Understanding Input and Output Legitimacy of Environmental Policymaking in The Gulf Cooperation Council States

This article analyses environmental policymaking in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, with a focus on the output legitimacy of renewable energy uptake. Most environmental policy research so far has focused on either Western industrialized countries with established democracies or developing...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental policy and governance 2018-01, Vol.28 (1), p.39-50
Main Author: Atalay, Yasemin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Autocracy
Cooperation
Decision analysis
Developing countries
Effectiveness
Environmental governance
Environmental policy
Governance
Gulf monarchies
Industrialized nations
International cooperation
International organizations
LDCs
Legitimacy
Natural resource management
Policy analysis
Policy making
Policy research
Renewable energy
Renewable resources
Scientific papers
Sustainability
System effectiveness
Uptake
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Summary:This article analyses environmental policymaking in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, with a focus on the output legitimacy of renewable energy uptake. Most environmental policy research so far has focused on either Western industrialized countries with established democracies or developing countries with either democratic or autocratic policymaking systems, and few studies have yet analyzed the overall effectiveness of these monarchies in environmental decisionmaking. The degree of this policy effectiveness is hence the focus of this paper. Specifically, the paper argues that, although there are a number of input legitimacy deficits in the six GCC countries (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman), there has been progress regarding renewable energy uptake. Thus, these monarchies may be relying more on output legitimacy than input legitimacy. Following up on the studies on input and output legitimacy, the main argument is that in certain cases useful policy results can be reached in the presence of not so strong input legitimacy, and other factors also have an impact on policymaking. The paper bases its analysis on an extensive study of primary and secondary sources, specifically institutional publications, international organization reports, newspaper articles and academic papers. With its analysis, the paper contributes to larger debates in environmental governance research on the relative effectiveness of renewable energy uptake in monarchical, resource‐rich, rentier states. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
ISSN:1756-932X
1756-9338
DOI:10.1002/eet.1794