Not Only Royals: The Gulf's Policy-Makers in the 2020s
Eleonora Ardemagni2022, ISPI Commentary, in "Deciphering Power: The Gulf's Nascent Ruling Classes", ISPI Dossier, edited by Eleonora Ardemagni
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In the Gulf monarchies, power is still highly centralized and personalized. However, policy-making is no longer exclusively centred around royal families, religious establishments, and traditional bureaucracies. Indeed, the post-hydrocarbon transition reveals the significant presence — besides that of rulers — of national technocrats, non-royal elites, diplomats, and experts. In other words, the GCC states have been quietly shifting from traditional royal elites to more varied ruling classes: these are broader than royal dynasties, younger, and with a higher female presence than previous Gulf bureaucracies, combining their international background with national education programmes. How are the so-called “Visions” driving power transformation? What about sub-power, centralization, and religion?
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Not Only Royals: The Gulf's Policy-Makers in the 2020s
Not Only Royals: The Gulf's PolicyMakers in the 2020s
Venerdì, 3 giugno, 2022 - 10:45
In the Arab capitals of the Gulf, ruling classes are quietly emerging beside rulers,
boosted by economic diversi cation. Power and politics continue, traditionally, to
be centralized and personalized. “Dynasticism”[1], driven by oil revenues, still
represents the core of politics in the Gulf. In other words, it’s always a (royal) family
a aire with a trend of power concentration in the hands of a single branch of royal
families. However, ruling dynasties are no longer the only place of policymaking while the role of religious establishments, as Kristin Smith-Diwan analyses
in her article, has also waned.
Since the 2010s, the presence of foreign experts, national technocrats, non-royal
elites, and diplomats has grown closer to younger rulers and ministers. These are
di erent from the royal circles and state bureaucracies that used to surround
kings, emirs, and sultans. In an era marked by domestic and global transformation,
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Not Only Royals: The Gulf's Policy-Makers in the 2020s
e ective governments are no longer su cient to achieve national goals: the
monarchies also need a governance-oriented political class to handle — and
adjust when necessary — the “Visions” timelines and reform packages. In this
context, national education plays a fundamental role. From a European
perspective, time is ripe for a thorough analysis of the evolution of Gulf policymaking and trends, since the European Commission has just adopted a Strategic
partnership with the Gulf document. The Gulf’s post-oil horizon not only drives the
ascendance of a new generation of rulers, but also shapes broader ruling classes.
Nascent ruling classes: national
technocrats and non-royal elites
The Gulf monarchies’ rising international role and their post-oil trajectory are
fostering the formation of new ruling classes. This trend also ts into the topdown nation-building e ort that leaderships have been promoting for a decade
as well as the goal of nationalizing the workforce.
The emerging ruling classes who support new leaders share common features.
Generally, they are younger than traditional state bureaucrats. There’s an
increasing presence of women in high political and diplomatic positions although
this doesn’t overlap, in most cases, with real power positions, as Eman Alhussein
elucidates in this Dossier. These nascent ruling classes have received an
international education, usually at Western universities. This isn’t necessarily a
novelty: older state bureaucrats also pursued their degrees and PhDs at American
and English universities; however, the di erence is the ′internationalized’ and
′globalized’ mindset rulers now expect from national technocrats in order to deal
with extensive reform programmes and diversi ed foreign alliances.
In the medium- to long-term, Gulf rulers’ goal is to forge a comprehensive class
of national experts and o cials with an excellent education obtained at home
combined with international experience. Not by chance, the national education
sector is burgeoning: top-down programmes, institutions, and colleges have been
proliferating in the Gulf, including in areas that have traditionally relied upon
foreign institutions such as military education.
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Not Only Royals: The Gulf's Policy-Makers in the 2020s
In Saudi Arabia, a new generation of mostly national technocrats supports “Vision
2030” through policy-design and implementation. This middle class is both an
enabler and bene ciary of the post-oil transformation process, states Sanam
Vakil in her article. For this purpose, expanding national skills is a real priority. For
instance, the Saudi National Academy of Military Industries launched in Riyadh
aims to educate national personnel with high-level expertise in the defence
industry —one of the “Vision 2030” assets. The goal is to shape specialists in
technological, engineering, and scienti c elds as well as to forge national experts
across the military, defence, and security industries.
Diplomacy also mirrors how ruling classes are gradually taking shape in the Gulf
monarchies. New Gulf ambassadors in Western capitals are often young, female,
and skilfully play the “brand ambassadors” role for their countries, Emma
Soubrier underlines in her article. Top diplomats still mostly come from royal
families: however, beyond princes and princesses, there is also a new generation
of mid-level diplomats and o cials. On top of acquiring unprecedented global
leverage, the Gulf’s Arab capitals have also enlarged — or opened— delegations
abroad, including in international institutions. In the United Arab Emirates, the
Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy (AGDA) received a record number of
applications by aspiring diplomats for the “Diplomats of the Future” campaign in
2021. Furthermore, over 245 students have graduated from the Post-Graduate
Diploma Programme since 2014.
Foreign experts’ new role
Since the 2010s, the role of Gulf foreign experts has also changed. When oil
elds were discovered in the 1930s, foreign experts were primarily ad hoc advisors
hired to develop the energy industry. Nowadays, they have turned into de facto
strategists, tasked with designing and implementing post-hydrocarbons
“Visions” with their planning and technical skills. As recent research highlights[2],
expert advisers in the Gulf are still mainly English-speaking foreigners, though
they also come from Arab (e.g., Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan) and Asian (e.g., India,
Singapore) countries. Experts are usually enlisted by royal families from top
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Not Only Royals: The Gulf's Policy-Makers in the 2020s
: the most notorious case is McKinsey,
which has helped draft the Saudi “Vision 2030” and assisted the ministry of
planning, as revealed by the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.
universities and global consultancy
rms
In the Gulf, a practical rationale currently drives experts’ and technocrats’
ascendance: the need to quickly achieve the “Visions” intermediate goals to
avoid administrative obstructions. In many cases, teams of professionals work
outside — and parallel to — ministries to implement reform packages instead of
relying, on in-house bureaucrats alone. This is the case of the “Invest in Oman”
programme supporting “Vision 2040” and of the Abu Dhabi Education Council
(ADEC), which convened fty subject experts to design a plan (from the
brainstorming stage all the way through to the implementation stage) to improve
public education in line with the “Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030”.
Policy-making trends: sub-power and
centralization
The Gulf’s nascent ruling classes are driven from above but can be de ned as
sub-powers. New leaders are promoting the rise of a national class of
technocrats, experts, and diplomats to pursue, beside rulers and ministers, the
ful lment of national goals in economic, foreign, and defence a airs. This adds to
another trend in Gulf’s policy-making. In Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman, power
has grown centralized in the hands of a single branch of the royal family, to
whom “Visions” and nascent ruling classes are directly tied. This ends a tradition
of balancing — and careful counter-balancing — among members of the same
royal dynasty, especially in Saudi Arabia.
The examples are telling. The Sudairi clan of King Salman and his son Mohammed
has monopolized key positions in the Saudi government. This similarly occurs in
the UAE with the Bani Fatima clan of whom the Abu Dhabi emir and Emirati
president Mohammed bin Zayed belongs. In Oman, the heir apparent title was
introduced — via a Constitutional amendment — in 2021, when Sultan Haitham
ascended to power before appointing his son Theyazin in line to succeed him.
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Not Only Royals: The Gulf's Policy-Makers in the 2020s
Implications: rede
ning intra-elite power
dynamics
In the Gulf’s Arab capitals, nascent ruling classes comprising technocrats, experts,
non-royal elites, and diplomats are developing beside rulers and ministers. This
phenomenon, driven by a demanding economic diversi cation requiring technical
expertise, is boosting national education programmes and institutions. Regardless
the extremely limited impact on policy-making, the proliferation of think tanks in
the Gulf also supports the elaboration of national perspectives and interests,
although in settings still constrained from above. Ruling dynasties are the central
— yet no longer sole — locus of politics: sub-powers, embodied by the ruling
classes, have grown as a result of top-down phenomena due to their technical
expertise. This combines with acentralization trend within dynasties: power
growingly stands in the hands of a single branch of a royal family, from Saudi
Arabia through the UAE to Oman. These branches support — and are responsible
for — the “Visions”, directly boosting the formation of ruling classes.
In the Gulf, the main challenge for the post-hydrocarbons programmes is
pushing economic and social change while maintaining the political status quo.
However, policy-making and, consequently, policy-makers aren’t insulated from
transformation. The emergence of national ruling classes —who are broader
than royal families — discloses a subtle change within power and its political
habits. Rede ning the perimeter for those who participate in policy-making
represents a political change, even if it occurs as a top-down process aimed, as
its ultimate goal, at strengthening the rulers’ power through e ective reforms.
SOURCES:
[1] See Michael Herb, All in the family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the
Middle Eastern Monarchies, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1999.
[2] Calvert W. Jones, “Adviser to the king. Experts, Rationalization, and Legitimacy”,
World Politics 71, n°1, January 2019, pp. 1-43.
Autore:
Eleonora Ardemagni
ISPI
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URL Sorgente (modi ed on 03/06/2022 - 12:16): https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/not-only-royalsgulfs-policy-makers-2020s-35238
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