TERM PAPER

TOPIC: GLOBALIZATION AND ‘SOCIAL CHANGE’ IN THE GCC SOCIETIES

SUBMITTED BY
KUNDAN KUMAR
M. PHIL./CWAAS/ I ST SEMESTER

CENTRE FOR WEST ASIAN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES

SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY
NEW DELHI
2006

1
Globalization and Arab Gulf Societies: An Introductory Overview

The Gulf societies have a traditional, tribal political structure and are often referred to as
‘rentier-state economies relying on a single source of income generated from the export
of fossil fuels. Because of this source of income as rent these states are providing their
citizens with employment, various subsidies, and generous social services and housing
facilities. Gulf society is highly multicultural and segregated, i.e. segregated by sex, class,
ethnicity and religion. Foreign labor force constitutes far more than half of the native
population. Educated, skilled personnel from the West and other states are working in the
fields of management, business and education, while most workers from Asia are low-
paid laborers, domestic servants and ‘blue-collar’ workers. The Gulf citizens also enjoy
certain privileges which guest workers don’t have right to. Being highly attached to the
Western culture in this age of shrinking world, the Gulf societies are still the societies
which value their local traditions and Islam.

The Gulf societies are still in a state of transition from tradition to modernity and even
this modernity is only a modernity of infrastructure and material culture and does not
relate to the role of traditions and local culture which finally shows that continuity and
change both are going on simultaneously. “The concepts of Islam, tradition and
modernity are often subjected to reification, i.e. they are understood as ‘things’ detached
from their social origins and not as human products.”1 Modernity is often viewed as
being in opposition to tradition, but it is very likely that a particular culture can evolve
within modernity. The most explicit characteristic of the Gulf culture today is its
emphasis on cultural heritage, which has been interpreted by academicians as a means of
legitimizing power and the political status quo. One argument goes that “the very
‘preservation and conservation’ of traditional culture should be understood as a defensive
response to the victory of modernity”2 – further suggesting that the various expressions of
tradition in the Gulf can in fact be interpreted as reactions to modernity that are expressed
in modern ways.

Globalization, a journey without compass, is a highly contested word in the Arab world
and, is viewed primarily as a Western project and a one way cultural invasion. In present
times when globalization has emerged as the only reigning ideology, a nation howsoever
powerful or well endowed does not seem to have an option to reject it completely
because of the risks of increased isolationism and protectionism. The globalization of
world economy has certainly paved a way for the beginning of a new era in the Arab
world where population is growing by roughly 4% and economies are virtually
stagnating. Globalization, both as a challenge and opportunity, means the growing
interdependence and interconnectedness driven by technological advance.

1
Ouis, Pernilla, ‘Islamisation as a Strategy for Reconciliation Between Modernity and Tradition: Examples
from Contemporary Arab Gulf States, Islam and Christian Muslim relations, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2002, p. 317,
(quoted from P. L. Berger and T. K. Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality: a Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge, penguin books, London, 1991, p. 106).
2
Ibid. p. 317.

2
“Globalization is a rather confusing concept, for its overarching nature tends to blur the
reality of what exists either under its cover, outside its reach or in relation to it.”3 It refers
to a radical transformation as much of the world economy, with the progressive removal
of barriers to trade, investment and the unprecedented movement of capital across
national boundaries as a fundamental shift in international relations with nations
becoming tied together ever more closely through communication, trade and population
movement. It is a “double-edged sword, a powerful vehicle that raises economic growth,
spreads new technology and increases living standards in rich and poor countries alike,
but also an immensely controversial process that assaults national sovereignty, erodes
local culture and tradition, and threatens economic and social stability.”4 According to
Human Development Report, 1999, “globalization expands the opportunities for
unprecedented human advance for some but shrinks those opportunities for others and
erodes human security. It is integrating economy, culture and governance but
fragmenting societies. Driven by commercial market forces, globalization in this era
seeks to promote economic efficiency, generate growth and yield profits. But it misses
out on the goals of equity, poverty eradication and enhanced human security.”5
“Globalization is not about what we all or at least the most resourceful and enterprising
among us wish or hope to do. It is about what is happening to us all.”6 It explicitly refers
to the foggy and slushy ‘no man’s land’ stretching beyond the reach of the design and
action capacity of anybody in particular. It is “first and foremost a redistribution of
privileges and deprivations, of wealth and poverty, of resources and impotence, of power
and powerlessness, of freedom and constraint”7 i.e. in other words, “a process of re-
stratification, in the course of which a new world-wide socio-cultural, self-reproducing
hierarchy is put together.”8 Finally, it is “ the inexorable integration of markets, nation-
states and technologies to a degree never witnessed before – in a way that is enabling
individuals, corporations and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster,
deeper and cheaper than ever before, and in a way that is enabling the world to reach into
individuals, corporations and nation-states further, faster, deeper, cheaper than ever
before”9 and is characterized by worldwide integration through an ongoing, dynamic
process that involves the interplay of free enterprise, democratic principles and human
rights, the high-tech exchange of information, and movement of not only people but also
of social, cultural and political thoughts.

The Arab world depicts images of a society which is inward looking, docile,
undemocratic and repressive. Despite religious, linguistic and cultural commonalities,
shared history and geographical contiguity, homogenous spiritual values, oneness of
civilization, the Arab world is diverse and heterogeneous not only in terms of their

3
Racine, Jean Luc, ‘On Globalization: Beyond the Paradigm – States and Civil Societies in the Global and
Local Context’, in Rama S. Melkote, ed., Meanings of Globalization: Indian and French Perspectives,
Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2001, p., 1.
4
Roy, Ash Narain, Globalization or Gobble-ization: The Arab Experience, Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd,
Delhi, 2003, p., 4.
5
UNDP’s Human Development Report, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999.
6
Beilharz, Peter, ed., The Bauman Reader, Blackwell, Oxford, 2001, p., 299.
7
Ibid, p., 304.
8
Ibid, p., 304.
9
Freidman, T.L., The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Anchor Books, New York, 2000, p., 9.

3
economic progress and resource endowments but also in terms of their social and
political structures. The combination of globalization and information revolution has
created a situation in Arab world in which these societies are bound to change. “In a
region where democracy is still rarer than rain where culturally embedded patterns of
patronage come in the way of participatory democracy, the impact of globalization could
be unsettling.”10

Different people and different countries perceive globalization in different ways. For
example, globalization is old hat; it is old wine in new bottle; it represents the onward
march of progress; it is destructive and retrogressive; it is a powerful tool to radically
transform the world; it creates new opportunities; it is merely a new quest for resource
and cultural domination etc. the experience of the past one decade suggests that
globalization has been a uni-directional process, with the flow of goods and ideas moving
in one direction. “One of the fundamental consequences of modernity is globalization.
This is more than a diffusion of Western institutions across the world, in which other
cultures are crushed.”11 The traditional societies like those of the Arab world fear that
they may end up being the “passive recipients of cultural messages, knowledge systems,
beliefs and worldviews of the dominant West;”12 and that the imposition of Western
social, ethical and cultural role models may deal “a deathblow to their regional and
national cultures, customs and traditions.”13 On the one hand modernization, in this
present age of globalization, is understood in terms of infrastructure, modern science and
technology, and is often accepted in Muslim societies, but on the other hand, “Islam is
often seen as being in opposition to westernization, which is resisted because its lack of
morality so that Muslims often call for modernization without westernization in what
may be viewed as a quest for modernization independent of the West.”14

Culture is not merely the collective expression of values, perceptions, language, art,
history and social organization in a community, but it is the soul of the community, and is
a binding force which holds communities together and makes them last over generations,
even longer than economic and political power. As culture is the carrier of identity, it is
the fear of cultural homogenization and commodification in terms of loosing their
cultural identity in the wake of cultural imperialism of the West that these societies
perceive globalization as a product of the Western economic needs, concentration of
capital, technology and modernization.

Globalization and Changes in Political Structures of the GCC States

The post-Cold War era is witness to paradigm shifts in many spheres. Ideologies,
identities and national boundaries are all experiencing vigorous change and contestation.
“The Arab world may be united by history and religion and may share values, attitudes

10
Roy, p., 8.
11
Giddens, Anthony, The Consequences of Modernity, Policy Press, London, 1990, p., 175.
12
Roy, p., 32.
13
Ibid, p., 32.
14
Ouis, p. 317.

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and institutions that bind them together but it is anything but homogeneous.”15 Almost
everywhere in the Arab world, the global spread of free market capitalism has been
accompanied by sophisticated communications technology, advances in education,
lifestyle changes, and the hegemonic cultural, political, and economic penetration of the
West. “The specific effects of globalization differ from place to place as local economic,
political, and social factors influence the spread by which countries are linked to the
global market-place and the nature of that linkage”16 the economic impact of
globalization in the Arab world cannot be adequately assessed without taking in to
account its political, social and cultural entailments.

A combination of economic and social developments is stimulating far reaching change

in the political structures of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. There is no
doubt in the fact that the end of the oil boom, the need to integrate into the globalized
economy, along with the pressures of globalized culture are interacting with the rapid
demographic change to undermine the established rentier state bargain of ‘no taxation
and no representation’. “The emergence of a variety of pseudo-democratic structures in
the states of GCC suggests that a causal link can be made between socio-economic
change and a gradual transition from authoritarian rule towards broader political
participation.”17

At the end of the 20th century in which the majority of Arab states achieved
independence, most remain predominantly authoritarian. “Although a number of states
have experimented with controlled democratization, in all states the authoritarian power
structure is centered around what has been labeled dimuqratiyyat al-khubz (democracy of
bread) – the tacit social contract in which the regime provides social and economic
welfare in return for political loyalty.”18 “This bargain has been reinforced by coercion
(the mukhabarat state) and by ideology (in the form of Arabism, anti-Zionism, Islam or
tribal traditionalism), but the central feature is that politics in this model is largely
deferential and non-participatory, conditional on the state’s providential capacity.”19

All the member states of GCC, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and
Oman, have been characterized as rentier states and as sultanistic regimes. As rentier
states they share characteristics of other Arab regimes, though to a more pronounced
degree. Oil revenues accruing directly to the regime have enabled the GCC regimes to
implement a policy of ‘democracy of bread’ to an extreme degree through which they
have offered material largesse in return for loyalty and non-participation. In some states
such as Kuwait, this new social contract undermined established power sharing
mechanisms, but in other GCC states there had been little experience of politics and

15
Ibid, p., 47.
16
Doumato, Eleanor, Abdella and Marsha P. Posusney, ed., Women and Globalization in the Arab Middle
East: Gender, Economy and Society, Lynne Riener Publications, 2003, p., 2.
17
Ayubi, Nazih, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and society in the Middle East, I B Tauris, London,
1995, p., 253.
18
‘Towards Arab Liberal Governance: From the Democracy of Bread to the Democracy of the Vote’, Third
World Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1997, pp., 127-148.
19
Ibid, p., 135.

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hence the social contract was entirely new. “As sultanistic regimes, the GCC states differ
from the ‘semi-rentier’ states of Mashreq or Maghreb in that they are based on
patrimonial rule in which the renter holds unfettered power and is unencumbered by
bureaucratic rules or by commitment to an ideology or value system.”20

This ideal type cannot be applied in toto to all the GCC states as Saudi regime, for
instance, is at least to some extent constrained by the ideologies it purports to serve,
namely Wahhabi Islam and tribal patrimonialism. “In objective terms, the impact of
globalized democratic culture, information media and the globalization of contemporary
capitalism appears to be having the dual effect of propagating modernist notions of
democracy and rights while at the same time sparking off parochial or traditionalist
reactions to these notions.”21 If the GCC political bargain can be summed up in the
phrase of ‘no taxation no representation’, the conventional wisdom is that, since the
concept of ‘no taxation’ is coming under threat, so must the concept of ‘no
representation’. “‘No taxation’ is coming under threat because of the twin effects of
stagnant oil prices and demographic growth.”22

Although oil prices have fluctuated in recent years, there is no question that the oil boom
is over. Long term growth in energy demand in Asia, the increasing potential for natural
gas exports and the long term uncertainty over non-OPEC oil supplies may give the GCC
states some hope for sustaining their oil incomes in the longer term, but the rate of return
is unlikely to match that which they have enjoyed in recent decades. At the same time, in
this age of globalization and information revolution, all the GCC states face high
population growth rates combined with the emergence of a politically aware and educated
populace who have been brought up to expect from the state to fulfill its end of the
political bargain generously. With constrained government revenues and growing
demands, and the per capita share of oil rent falling, the state can no longer distribute oil
revenues on the scale that it has promised and must rely increasingly o extractive
measures to fund itself.

Due to the impact of globalization, the state is turning increasingly to the private sector to
boost its GDP and employment. The oil price collapse of the mid-1990s encouraged all
the GCC states to give importance to the private sector in a serious manner. “Along with
the encouragement of private sector commercial ventures have gone policies of
privatization, establishment of stock markets and legal reforms designed to strengthen the
rule of law.”23 The political impact of these reforms can be seen in the growing role of
business organizations such as Chambers of Commerce. “No one can deny that the
privatization and an increased role of the private sector reinforce fledgling civil society
and the rue of law in states where both concepts have been weak.”24 The GCC states have
sought to compensate their citizens for reduced material benefits by offering limited
20
Wintrobe, Ronald, The Political Economy of Dictatorship, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1998, p., 09.
21
Rathmell, A., and Kirsten S., ‘Political Reform in the Gulf: The Case of Qatar’, Middle East Studies,
Vol., 36, No., 4, 2000, p., 49.
22
Ibid, p., 49.
23
Ibid, p., 50.
24
Ibid, p., 50.

6
liberalization and the impression of power sharing which involve opening up the public
space and institutionalizing channels for free expression, to allow the populace some
voice.

In the relatively closed political spaces of the GCC states, pressures of globalization do
appear to be forcing gradual change where “encouragement of the private sector is
strengthening the cases of civil society while the desire to offer political carrots and allow
the populace to let off steam in the face of popular economic policies in leading to
liberalization, however limited.”25 Although each of the GCC states has different political
history and tradition, and depicts a different socio-economic environment, all share the
characteristics of being highly static economies in pervasive bureaucracies both co-opt
and coerce their citizens into accepting a status quo in which political power is
monopolized by a small ruling elite. But during 1990s, due to the unavoidable pressures
of globalization, most of the GCC states have initiated political reforms.

In all states there have been attempts to boost the role of the private sector in wealth
generation. Privatization, reforms of the legal code and establishment of stock markets
have proceeded at varying paces, determined by modern needs and political imperatives.
In Kuwait the government has moved aggressively to privatize large elements of its
holdings. In Dubai the private sector is already dominant. In Saudi Arabia also the
globalization has started spreading its impact. In a number of states, representative
institutions have also been established or enhanced. “In Oman, the Oman Consultative
Council sought to combine the principles of Islamic shurah with Ibadhi principles of
participation and modernist notions of participatory democracy.”26

In Saudi Arabia, King Fahd introduced a Basic Law and a Consultative Council in 1992
which, although framed in the language of historical continuity, went at least some way
towards a symbol of broader political participation. In Kuwait, the very fact that members
of Parliament have displayed such independence of the executive and willingness to
criticize the government, even on sensitive financial and national security matters, is a
reflection of the relative vibrancy of its civil society and of its participatory political
system. In the UAE and Bahrain there have been no significant moves even to establish
the symbols of liberalization or democratization.

In the UAE this counter example could prove the general argument that the UAE, fuelled
by Abu Dhabi’s oil revenues and Dubai and Sharjah’s commercial income, faces much
less of an economic problem than its GCC neighbors. In Bahrain, the ailing economy and
its history of civil society activism would suggest that the emirate is a prime candidate for
controlled liberalization and a move towards broader participation but both these things
are seen as real threats to the regime. Hence, there has been reliance on coercion rather
than on efforts at this direction.

25
Ibid, p., 50.
26
Al-Haj, Abdullah Jumah, ‘The Politics of Participation in the Gulf Cooperation Council States: The
Omani Consultative Council’, Middle East Journal, Vol., 50, No., 4, 1996, pp., 560-571.

7
No single model can explain political developments induced by globalization in the GCC
states. While all share characteristics of sultanists, rentier states and all face similar
economic and demographic problems, their responses are influenced by their particular
politico-economic structures and histories and by the extent to which they feel the heat of
globalization.

The Impact of Global Technology, Network and Economy on the GCC States: A
Socio-Cultural Perspective

The arrival of the new global network and global economy based on information
technology, has ushered the GCC world into a radically new social and cultural era. Over
the last two decades, Saudi Arabia has been transformed from a traditional society to one
in which life is textured by imported consumer technology. “The Bedouin encampment,
tent, mud house, and camel have yielded to the city, cement house, high-rise building,
dishwasher, television set, car, and all the trappings that modern technology can
supply.”27 Saudi man, walking the streets of London and now in Jeddah with “his suit of
pure English wool, his French tie made of fine genuine silk, his Italian shoes of the best
leather, and his expensive Swiss watch, is a walking showcase of the industries of the
entire world.”28

Infact, globalization presents the people of GCC states with “alternative modes or
paradigms of perceptions and actions that challenge their own indigenous, traditional
cultural norms.”29 It seems that technology transfer to GCC countries has affected more
than a passing change in its culture and society. Modern technology, imported on a
massive scale over the last two decades, has transformed the entire material framework of
traditional GCC societies and cultures. It has also offered these societies new modes of
perception and ways of ordering the world around them. In general, the discipline that
industrialization has imparted to people in industrialized countries has not been
completely diffused in the states of GCC but is still in process. For example, the Saudi
response to technology is in many respects at variance with that of other Arab countries.
In virtually every other Arab country, women are allowed to drive cars and higher
education is not segregated along gender lines unlike in Saudi Arabia. The reasons for the
differences in response may have to do with the “initial cultural conditions under which
technology was introduced, the speed and scope of imported technology, and the
relationship between the governments and religious establishments.”30

In Kuwait because of the rapid development in the past two decades of globalization, new
strata of society have emerged, and new demands and aspirations have been expressed in
Kuwaiti society. The developments in education, the media, employment and financial
opportunities, government subsidies, and immigration policies have increased social

27
Elmusa, S.S., ‘Faust Without the Devil?: The Interplay of Technology and Culture in Saudi Arabia’,
Middle East Journal, Vol., 51, No., 3, 1997, p., 345.
28
Alhajimi, Mansour, ‘The Nightingales Triptych’, translated by Olive Kenny and David Wright in Salma
Khadra Jayyusi, ed., The Literature of Modern Arabia, Kegan Paul International, New York, 1988, p., 388.
29
Elmusa, p., 346.
30
Ibid, p., 357.

8
mobility and transformed the society. At the same time, these socio-economic changes
have “polarized certain sectors of Kuwaiti society, including the inevitable clash between
the new and the old social forces: city vs. desert, Shi’a vs. Sunni, old money vs. new
money, men vs. women.”31 Owing to the modern developments, the Bedouins moved
from the desert to the city, from minority to majority, and their values began to
overpower the urban values of Kuwaitis in the 1990s.

Globalization and Economic Change in Gulf Societies

Globalization has brought in its wake a significant growth in world trade, global
investment flows and capital transactions. It has also revolutionized the thinking of
political regimes at all levels across the world. While the way globalization has been
sought to be imposed from above has led to a lot of skepticism about the potential of
opening up many opportunities for millions of people around the world, the Gulf states
now admit that through gradual dismantling of economic boundaries, globalization is
ushering a new era of relationship between nations, economies and people. There is no
doubt that as a development paradigm, globalization has now found world wide
acceptance. Significant economic liberalization measures are under way in majority of
the GCC states towards market oriented economic policies and dismantling of market
barriers with a view to gaining access to global markets, capital and technologies as they
perceive globalization “as an instrument to achieve economic efficiency and
competitiveness as also to eradicate poverty.”32

Ever increasing expansion of trans-border financial flows and their impact on the
exchange policies of national economies, mobility of capital flows across borders as an
efficient way to allocate resources worldwide and to channel them to developing
countries, and the growing uniformity in the institutional and regulatory framework in all
countries are some of the most important common notions of economic globalization. It
is true that in today’s age the competitive position of a country relating to others is
determined more and more by the quality of its human resources, by knowledge, by
science and technology applied to production methods. Globalization puts its emphasis
on the liberalization of the economy through de-regulating and de-controlling of
commerce and industry, on modernization of technology and thought process, and finally
on capital intensive rather than labour intensive industries.

In GCC world, nearly all aspects of national life have often fallen under the responsibility
of the state as the state is being seen as the solution for everything, the only guarantor of
efficiency and justice. Energy has been deemed a strategic sector whose ownership and
control must be vested in the hands of the government. There was a time when the state
of the Gulf economy used to trigger increase even among the developed world in the
period of 1970s and 80s, but today in a bitter irony, the Gulf economy is triggering alarm
because of its weakness rather than strength. The Gulf world has now realized that if they

31
Ghabra, Shafeeq, ‘Kuwait and the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change’, Middle East Journal, Vol., 51,
No., 3, 1997, p., 371.
32
Roy, p 84.

9
want to be integrated into global markets, they will have to become more open and
competitive economies. However, the Gulf experience is very much different from Latin
America and rest of Asia.

The GCC governments have taken only tentative steps towards privatization because of
the fear that rapid privatization may lead to social and political instability. Since most of
the regimes are closed regimes, they are not comfortable with economic liberalization
beyond a point of fear that it may lead to political liberalization. The Gulf world is “one
of the world’s most globalized regions in conventional terms of trade openness.”33 Most
governments have been hesitant to move quickly with privatization. One theory suggests
that only those states have shown greater commitment to reforms, “where the wash of oil
monies has most quickly and most completely receded.”34

Although Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates all
speak of a bigger private sector role, in many cases the privation is going on very slowly.
Kuwait has a relatively liberal economy which can be shown by the fact that its per
capita GDP is one of the highest in the world and it ranks second in the Gulf world in
human resource development despite of its economic reform programme being still
tentative. The constitution of Kuwait prohibits foreign ownership of the country’s natural
resources which explains the unusual delay in approving laws on privatization. Many
regulatory laws like the Indirect Foreign Investment Law, Intellectual Property Rights
Law, Patents and Trademarks Law etc, are in the process of being enacted. The Gulf War
and the decline in oil prices in monetary and real terms prompted Kuwait to reduce state
role in the economy by opening the doors for the private sector. As the winds of
economic change are sweeping across the Gulf region and governments are encouraging
foreign investors to invest in their countries, Kuwait has been following the same trend
and has launched new investment laws that offer attractive benefits to foreign investors.
As the world’s largest oil producer and exporter, under the leadership of King Abdullah,
Saudi Arabia has made a significant shift in its approach to development and economic
reforms. It seems that Saudi Arabia is determined to promote economic reforms and has
already pronounced the end of the endless state generosity. Its zeal for economic reform
is intended to create a more open, competitive and investment oriented economy. Today,
private sector participation in varying measures can be seen in ports, water, solid waste,
health and toll roads. Diversification of the economy, deregulation, privatization and
gradual saudization of the labour force are the four pillars of the economic reforms in
Saudi Arabia.

The transformation of the UAE from a collection of obscure, desert sheikhdoms to a

modern and prosperous state has been phenomenal. It has witnessed big strides in
economic development, particularly in the expansion of transport, communication and

33
Sayigh, Yezid, ‘Globalization Manque: Regional Fragmentation and Authoritarian Liberalism in the
Middle East’, in Louise Fawcett and Yezid Sayigh, eds., The Third World Beyond the Cold War:
Continuity and Change, Oxford University Press, 1999, p 214.
34
Stork, Joe, ‘Oil, Islam and Israel: US Policy and Democratic Change in the Middle East’, in Jochen,
Hippler ed., The Democratization of Disempowerment: The Problem of Democracy in the Third World,
Pluto Press, London, 1995, p, 159.

10
energy sectors. But “the thrust of privatization is not as much for selling the public sector
units but to expand the role of the private sector.”35 The UAE government has pursued a
vigorous policy of diversification away from oil, based on an open economy and its
service sector economies are flourishing.

Unlike other Gulf countries, Oman had resorted to privatization as a way to overcome its
financial constraints. The Royal Decree of June 1996 lays down the basic principles for
the private sector to operate. Raising money for the government and reducing
government expenditure have been the guiding force behind privatization.

Like Oman, Bahrain is also not gifted with oil and gas and yet, while Oman has involved
the private sector in its diversification efforts, the state continues to be a dominant player
in Bahrain. Bahrain has a well developed tourism industry which is already largely in the
hands of the private sector. As more and more GCC states are liberalizing their
economies, Bahrain is also showing an interest in terms of seriously considering the
benefits of privatization.

In Qatar, the state plays a pivotal role in the economy as it owns and operates most
companies in heavy industry like petroleum, telecommunication and chemical
refinement. However, it has been successful in attracting foreign investments in many of
its industries like the hydrocarbons, transport industries etc.

Globalization and Women in GCC Societies: Gender, Employment and Activism

Due to its impact on a country’s economy, politics and culture, globalization is a process
crucially interrelated with the evolving role of women in Gulf societies, with implications
for their opportunities to work and organize, and for shifts in societal attitudes towards
gender. The economic aspects of globalization’s effect on women must be understood in
the context of the state centered economic strategies prevalent in the region through most
of the latter half of the twentieth century. During the 1960s and 1970s, most countries in
the region witnessed a considerable expansion in the economic role of the state. State led
efforts to promote literacy prompted a decline in child labour and the expansion of female
labour force participation. The rapidly expanding government sector, with its guaranties
of job securities and social protection, became the employment of choice, especially for
women.

Structural adjustment programmes for the sake of completely integrating into the global
economy have meant the elimination of food subsidies and price controls, the free
floating of currencies, the removal of barriers to foreign trade and investment, cutbacks
government employment, and privatization of state owned enterprises. Women in
particular have been expected to benefit from the development of export oriented
industries. Women have traditionally played an extensive role in informal market
activities (which have been produced by the shrinking of the state), and their participation
has come to be promoted by multilateral lending agencies and development experts as an
engine of growth. “If structural adjustments cause family incomes to decline and social
35
Pant, Girijesh, The Arab Gulf Economies: From Crisis to Reform, Har-Anand Publications, 1996, p, 158.

11
safety nets to be weakened, the challenges of managing a household, traditionally a
woman’s responsibility, increase, especially for poorer and unemployed women.”36

These changing economic circumstances have an impact on women’s organizational

activity. Women’s voluntary associations that meet for economic, social, religious, and
educational purposes have a well established historical presence in every country in the
region. Women’s organizational activities have also been encouraged as a result of
international support for a common standard of human rights, especially in the post Gulf
War era, and a new international push to recognize women as individuals entitled to these
rights, as opposed to having rights defined by religious or family values. The post Gulf
War era has seen a proliferation of local groups that seek to improve women’s legal
protection through courts, legislatures, research, and public education.

Foe example, in Saudi Arabia, since the mid 1970s, women have been graduating from
humanities faculties in greater numbers than men, and consequently, many are prepared
both psychologically and intellectually to enter the work force. As the Saudi economy
cannot begin to absorb such large number of graduates as workers, these women find
themselves victims of their own success. Saudi society at large continues to place a high
value on sex segregation, which limits women’s employment options to healthcare,
education, and other areas of work in which men and women can be separated from each
other. But the “penetration of western culture resulting from Saudis traveling abroad, the
influx of foreigners into the Kingdom, the introduction of western education models,
satellite television, and the internet, fuels a defensive reinforcing of religious
conservatism pegged to the segregation and maternal role of women, which appeals to
men and women alike.”37

Everywhere in the GCC region, as in Saudi Arabia, the global spread of free market
capitalism had been accompanied by sophisticated communications technology, advances
in education, lifestyle changes, and the hegemonic cultural, political, and economic
penetration of the West. The same process of globalization that facilitates development
can also lead to ambiguous and sometimes contradictory outcomes, and these outcomes
may be different for women as opposed to men. As women’s lives are affected, their
needs and responses in turn become an important variable influencing the pace and form
globalization takes within the region’s different countries.

Globalization and the Rise of Political Islam

Examining the implications of globalisation with all its intricacies on the Arab world in
the context of the emergence of political Islam requires certain kind of understanding of
some of the critical questions that analyze the western perspective that projects the Arab
world as fanatic. The globalisation is considered as a myth, as an old wine in a new
bottle, as another form of colonialism, and finally as something which is slippery and
dangerous. It’s also, now a days, comprehended as synonymous with ‘Americanization’
or in broader terms, ‘Westernization’, which signifies that the western world is using

36
Doumato, p, 6.
37
Ibid, p, 2.

12
globalisation as an ideology to change the political and economic systems of different
countries of the world in order to bring the entire international system under its influence.

But here we have to analyse whether globalisation has created a space for the emergence
of political Islam or not. I think it certainly has created a gap in developing societies due
to many reasons. One of the foremost reasons for people of the GCC states to oppose
globalisation is cultural. They fear losing their cultural identity. In my view, it is quite
paradoxical that on the one hand the champions of democratisation and post-modernism
are emphasizing the significance of diversity and rights of self-determination by local
people; on the other hand globalisation is seeking to advance a new culture. The western
food and fashion are penetrating fast into the third world and it is distorting their own
cultural values and traditions. In this process of cultural invasion, it is a pity that it is only
one way traffic in which only western values are proliferating and non-western values are
getting marginalised or diminishing fast. It is this very reason that Islam, the major
religion of West Asia, particularly the Gulf, perceives it as a threat and is becoming
proactive to protect their cultural values.

The exposure to western world and life style through media is further creating turbulence
in these societies as people in these societies also aspire for the same kind of life style but
the gap between aspirations and actualisation of such aspirations create frustration among
youth in these countries. In order to legitimize their power, rulers in these countries create
aggressive or negative nationalism. In some of the Gulf countries, the religious heads and
military officials are more influential and they create fanaticism in their educated youth
in order to control power.

At last, there is no doubt that only globalisation does not cause Islam to be political nor
does it explain all forms of extremism, violence or terror, but however, the extent to
which globalisation dislocates individuals from their socio-cultural roots and creates
psychosocial distress is displayed in the magnitude and intensity of resistance to
globalisation. Without investigating political Islam from conceptual and methodological
perspectives that have a constitutive and relational orientation, we cannot understand the
nature of a strong connection between the effects of globalisation and conditions that
nurture political Islam with all its social, transnational, and global realities. The policies
of western states and international financial institutions in terms of liberalisation and
globalisation, due to many socio-political, cultural, religious, historical and economic
factors, have certainly created a vacancy in the developing societies of the world
specially in the case of Gulf societies by intensifying underdevelopment with all its
entities like poverty, inequality etc. which ultimately paved a way for the growth of
political Islam to fill this socio-cultural and political gap. Finally, it is true that a kinder
and gentler globalisation, which invites genuine partnership, shows respect for cultural
differences, nurtures democratic institutions, and offers more sensitive methods for its
inevitable implementation, is must because only such a globalisation stands to benefit
rather than harm developing nations and the world generally.

13
 Concluding Remarks

Developments of the past one decade have changed the world beyond recognition. The
GCC world has also changed. As the new kingdom of knowledge has no respect for
borders, ideas and know-hows are becoming a universal economic currency and rules and
practices of trade are becoming standardized worldwide. The standard is a liberal one and
the institutions that organize trade and the companies are becoming global. The advent of
globalization has brought about cataclysmic and metamorphic changes across the globe
and a powerful dynamic is under way. Economy, in this modern age of globalization, is
pushing nations to open up and regions to integrate. events and institutions in one part of
other world are pushing events in another. As the GCC world also can’t remain alienated
from the rest of the world, a combination of global developments is already stimulating
far reaching change in the GCC societies in diverse fields including the political system.

The end of the oil boom, the need to integrate into the globalized economy and rapid
demographic change has forced the Gulf states to diversify their economies and re-orient
their development strategies. In spite of the fears of the undermining effects on national
and sub-national cultures, in this age of globalization, the issues and things, which were
once considered taboos, irrelevant or too touchy, have turned relevant again by the crises
and sensibilities of the present modern era. It is the clean sweep of the global changes
that now someone else is interfering in the domains of personal life.

The GCC world is now in a very severe dilemma because of this interference of a global
information images, cultural messages, cosmopolitan knowledge systems, beliefs and
world views which further is creating acute problems. Social change does not occur in a
very short span of time in any given society of the world. Globalization, a very current
phenomenon in the context of GCC societies, has not produced any significant changes
which can be considered as social change. However, it has certainly created a situation
where the changes are underway. In the case of majority of these changes inspired,
encouraged and promoted by globalization, the Gulf societies have not given their
approval or consent. It can also be said that the sudden sweep of globalization across the
globe did not give much time to the gulf societies for a serous consideration of the multi-
dimensional consequences of this global process. And I think it can also be a reason that
since these patrimonial societies have for a long been maintained and retained their
traditional values, cultures, ideals and beliefs that globalization is paving a way for these
societies to be dichotomous, ambivalent and ambiguous in their attitudes, identities and
responses.

Simultaneously I would also like to add that in the process of accommodating social
changes in modern Gulf societies, Islam is said to support or advocate tribal rulings in
modern Gulf societies, condone cyber love, give people the right to divorce, guarantee
women’s equality, support the education of women and the right to earn their own money
and wipe out superstition. In contrast to this, it is also very evident that some forms of
local Islam are accommodating resistance to it by emphasizing traditional customs,
beliefs and practices, which shows a kind of contradictory attitude and approach.

14
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