‘Can’t buy me legitimacy’: the elusive stability of Mideast rentier regimes

This paper qualitatively revisits the thesis that rentier regimes can draw on their non-tax revenues to buy political legitimacy and stability. Exploring the material/moral interplay in Mideast rentier politics, I show why and how rents may provide for provisional, but not sustainable, stability for...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of international relations and development 2017, Vol.20 (1), p.55-79
Main Author: Abulof, Uriel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Area Studies
Authoritarianism
Coercion
Development Studies
Frail
Imagery
International Relations
Legitimacy
Original Article
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Politics
Rents
Social contract
Sovereignty
Stability
Sustainability
Tax revenues
Taxation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper qualitatively revisits the thesis that rentier regimes can draw on their non-tax revenues to buy political legitimacy and stability. Exploring the material/moral interplay in Mideast rentier politics, I show why and how rents may provide for provisional, but not sustainable, stability for authoritarian rentier regimes. I propose distinguishing between negative and positive political legitimacy, the former being about ‘what is legitimate’ (liberty vs security), and the latter about ‘who is the legitimator’ (divine/hereditary right vs popular sovereignty). Sustainable stability is predicated on having both legitimacies. Rentier regimes, however, often draw exclusively on negative political legitimacy. These regimes can use rents to buy time — through coercion and expediency — contriving an imagery of a lusty Leviathan. But due to the diversity of rents and the temporal shifts in their revenues, this social contract is materially contingent and morally frail — rendering authoritarian rentier regimes, not least in the Middle East, more mortal than they, and many observers, are ready to admit.
ISSN:1408-6980
1581-1980
DOI:10.1057/jird.2014.32