The post for this week will be shorter given that the UAE never experienced a military regime or a personalist rule. I decided to update the post following our class discussion and new insights I gained.
The UAE is a federation of seven monarchies, consisting of the emirates of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. The political system of the UAE was covered in my last post, which is why this post will focus on the hereditary aspect of the leadership in the emirates.
As mentioned previously, the constitution establishes that the president is elected by the Federal Supreme Council for a term of five years. However, since the UAE’s independence in 1971, only two presidents were (repeatedly) elected: first, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan who served until his death in 2004 and then his son, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who took office a day after his father passed away. Thus, de-facto, the UAE is led by the emir of Abu Dhabi and has elements of hereditary succession.
Jason Brownlee[1] identifies three conditions for hereditary succession (p. 597):
- Transfer of highest governing authority from father to son
- Preparation or initiation of power transfer before the ruler dies
- Absence of formal democratic procedures or legal stipulation of familial rule (such as traditional monarchies)
Clearly, the UAE does not perfectly fulfill these three conditions. There was not an official transfer of authority from father to son; rather the President’s son was elected. We can assume that the father did prepare his son for the initiation of power, as they knew for sure that the son will become the leader of the emirate. Thus, this can be viewed as merely an indirect preparation for the role as president, though the son is still prepared for leading the Emirate, if not all seven Emirates.
What remains open (and interesting) is why the Federal Supreme Council elects the same president (or his son) over and over again. One “easy” answer is simply that Abu Dhabi is the largest and the wealthiest of the seven emirates. Therefore, given this reality, electing the emir from Abu Dhabi may lead to a reduction of uncertainty and contributes to a consensus (p.597).
In addition, Brownlee notes that this hereditary succession is not simply dependent on the will of the incumbent leader, but also on the reception of this succession by other elites or potential successors. Again, while the case of the UAE is unique and does not perfectly fit into this framework, it does support the aspect that elites have to be receptive to a certain form of succession. In the UAE this is seen through the repeated election of the emir of Abu Dhabi to the seat of the President. Theoretically, the six other Emirs could form a coalition against the leader of the UAE and agree on electing another Emir, though I did not find any evidence suggesting such an attempt in the past. Therefore, I conclude that the UAE has not experienced a personalist regime in the manner we discussed in class, but rather shares some elements with such regimes.
[1] Brownlee, Jason (2007). Hereditary Succession in Modern Autocracies. World Politics 59(4): pp. 595-628.
Manhattan of the Middle East 