3 - The State and the Political Economy of Distribution

Summary

I begin the analysis of oil-financed institutionalized practices with a focus on government transfers and subsidies, highlighting the variation in access to resources in Gulf monarchies. I describe various types of transfers: 1) universal – those, such as free health care and subsidized household utilities, which all citizens enjoy; 2) particularist – those which are extended to specific communities – as in allowances to members of tribes or royal families and contracts to business elites; 3) idiosyncratic – as in funds to men to assist with their marriage expenses. I note changes to government distributions from mid-2014 and the oil price downturn. I then explore matters of equity and exclusion, highlighting those social categories who are privileged and those who are discriminated against in access to distributions in these states. I argue that the hierarchization of society and the related variation in access to resources are both integral to the shaping of the national community and a means for the state to exercise control insofar as key social categories are appeased via the relative marginalization of others.