148THE POLITICS OF REFORMIn interviews I conducted before the Arab Spring uprisings, senior
Abu Dhabi energy policy officials predicted that tariff increases would
be needed to reduce peak electricity demand growth, which had reached
16 percent per year. Previously protected UAE nationals would not be
exempt from increases.^31 One of the officials said:
The government accepts that the rate should be hiked and that con-
sumers should have the right pricing signals to help them with their
behavior. There is no sense in the government that asking Emiratis to
pay for electricity and water is verboten— just the opposite. I get the
sense that they believe that individuals should pay, and more impor-
tantly that they should get the right signals, whether expatriates or
nationals, that they should be more efficient in their consumption.
There aren’t really strong political barriers. There is some resistance.^32The official took issue with the view that citizen “rights” to cheap elec-
tricity were enshrined in a state- society social contract:
I think it is more accurate to describe it as: this is how things always
have been done. The precedent is that I’m changing electricity and water
prices, rather than any kind of formal social contract that says these
products should be free to the population. When Sheikh Zayed first set
electricity and water prices, those weren’t heavily subsidized. There was
no sense that people should be getting a free ride.... What you see is
an inattention to pricing... rather than a political commitment to free
electricity.UPDATING RENTIER THEORYIn one sheikhdom after another, Gulf citizens relinquished long- held
benefits on fuel, electricity, and water. Each of the six monarchies raised
prices on transportation fuel and on electricity and water for the com-
mercial sector. In none of these countries was there much of a fight.