CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Patru, Mihai |
|---|---|
| Title | THE IMPACT OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION ON POLITICAL LIBERALIZATION: THE ARAB GULF BAKSHISH STATES |
| Summary | In the last two decades, the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, namely Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, undertook surprising reforms meant to increase state’ participatory nature. Challenging the assumptions of the rentier state theory, which argue that due to external financial resources and the lack of their citizens’ contribution to the financial wealth, the authorities are not willing to embark on democratization’s path, this thesis aims at looking at the extent to which the external factors, more specifically the foreign direct investment inflows and outflows, determine these states to become subjects to political liberalization reforms. By underlining the weakness of domestic civil society, the army or business community when it comes to asking for increased level of participation and the foreign direct investments’ importance, the explanation resulting is that the ruling class is more accountable to the latter in order to attract more foreign capital, to be accepted as investors on the international financial markets, to integrate in the global economy and to be able to decrease their dependency on oil by developing alternative wealth resources. Keywords: Gulf Cooperation Council, political liberalization, electoral processes, international economic integration, foreign direct investment, Sovereign Wealth Funds, Arab Gulf civil society. |
| Supervisor | Professor Dr. Bela Greskovits |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/patru_mihai.pdf |
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