The United Arab Emirates: Evolving Authoritarian Tools

Introduction The United Arab Emirates is widely known for its hydrocarbon wealth, globally focused sovereign wealth funds, high-profile ‘soft power’ investments (Nye 2004), and – post- Arab Spring – its extraordinarily intense efforts to re-shape regional politics. As such, its international relations and international political economy dynamics have attracted considerable scholarly attention. Notably, much has been written on the UAE's historical ties to Britain, its subsequent multi-faceted relationship with the United States and its increasingly formal links to Israel. Likewise, considerable attention has been paid to the UAE's unwaveringly firm stance against Iran and its perceived proxies (including Yemen's Houthi movement), its opposition to the transnational Muslim Brotherhood and its actions against putatively Islamist-enabling Qatar. Moreover, with the UAE being a high GDP per capita ‘rentier state’ with a relatively small number of citizens and a substantial expatriate workforce (Beblawi 1987), there has also been a strong focus on the nitty-gritty of its authority structures and rulers’ contemporary statecraft. Due emphasis, for example, has been placed on the increasing political dominance of Abu Dhabi (the largest and wealthiest of the UAE's constituent emirates) (Davidson 2007, 2009); the rise of Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (a.k.a. ‘MBZ’) (Roberts 2020; Juneau 2020; Davidson 2006); the ostensibly central and acquiescence-ensuring role of hydrocarbon-financed welfare and employment-based ‘social contracts’ or ‘ruling bargains’ (Lucas 2014; Krane 2019); the careful co-option of tradition and religion (Davidson 2008); and the – rather limited – range of ‘authoritarian upgrading’ efforts (Heydemann 2007; Cavatorta 2010; Hinnebusch 2012), including elections for the largely powerless Federal National Council (Burton 2019). As yet, however, comparatively little has been written on the ways in which MBZ's regime – presiding over a resource-rich and relatively technologically advanced state (with a consequently high capacity for repression) – has been developing a range of new authoritarian tools to strengthen further its position. After all, although the UAE never experienced mass protests in 2011 and has been able to avoid the sort of austerity drives seen in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in the wake of the 2014 oil price crash, MBZ has nonetheless faced sporadic calls for reform from a small but vociferous element o