States and Social Hierarchies in Kuwait and the Arab Gulf Region

How do regimes instrumentalize ascriptive identity to maintain political power? In this paper, I document, analyze, and seek to explain patterns of elite continuity in Kuwait. To do this, I establish the pre-oil wealth and "rootedness" of Kuwaiti families and connect this status to post-oil measures of social prestige. Next, I analyze survey data from 13,000 respondents from across the region to show that local "rootedness" positively impacts the ability of Arab Gulf nationals to obtain services from their governments. Taken together, my evidence suggests that ascriptive identity associated with one's historical family lineage impacts economic, political, and social outcomes for citizens in ways that maintain historical rank hierarchies.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Lisa Blaydes is Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak's Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018).

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