution’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 49(4): 508–37.
Jenkins, J. Craig, Katherine Meyer, Matthew Costello and Hassan Aly (2011) ‘International Rentierism in the Middle East Africa, 1971–2008’, International Area Studies Review 14(3): 3–31.
Kailitz, Steffen (2013) ‘Classifying Political Regimes Revisited: Legitimation and Durability’, Democratization 20(1): 39–60.
Kamrava, Mehran, ed. (2012) The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf, New York: Columbia University Press.
Karl, Terry Lynn (1997) The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kropf, Annika (2010) ‘Resource Abundance Vs. Resource Dependence in Cross-Country Growth Regressions’, OPEC Energy Review 34(2): 107–30.
Lacroix, Stéphane (2011) Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lakoff, George (2002) Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Le Billon, Philippe (2003) ‘Buying Peace or Fuelling War: The Role of Corruption in Armed Conflicts’, Journal of International Development 15(4): 413–26.
Leon, Hurwitz (1973) ‘Contemporary Approaches to Political Stability’, Comparative Politics 5(3): 449–63.
Levi, Margaret, Audrey Sacks and Tom Tyler (2009) ‘Conceptualizing Legitimacy, Measuring Legitimating Beliefs’, American Behavioral Scientist 53(3): 354–75.
Lipset, Seymour Martin (1959) ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy; Economic Development and Political Legitimacy’, American Political Science Review 53(1): 69–105.
Locke, John (1689/2003) Two Treatises of Government; and a Letter Concerning Toleration, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lowi, Miriam R. (2009) Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics: Algeria Compared, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Luciani, Giacomo (1987) ‘Allocation Vs. Production States: A Theoretical Framework’, in Hazem Beblawi and Giacomo Luciani eds, The Rentier State, 63–82, New York: Croom Helm.
Luciani, Giacomo (1994) ‘The Oil Rent, the Fiscal Crisis of the State and Democratization’, in Ghassan Salamé ed., Democracy without Democrats?: The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World, 130–55, New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers.
Luciani, Giacomo, Steffen Hertog, Eckart Woertz and Richard Youngs, eds (2012) The Gulf Region: Economic Development and Diversification 4 vols, Berlin: Gerlach Press.
Lupia, Arthur and Colin Elman (2014) ‘Openness in Political Science: Data Access and Research Transparency’, PS: Political Science & Politics 47(1): 19–42.
Mahdavy, Hossein (1970) ‘The Pattern and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier States: The Case of Iran’, in Michael A. Cook ed., Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: From the Rise of Islam to the Present Day, 428–67, New York: Oxford University Press.
Menaldo, Victor (2012) ‘The Middle East and North Africa’s Resilient Monarchs’, Journal of Politics 74(3): 707–22.
Migration and Remittances Team (2010) Outlook for Remittance Flows 2010–11, Washington DC: Development Prospects Group, World Bank.
Miguel, Edward, Shanker Satyanath and Ernest Sergenti (2004) ‘Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach’, Journal of Political Economy 112(4): 725–53.
Mohapatra, Sanket and Dilip Ratha (2010) ‘The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Migration and Remittances’, in Otaviano Canuto and Marcelo Giugale eds, The Day after Tomorrow: A Handbook on the Future of Economic Policy in the Developing World, 297–320, Washington DC: World Bank.
Morrison, Kevin (2007) ‘Natural Resources, Aid, and Democratization: A Best-Case Scenario’, Public Choice 131(3): 365–86.
Morrison, Kevin M. (2009) ‘Oil, Nontax Revenue, and the Redistributional Foundations of Regime Stability’, International Organization 63(1): 107–38.
Morrison, Kevin M. (2012) ‘What Can We Learn about the “Resource Curse” from Foreign Aid?’ World Bank Research Observer 27(1): 52–73.
Morsi, Mohamed (2012) Inaugural Speech, Tahrir Square (Cairo), Egyptian state TV.
Ochsenwald, William (1981) ‘Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Revival’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 13(3): 271–86.
Okruhlik, Gwenn (1999) ‘Rentier Wealth, Unruly Law, and the Rise of Opposition: The Political Economy of Oil States’, Comparative Politics 31(3): 295–315.
Oskarsson, Sven and Eric Ottosen (2010) ‘Does Oil Still Hinder Democracy?’ Journal of Development Studies 46(6): 1067–83.
Ramsay, Kristopher W. (2011) ‘Revisiting the Resource Curse: Natural Disasters, the Price of Oil, and Democracy’, International Organization 65(3): 507–29.
Richter, Thomas (2007) ‘The Political Economy of Regime Maintenance in Egypt: Linking External Resources and Domestic Legitimation’, in Oliver Schlumberger ed., Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes, 177–94, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Richter, Thomas and Christian Steiner (2007) Sectoral Transformations in Neo-Patrimonial Rentier States: Tourism Development and State Policy in Egypt, Working Paper #61, GIGA Research Unit: Institute of Middle East Studies.
Ross, Michael (1999) ‘Review: The Political Economy of the Resource Curse’, World Politics 51(2): 297–322.
Ross, Michael (2001) ‘Does Oil Hinder Democracy?’ World Politics 53(3): 325–61.
Ross, Michael (2011) ‘Will Oil Drown the Arab Spring? Democracy and the Resource Curse’, Foreign Affairs 90(5): 2–8.
Ross, Michael (2012) The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ross, Michael, Kai Kaiser and Nimah Mazaheri (2011) The ‘Resource Curse’ in Mena? Political Transitions, Resource Wealth, Economic Shocks, and Conflict Risk, Policy Research Working Paper 5742, Washington DC: World Bank.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1762/2002) The Social Contract; and, the First and Second Discourses, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ruf, Werner (1997) ‘The Flight of Rent: The Rise and Fall of a National Economy’, Journal of North African Studies 2(1): 1–15.
Schlumberger, Oliver (2006) ‘Rents, Reform, and Authoritarianism in the Middle East’, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft 57(2): 43–57.
Schwarz, Rolf (2008) ‘The Political Economy of State-Formation in the Arab Middle East: Rentier States, Economic Reform, and Democratization’, Review of International Political Economy 15(4): 599–621.
Shabafrouz, Miriam (2010) Oil and the Eruption of the Algerian Civil War: A Context-Sensitive Analysis of the Ambivalent Impact of Resource Abundance, GIGA Working Paper Series 118.
Shambayati, Hootan (1994) ‘The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy: State and Business in Turkey and Iran’, Comparative Politics 26(3): 307–31.
Shlaim, Avi (2009) Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace First Vintage Books edn. New York: Vintage Books.
Smith, Benjamin (2004) ‘Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960–1999’, American Journal of Political Science 48(2): 232–46.
Snyder, Jack L. (2000) From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict 1st edn. New York: Norton.
Tétreault, Mary Ann (2011) ‘The Winter of the Arab Spring in the Gulf Monarchies’, Globalizations 8(5): 629–37.
Townsend, Steve (2009) ‘Friedman’s First Law Fail: Oil Prices Do Not Predict Freedom’, Economists for Peace and Security 4(1): 78–83.
Tsui, Kevin K. (2009) ‘More Oil, Less Democracy: Evidence from Worldwide Crude Oil Discoveries’, Economic Journal 121(551): 1–27.
Ulfelder, Jay (2007) ‘Natural-Resource Wealth and the Survival of Autocracy’, Comparative Political Studies 40(8): 995–1018.
Vandewalle, Dirk J. (1998) Libya since Independence: Oil and State-Building, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Vitalis, Robert (2007) America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Walter, Barbara F. (2004) ‘Does Conflict Beget Conflict? Explaining Recurring Civil War’, Journal of Peace Research 41(3): 371–88.
Waterbury, John (1997) ‘From Social Contracts to Extraction Contracts: The Political Economy of Authoritarianism and Democracy’, in John P. Entelis ed., Islam, Democracy, and the State in North Africa, 141–76, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Weber, Max (1922/1978) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology 2 vols, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wohlforth, William C. (1999) ‘The Stability of a Unipolar World’, International Security 24(1): 5–41.
Yom, Sean L. and F. Gregory Gause (2012) ‘Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On’, Journal of Democracy 23(4): 74–88.
Zhao, Dingxin (2009) ‘The Mandate of Heaven and Performance Legitimation in Historical and Contemporary China’, American Behavioral Scientist 53(3): 416–33.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Abulof, U. ‘Can’t buy me legitimacy’: the elusive stability of Mideast rentier regimes. J Int Relat Dev 20, 55–79 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2014.32
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2014.32