Employment Experiences and Expectations in the Rentier State

• In Event: IPE and Authoritarianism

Abstract

Rentier state theory focusses on states that derive all or most of their revenues from the exploitation of natural resources. The oil rich “allocation states” collect “effortlessly accrued income streams” (Beblawi) on behalf of the populace and distribute rents along patrimonial lines to small local populations. Although subject to numerous revisions and amendments, the idea of rentierism has been widely used by scholars to explain the significant degree of state autonomy in these states. However, this autonomy is never absolute, and is constrained by the state’s ability to manage the flow of rents within a social coalition, largely defined on the basis of tribal belonging.
Government employment is often assumed to be one of the pillars of state largess that perpetuates the rentier bargain in the petrol-rich Gulf states. However, recent reforms and attempts to transition to more sustainable models of economic growth have necessitated revisions to citizen expectations of near-universal job availability. Compared to their parents, university students graduating in today’s rentier state face steeper competition for jobs both from well-educated expatriates and an expanding pool of educated nationals. However, less is known about how young adults navigate these changing conditions and its implications for the stability of the broader “rentier bargain”.
This paper examines the employment expectations and experiences of university students and recent graduates in the United Arab Emirates using in-depth qualitative interviews and survey experiments. It elucidates the relationship between joblessness and perceived inequality in order to better understand evolving state-society relations. Employment is discussed in relation to other state benefits in order to consider whether and how the extensive package of social welfare benefits afforded to citizens is adapting to compensate for employment uncertainty among youth, and how, in turn, such changes are affecting the perceived legitimacy of state leadership.
The paper first uses qualitative research methods to provide an in-depth description of the complexities of state welfare system of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from the perspective of young adults. In so doing, it pays attention to the difficulties faced by youth in accessing state welfare and their level of information about government benefits. In considering the lived experiences of youth and their relationship to the state, it moves the discussion of rentierism beyond the realm of political tautologies about taxation and representation to better understand mechanisms of autocratic cooptation. Secondly, drawing on Gengler et al 2021, the project uses a survey experiment to explore income- and class-based differences in young adult welfare preferences and expectations with respect to excludable and non-excludable government benefits. It focuses on employment as the state benefit that is arguably most relevant young adults.
At the same time, universities in the region are anxious about the measurable rise in joblessness among their graduates and face increasing pressures to prepare graduates for a transforming labor market. This occasions the opportunity for synergistic examinations of the issue of graduate employment that will serve the needs of both the researchers and their institutions. Fieldwork is scheduled for the spring 2023 semester. Thus, the paper will address a notable lacuna in the literature on authoritarian resilience using a multi-method approach to the understudied case of the UAE.

Authors

• Bethany Shockley, American University of Sharjah

• Stephen Louw, University of the Witwatersrand