60FROM ENERGY POVERTY TO ENERGY EXTREMISMOnce again, importing countries scrambled to unwind their oil
dependence, and unprecedented sums flooded the treasuries of oil-
producing countries. These rents were the crucial factor that ensured the
survival of the Gulf ’s tribal forms of governance.^24 Rents bankrolled the
creation of the welfare state and the bureaucracy, paying for govern-
ment jobs and welfare benefits that kept citizens loyal to their ruling
sheikhs. In the most basic sense, rents turned public support into poli-
tical stability. Crucially, oil rents colored policy makers’ understanding
of domestic energy. With a few strategic investments, ruling elites saw
they could convert surplus energy into a tool for political control. So
when international oil prices reached historic highs in 1979, prices in the
Gulf did not budge. Paying through the nose for energy was considered
a burden for importing countries, not for producers.
Besides placating the population, cheap energy was useful in attract-
ing foreign investment and ramping up national development.^25 In the
Gulf, ruling sheikhs used cheap energy to incubate domestic industry,
to convince foreign businesses to open local franchises, and to lure in
skilled expatriates who could operate new commercial sectors. All would
receive cheap or free electricity and fuel.
RENTIER THEORYAs it became clear that khaleejis were not agitating for elections, schol-
ars recognized that modernization theory would not help explain the
region’s stubborn lack of democracy and started looking for alterna-
tive theories to understand and explain the region’s curious form of
development.
One popular explanation at the time for why the Middle East remained
a bastion of autocracy was that “political culture” was to blame. Politi-
cal culture theories held that Arab states were hopelessly prone to autoc-
racy because of patrimonial or “morally obtuse” tendencies of tribalism
or Islam. Many Western scholars concluded that “immature” Arab soci-
eties simply weren’t ready for democracy.^26