| Abstract: | Bahrain and Kuwait adopted sharply divergent responses to the economic crisis in the Gulf during the 1980s. The Bahraini government
reduced the level of state intervention in the local economy, opened up opportunities for private investment and relied on
the operation of the unregulated market; Kuwait's government, on the other hand, imposed a greater degree of state supervision
over domestic economic affairs and expanded central planning to allocate resources to the most profitable enterprises. Two
influential bodies of neo-Marxist writing on the state—the state-derivation school and the writings of Claus Offe—have difficulty
accounting for these differences. A more adequate explanation for Bahraini and Kuwaiti policy can be formulated in terms of
the strength of each country's indigenous rich merchant community relative to that of the ruling family/central administration
and the political activities of the labor movement in each amirate.
Fred H. Lawson is associate professor, Department of Government, Mills College, Oakland, CA 94613. He received his Ph.D. from
UCLA in 1982 and has also taught at the University of North Carolina and Smith College. His most recent publications include
“Political-economic trends in Ba'thi Syria: a reinterpretation,”Orient 29 (December 1988) and “Libéralisation économique en Syrie et Irak,”Maghred/Machrek 128 (April–May 1990). He is currently exploring the connection between class conflict and foreign policy in contemporary
Syria and Iraq. |
