Traditions of protest, institutional sectarianism, and oil rentierism in authoritarian Bahrain -

Abstract

Bahrain stands apart from neighboring Arab monarchs who have used oil resources to build patronage systems to a wide, cross-cutting coalition of social actors that prevent mass opposition movements from forming. This paper explains why Bahrain has a narrow social base and provides a theoretically guided explanation for Bahrain's exceptional tradition of protest, leading from the 19th century to the Arab Spring. During the state building process Bahrain's Al Khalifa regime is constrained by pre-oil institutional sectarianism, populist politics, but the absence of a economically significant opposition movement at the moment when foreign oil revenues begin to accrue directly to the regime means it is free to choose authoritarianism. Through a series of critical junctures in Bahrain's history, protests and repression put Bahrain on the path of despotic repression, and a theoretically unexpected outcome. Yet the regime survives owing to both foreign economic and defense relationships which make the regime highly durable.