THE POLITICS OF REFORM159accompanying repression.^45 Otherwise, benefit cuts and taxes risk “alien-
ating large portions of their populations who have come to expect
extensive welfare state benefits as their right as citizens.”^46 The retrac-
tions mean “the future of their political systems could be called into
question.”^47
Rather than weakening political systems, I argue that retracting
unsustainable benefits— potentially destabilizing in the short run— is
necessary to streamline and strengthen political structures. Since higher
prices make oil products less attractive to domestic consumers, price
reforms should comprise a key policy tool for avoiding the export death
spiral depicted in the previous chapters. Fuel and electricity prices
remained below those in the United States, a useful proxy for interna-
tional pricing (see figures 9.4 and 9.5). Since energy demand is inelastic,
it takes a large price increase to budge consumption, particularly on
transportation fuels. Moving the needle will require a sustained assault
on Gulf sensibilities. As the economist Partha Dasgupta argues, it takes
a “big push” to escape path dependence.^48
Even so, the accomplishments of Gulf reforms should not be under-
estimated. The history chronicled in this book shows how energy policy
makers have overcome strong social and political barriers, taking away
a long- held benefit deemed a central pillar of public support for ruling
families. Gulf regimes recognize that they must end their use of cheap
energy as a governance tool.
As subsidies are rolled back, regimes may resolve the contradictions
between the Gulf ’s economic and political systems, so that domestic
energy policy no longer works at cross purposes to exports. Citizens can
still expect a generous social safety net in exchange for their support for
the regime— as long as the world still needs oil and gas and as long as
the Gulf monarchies remain major suppliers.