The Resilience of Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait Parliament, Rentierism, and Society

The first English language political history of Kuwaiti parliament, this book provides an unprecedented holistic treatment of grassroots contemporary Kuwaiti politics in English in over two decades, incorporating the country's political dynamics into broader debates about the limits of authoritarianism and the practice of democracy in the Arab world, particularly in oil-wealthy states. Author Courtney Freer uses the lens of parliamentary elections as a means of understanding the political ideologies that have dominated in Kuwait since independence. As such, it situates the dynamics of Kuwaiti politics within broader political science debates about whether democratic institutions in "hybrid regimes" are meaningful arenas for popular contestation or only serve to enhance autocratic rule.

Given the varying portrayals of Kuwait as robust authoritarianism, "upgraded" authoritarianism, or a noteworthy site of democratic participation, The Resilience of Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait: Parliament, Rentierism, and Society focuses on the ideologies that have mobilized political blocs, rather than solely focusing on the institutions of political power themselves. Freer includes extensive fieldwork and the use of Arabic and English primary sources to assess and examine the institutional setting that Kuwait presents and traces the dominant ideological strands in the country, considering the comparative mobilizational potential of ascriptive identities like tribe and sect.

Courtney Freer is Visiting Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Emory University. She previously served as Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Courtney's work focuses on domestic politics and foreign policies of the Gulf states and the interplay of Islam and politics more broadly. She is the author of Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies (OUP, 2018) and co-author with Alanoud Alsharekh of Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf: State-Building and National Identity in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE (IB Tauris 2021).