110IRAN AND DUBAI LEAD THE WAYa corner from which there was no other way out. The rest of the Gulf
found itself in similar, albeit less urgent, circumstances. Might these
countries, too, break the social compact and retract benefits? Answer-
ing that question depended on what citizens were willing to accept.
I decided to find out. In 2011, I worked with the polling firm You-
Gov to conduct a public survey in all six Gulf monarchies. We polled
730 Gulf nationals on the subject of electricity pricing and willing-
ness to pay full cost. My results suggested that citizens don’t feel as
reflexively entitled to subsidized energy or as adamantly opposed to
pay ing higher prices as academics or regiona l elites t hink. I concluded
that the successful subsidy reforms that took place in Iran and Dubai
could indeed be replicated.^43
Nearly half of survey respondents (49 percent) did not oppose pay-
ing the full cost of electricity when they were informed that the national
interest depended on them paying more and using less. By contrast,
32 percent did oppose higher prices. (The rest had no opinion.) When
asked how they felt about an Iran- style deal that traded an alternate
benefit for giving up electricity subsidy, 51 percent either supported or
did not oppose the idea.
Further, only a minority of citizens, albeit a significant minority—42
percent of respondents— maintained that they were entitled to subsi-
dized electricity, as academic theory holds.^44 This suggests that the
academic understanding of the social contract may be off base. The
results weren’t categorical. A significant minority of around a third of
respondents remained opposed to higher prices no matter how I phrased
the question. For Gulf citizens, then, the door to subsidy reform was
partly open.
In a second survey, I asked energy experts, policy makers, and
academics about the prospects for subsidy reform. I selected all
participants— seventy- six in total— because their expertise included
knowledge of Gulf energy issues. This survey produced entirely dif-
ferent results. For the experts, the door to reform was all but closed.
Their responses showed that they had done their homework— by
reading the scholarly literature. Experts expected citizens to be over-
whelmingly opposed to higher prices, and 80 percent of experts (61