Contagious
“The Gulf is the one part of the world where kleptocracy is not just legal, but positively encouraged. It’s no wonder politicians flock there, though it would be nice if they didn’t.”
You can take the kleptocratic people out of the Gulf, but you apparently can't take the kleptocratic Gulf out of the people.
This is especially true among those who STEAL from their workers and rob them BLIND!
"If, for example, you live in a nation in which corruption is open and rampant, you might not be much agitated when you learn that your neighbors cheat on their taxes":
https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/78/were-not-so-special
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"Historically speaking, royal dynasties have been especially prone to inbreeding, as family members aren't terribly interested in sharing their ridiculous amounts of wealth and power with outsiders":
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"Too often, international efforts have inadvertently served elite interests at the expense of overall stability. The unintended consequences of this approach have become increasingly clear in the form of entrenched authoritarianism and increased protests. It is time to consider a new path forward."
"How Simmering Frustrations Linger"
"Calls against corruption have become a familiar refrain in public squares across the Middle East. Economic tensions have united strange bedfellows, as people from lower-income communities—whether Sunni or Shia, Christian or Muslim—increasingly realize they have more in common with each other than with the elite classes of their own ethnic groups or religious sects..."
"Emerging solidarity among previously competing groups, grounded in this economic climate, threatens to undermine the divide-and-rule approach that regimes throughout the Middle East have used to maintain control for decades. These regimes have developed time-tested toolkits for dealing with populaces divided along ethnic, national, and religious lines. But they are far less used to facing publics united by economic class..."
"The growth and profits that have accompanied economic liberalization have disproportionately benefited elites. The World Inequality Database ranks the Middle East as the most unequal region in the world. Furthermore, the database indicates that, while it has decreased worldwide since the 1990s, economic inequality has remained constant in the Middle East":
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"Political sectarianism had two sides. On the one hand it allowed disparate groups to come together by providing the Lebanese people with the framework to devise a
social contract. On the other hand, power sharing almost necessarily introduced a corrosive machinery for the distribution of spoils. This allowed corruption to become an accepted form of political behavior relatively quickly; over time, it translated into state inefficiency and the paralysis of decisionmaking":
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"None of the leaders (with the partial exception of Kuwait) has to face an elected parliament with real powers, or a free press. Strong lobbies on foreign-policy issues do not exist; public opinion is a minimal constraint..."
"While Washington talks a good game about democracy in the Middle East, and even inclined that way a bit during the Arab Spring, the bottom line is that the United States values the stability of authoritarian Middle East allies more than the risky outcomes of democratic experiments in the region."
"...when things get really serious, the Gulf monarchical regimes tend to hang together, for fear that if they do not, they will all hang separately..."
"The Gulf states are basically illiberal and authoritarian":
https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/36/understanding-the-gulf-states
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/gulf-states