Authoritarianism and Legitimization Strategies in the Persian Gulf in the Era of the Arab Spring

Since 2011, Bahrain and Oman are the Gulf monarchies where expressions of social discontent have been most vocal. Unsurprisingly, the authorities in these two states, with more limited oil resources than their neighbors, face greater difficulties in proposing a new social contract to replace the old patrimonial model based on the clientelist distribution of the rent. This paper analyzes, in a comparative perspective, the non-coercive strategies implemented in recent years in Bahrain and Oman to consolidate the current political order. It will pay special attention to the Arab Spring, to what these events reveal of these regimes’ internal political mechanisms, and to the efficiency of legitimation strategies used until now.