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sed world attention on the region s economies in a new light no longer are these countries viewed solely as quiet and unobtrusive exporters of oil and gas increasingly they are seen as investment destinations where audacious giga projects manifest as tax free escapes and as places that harbour global brands such as al jazeera and places that host global events such as the fifa world cup and the 2020 world expo in 2030 saudi arabia is penciled in to host expo 2030 and then in 2034 the fifa world cup further in the international political economy arena several gulf countries are seeking to become global players be it qatar s ever patient and pivotal role as a place for international powers to coalesce and seek to alter interactable geopolitical issues e g palestine or saudi arabia and the uae s more bellicose and interventionist foreign policy stances with major infrastructural projects well underway a booming tourism sector and several financial and transportation hubs with pretentions to become global firsts the region can no longer be considered as it once was by some either as a bastion of reactionary conservative procrastination or as being determined solely by a collective rentier mentality dubai was not even on the 1965 map shown below but come the 2016 dk atlas map it was the only middle east and north african mena country to be granted the privilege of having a stand out city map somewhat prophetically an adverting campaign by a government owned construction company nakheel properties pasted on billboards along dubai s sheikh zayed arterial road in the early 2000s read something like dubai puts the world on the map the world puts dubai on the map indeed the world is observable on the fourth map below and these dredged islands can be seen from space as can china s great wall just like the developers in dubai had planned for them to be the world atlas 1965 expand map the arabian peninsula 1967 expand map the arabian peninsula 1969 expand map the arabian peninsula dk 2016 expand map oil s blessings the american dollar standard manufacturing the media political maps of arabia imperial interfering sectarian matters the economic and political impact of the bloc s huge sovereign wealth funds actual e g gold bullion and stakes in advanced economy companies and potential i e their vast state owned reserves of oil and gas that remain untapped under the seas of dunes and tepid gulf waters cannot be discounted either long gone are the days that the bulk of this surplus oil rent would sit idly by passively so in u k gilts or u s t bonds it is now also being used to acquire overseas assets and land be that agricultural for playing football on coming with mines and mining rights or that suited to building and operating containership ports on and underwrite if not outright fund some of the gulf s most eye catching giga projects on a per national capita basis the region harbours the largest swfs globally see arabian gulf data add to that swf capital the aforementioned economically extractable proven reserves of oil and gas which according to current production to reserve ratios mean that there ll be oil and gas on tap for several generations to come and the gulf s sovereign wealth is considerably more astronomical than suggested by organisations that amass and rank such metrics on a country by country basis it may very well be argued that qataris are by far and away the richest in per capita ppp gdp terms globally most if not all international rankings institutions do not delineate between nationals i e qataris and the country s large pool of temporary guest workers i e non nationals when compiling their annual league tables based on imf datasets masking just how rich qatari nationals actually are measured this way emiratis and then kuwaiti citizens are in second and third places globally three of the six countries kuwait qatar and the uae have significant per national capita revenues from oil and gas and have some of the world s highest per capita incomes especially so when non national labour is factored out of utility when assessing relative national sovereign wealth endowments bahrain and oman have very limited hydrocarbon reserves in comparison indeed for years now bahrain has been largely reliant on the benevolence of saudi arabia a generosity driven by saudi geo strategic concerns bahrain produced around 200 000 barrels of oil per day in 2024 and for oman production was around 1 000 000 barrels per day saudi arabia is something of an outlier it does not fit well with the first three or the second two while saudi arabia has by far the largest easily extractable oil reserves globally over 17 per cent of the world s total and is the biggest exporter of oil in the world by quite some margin ten million plus barrels per day it has a far larger citizenry distributed across a far large land mass with which to distribute this resource wealth amongst all that being said the six countries alongside their shared traditions culture language and confession 2 are nevertheless very much defined by oil and the ways in which imperial powers facilitated promoted and have long sought to influence the extraction and exportation of hydrocarbons see shadow wars and control and direct the oil rent that the gulf generates and despite the differences in terms landmass national populations and per national capita resource wealth see arabian gulf data all six countries have a similar social contract generally referred to as the region s ruling bargain which remains stubbornly intractable despite the growing acceptance that it has and is adversely impacting on labour market productivity and sustainable economic diversification the six arabian gulf countries country profiles allocating oil rent resource wealth matters the arabian gulf social contract arabian gulf sovereign wealth arabian gulf datasets consultancy academic services to academia are twofold first support can be given with the design management of credit bearing university courses focused on the arabian gulf courses can be tailored to both undergraduate e g introductory ones focusing on the economies of the arabian gulf in the global context and postgraduate studies i e mbas and dbas where the focus tends to be on research methods ethics and academic document production skills the second form of assistance offered is with academic writing itself this entails the editing and proof reading of documents in their pre publication stages analytical research insight on the arabian gulf s economic diversification strategies the region s labour market dynamics and the political economy ramifications of resource wealth and oil rent allocation previous clients include country profiles bahrain the kingdom of bahrain is an island country situated on the persian gulf and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands centered on bahrain island which makes up around 83 per cent of the country s landmass bahrain is situated between qatar and the northeastern coast of saudi arabia to which it is connected by the king fahd causeway 3 map of the bahrain s 1 58 million population in 2024 727 000 were bahraini nationals less than half some 46 per cent according to the eiu s democracy index bahrain s ranking is 139 th from 167 economies and thus bahrain is placed within the authoritarian regime category read more on bahrain kuwait kuwait is situated in the northern edge of the arabian peninsula at the tip of the persian gulf bordering iraq to the north and saudi arabia to the south with a coastline of approximately 311 miles kuwait also shares a maritime border with iran map most of kuwait s population reside in the urban agglomeration of kuwait city the capital city as of 2024 had a population of 4 91 million of which 1 54 million were kuwaiti citizens the remaining 3 36 million were foreign nationals from a multitude of countries the economist intelligence unit s 2023 democracy index ranks kuwait 114th out of 167 countries and territories a worsening of three places compared with the 2022 index eiu 2024 according to the uk think tank kuwait s score has deteriorated to 3 50 out of 10 from 3 83 in 2022 driven primarily by a sharp fall in the political participation score kuwait then is categorised as an authoritarian regime as are all other of its arabian gulf neighbours that being said the eiu do state that kuwait has a more open polity than most of its fellow gcc states and ranks the highest among them as a result read more on kuwait oman the sultanate of oman is on the southeastern coast of the arabian peninsula it shares land borders with saudi arabia the united arab emirates and yemen the coast faces the arabian sea on the southeast and the gulf of oman on the northeast it has a number of smallish exclaves within the united arab emirate s land borders the capital and largest city is muscat map of oman s total population of 5 2 million just over half are omani citizens 2 9 million 57 per cent oman s overall score in eiu s 2023 democracy index was 3 12 out of ten in 2023 ranking it 119 th out of 167 economies oman s score remains around the median for gcc countries below qatar s and kuwait s but above those of the uae bahrain and saudi arabia the eiu classify it as remains classified as an authoritarian read more on oman qatar qatar is a peninsula on the northeastern coast of the arabian peninsula it shares its sole land border with saudi arabia to the south the capital is doha home to over 80 per cent of the country s inhabitants qatar has one of the highest levels of gdp per head in the world and the highest in the gcc map the population of qatar was 2 8 million in early 2025 although only 348 000 of these individuals are qatari analysts note that qataris are provided with a wide range of social welfare benefits by the government including free healthcare education and subsidised housing and suggest that because if this qataris nationals seem on the whole to be content despite having little influence over politics due to the generosity of the ruling elites social welfare benefits in this small country are incredibly generous by any metric read more on qatar saudi arabia the kingdom of saudi arabia covers the bulk of the arabian peninsula and has a land area of about 830 000 sq miles making it the largest country in the middle east it is bordered by the red sea to the west jordan iraq and kuwait to the north the arabian or persian gulf bahrain qatar and the united arab emirates to the east oman to the southeast and yemen to the south map with a population of almost 32 2 million as of 2025 saudi arabia is the fourth most populous country in the arab world yet there are actually only 18 8 million saudis amongst this number according to the eiu 2024 saudi arabia is ranked 150 th out of 167 countries and territories on its democracy index and is thus categorised as an authoritarian state by the london based think tank read more on saudi arabia the united arab emirates the united arab emirates the uae or simply the emirates is at the eastern end of the arabian peninsula it is a federal elective monarchy made up of seven emirates with abu dhabi serving as its capital the seven emirates are abu dhabi dubai sharjah ajman umm al quwain ras al khaimah and fujairah the uae shares land borders with oman to the east and northeast and with saudi arabia to the southwest as well as maritime borders in the persian gulf with qatar and iran and with oman in the gulf of oman map as of 2025 the uae had an estimated population of 12 2 million of which just one million were emiratis thus less than one in ten individuals in the uae have claims to the country s sovereign wealth according to the eiu 2024 strong international oil prices have enabled the government of the uae to continue to invest heavily in improving infrastructure and maintaining targeted social support housing and employment assistance and other benefits in general a high level of income per head and redistribution of funds between abu dhabi and less wealthy emirates in the uae mean that there are fewer social strains or demands for democratisation than in poorer countries with comparable authoritarian political systems in the eiu s annual democracy index the uae was placed firmly in the authoritarian category ranked 125 th out of 167 countries and territories read more on the uae endnotes 1 back the arabian gulf and persian gulf refer to the same body of water located between the arabian peninsula and iran but the term persian gulf is considered the historically recognised name regarding the politics of names british readers may prefer the yemen and american readers may be more familiar with the term persian gulf for they ve the gulf of mexico indeed the persian gulf is the name some will insist upon using no judgement is here made by the continued use of arabian gulf when referring to the said six countries and to assuage any that may take umbrage i recommend you allow your mind s eye to read persian gulf each time you see arabian gulf not that this will necessarily suffice as consolation but i myself do the same each time for instance i see in print mankind i voice it in my head as humankind the issue with naming the gulf is commonly covered in the outset of books that focus on the region in the gulf states a modern history david commins writes that naming the body of water between iran and arabia is rooted in convention rather than nature it does happen to be the case that ancient greek mariners early muslim cartographers and 15 th century portuguese explorers all referred to it as the persian gulf and only in the 1950s with the rise of arab nationalism did the term arabian gulf take root and gain some popular currency my rationale is twofold first the word arabian comes most naturally to me arabic is the language i studied as an undergraduate in both london and alexandria secondly the native tongue in all six gcc countries the geographic area of my academic research interest is arabic in all instances be it in manama muscat abu dhabi or dubai it was always referred to in meetings and at conferences that i attended as al khaleej al arabi the arabian gulf countries are often lumped together and painted as archetypal rentier states that are resource rich and labour poor the contention that oil is a curse for the economies that were not diversified prior to its commercial extraction is at first pass an immutable truism but one that on second pass is only valid accept for when it is not see e g conca 2013 rosser 2006 it would be fair to say that the jury is still out but as was argued in a 2017 paper entitled oil rent the rentier state resource curse narrative and the gcc countries oil rent has massively benefitted the citizenries of the arabian gulf in social welfare terms a number of additional factors should also be considered in this regard not least the ways in which imperial powers have long inter...