Publication

12 Jun 2014

This paper explores the reasons why the six Gulf monarchies - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain - experienced different degrees of protest during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. In particular, it looks at why Bahrain experienced mass protests while the other monarchies did not. The author argues that the reason lies in the varying size of monarchs' ruling coalitions on the eve of the uprisings. Furthermore, he maintains that the size of a monarch’s ruling coalition was heavily influenced by each monarchy’s history of foreign power interference in internal affairs.

Download English (PDF, 15 pages, 329 KB)
Author Andreas Kaufmann
Series Al Nakhlah
Publisher Fletcher School, Tufts University
Copyright © 2014 The Fletcher School
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