The Merchant Elite and Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait

Speaker: Anastasia Nosova, LSE Chair: Courtney Freer, LSE Kuwait Programme When applied to the Gulf region in general and Kuwait more specifically, rentier state theory stipulates that the political relations between state and business are determined by rents, and therefore that business ceases to represent a strong political force and withdraws from the formal political field in exchange for wealth provided by the state. However, the evidence from Kuwait’s recent history suggests that there is great variation between the patterns of political engagement in Kuwait’s merchant families. Anastasia Nosova defines which factors explain why some merchant families engage in parliamentary politics, while others do not, and why at times the merchant community allies with the opposition, and at other times with the government. She also examines what impact this political engagement by business has on the country’s economic reform policies. Recorded on 17 January 2017. This is an LSE Kuwait Programme event.