THE TIMES KUWAIT REPORT
Kuwait has a relatively long history of democratic traditions, including consultative governments and participatory politics. The country’s egalitarian leanings could be traced back to the 1930s when a reform movement swept through Kuwait and resulted in the first legislative council being formed in 1938. Shortly after independence from Great Britain in 1961, the then ruler and first Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah adopted a constitution, established the National Assembly and ordered the first general elections in 1963.
Six decades of constitutionalism, where the government’s authority is derived, defined and determined by the constitution, has helped uphold a balance of power between relevant groups within Kuwait’s polity. It has also ensured a measure of non-interference in individual rights by establishing protections through separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, overseen by a constitution. The country’s written constitution, which is often regarded as the embodiment of the collective spirit of the nation, has remained inviolable, at least so far.
Proponents of democracy say Kuwait’s political and economic development, cultural and literary heritage, as well as ethnic and religious diversity owes much to the country’s democratic underpinnings, including its choice of constitutionalism and parliamentary style of governance. Detractors point out that these same democratic choices, in particular the parliamentary form of government, account for many of the shortcomings and backsliding that the country has witnessed over the years in its social, political and economic spheres.
The social and political diversity that prevails in Kuwait is in sharp contrast to the monolithic nature of the economy, where state-owned hydrocarbon resources account for nearly 90 percent of total exports and two-third of total fiscal revenues, as well as around half the country’s GDP.
Moreover, with more than three-quarter of the national labor force employed in the government sector, the economy is overwhelmingly dominated by the state.
This statist development model is also at the core of the structural imbalance that exists in the country’s economy. Recurring five-year national development plans outlined by the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (SPCD) have acknowledged that the economy faces two main structural imbalances.
The first one lies in the preponderance of the oil sector which overshadows developments in other sectors; and the second is related to the overwhelming dominance of the public sector, which discourages innovation, entrepreneurship and growth of the private sector.
In addition to the above two imbalances, there is also a significant segmentation in the labor market, with nationals accounting for over 80 percent of workers in the public sector and less than four percent in the private sector. The presence of a large expatriate population to fill jobs in the private sector has also resulted in a demographic imbalance, where every three in four of the population is a foreigner.
Aware of the economic and demographic shortcomings the government has often attempted to introduce meaningful economic, financial and administrative reforms, especially during times of low oil prices when its revenues are constrained. However, these efforts have been thwarted and stonewalled in parliament by an opposition that considers any reforms that touch the pockets of citizens a redline that no government would be allowed to cross. Unfortunately, on those occasions when oil prices surge and the state treasury overflows, the government and opposition appear to find common ground in maintaining the statist status quo and funding the welfare state.
The adoption of a democratic style of governance, along with the institution of a welfare state from the accruing oil wealth, has had both up- and down-sides to it. The welfare state that evolved from the time of Kuwait’s independence has provided citizens with cradle-to-grave shielding that ensures they receive free healthcare, education, housing, assured employment and social protection. Abundant oil revenues and the welfare state have combined to create a rentier state and imbued the same rentier mentality among many nationals. Generations of citizens have come to regard state largesse as their entitlement by virtue of nothing more than their birth as Kuwaitis.
Increase in size of the national population, fickleness of global oil prices, and consequently the roller-coaster ride in the state’s revenues, have over the decades led to a situation where the welfare state is increasingly becoming unsustainable. While the rentier model of economy and state subsidies had allowed most nationals to pursue a relatively luxurious modern lifestyle, it also generated indifference and lassitude in society, as well as a deep, vested interest in retaining the status quo.
The 18th-century French political philosopher Montesquieu once noted that ‘if a republic is small , it is destroyed by foreign force; if it is large, it is destroyed by internal imperfection’. Kuwait, a small democracy has survived attempts to subjugate it in 1990 by the Iraqi forces, and even earlier by other factions in the neighborhood. But now it faces the dilemma that Montesquieu attributed to large democracies, internal imperfections in its democratic choices.
In Kuwait, we have all the trappings of a democracy, from universal suffrage, a quadrennial election exercise, an iconic parliament building that flaunts the country’s democratic credentials, and a relatively unfettered media space that ensures, to a limited extent, freedom of expression. The country also has a contentious parliament that vigilantly monitors, evaluates and censors the government over its functioning and nonfunctioning. And, elected lawmakers have the constitutionally guaranteed right to challenge the executive through grilling and no-confidence motions that could potentially bring down the government.
So yes, for all intents and purposes Kuwait can be considered a functioning democracy with all its democratic accouterments in place. But a functioning democracy on its own is not an indicator of a flourishing democracy, where citizens embrace all of the democratic values and principles, as well as accept the rights and responsibilities that come with democracy.
Democracy is a universally recognized ideal; it is yearned for by those that are denied it, misused by many who have it, and held up with pride by the few that truly embrace it. Democracy is also one of the core values and principles of the United Nations, as it provides an environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights for all. In 2015, the UN General Assembly envisioned 17 integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that call for action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.
Goal 16 of the SDG calls for ‘Peace, Justice and strong institutions’, with many of the targets of this goal being geared to protect and strengthen democratic institutions, including reducing corruption and bribery; developing accountable and transparent institutions; urging inclusive and representative decision-making at all levels; and ensuring protection of fundamental freedoms. It also calls for promoting the rule of law and ensuring equal access to justice for all.
In Kuwait, we never tire of telling others that we are a nation of laws. While this is true to a large extent, it is in the application of these laws universally and equally among citizens and residents that a wide chasm exists. Ask any foreign worker who has had the misfortune to get into a dispute with a citizen, whether it is a traffic infraction, a rent disagreement with a landlord, a work issue with the sponsor, or any of the myriad problems that end up in contention between a national and a foreigner. The final outcomes usually speak for themselves. An important caveat to be added here is that how the law is applied also depends to an extent on the nationality, religious affiliation, or even the color of the skin of the foreigner.
The deep discrimination and prejudices that prevail in all aspects of interaction involving citizens and foreigners, as well as among various sections of citizens themselves, is indicative that despite the passage of six decades of democracy, a truly democratic spirit has not yet percolated down among the citizenry. Perhaps this explains Kuwait’s consistently mediocre ratings in numerous global studies that assess democratic traditions in a country. This is also a pointer to why ‘democratic’ Kuwait fares no better than its peers among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states who largely have very few democratic credentials to their name.
In its assessment of democracy around the world in 2020, the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, a highly respected independent research institute affiliated to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, found Kuwait to rank relatively low in all the indices used to measure prevailing democratic traditions. The V-Dem Institute, which is funded by the World Bank, several government organizations and research institutions, bases its assessment on five indices that correspond to each of the five high-level principles of democracy it identifies — electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian democracy.
The first measures whether elections are free and fair, and assesses the presence of a free and independent media. The second rates the rule of law, prevailing checks and balances and civil liberties. The third measures the degree to which citizens participate in their government through local democratic institutions, civil society organizations, and direct democracy. The fourth assesses the degree to which decisions are made in the best interest of the people, and not due to coercion or narrow interest groups. The fifth measures the level of equal access to resources, power, and freedoms across various groups within a society.
In 2020, Kuwait scored a relatively low 0.317; 0.288; 0.1; 0.275; 0.246 respectively for each of the five indices to obtain an average aggregate of 0.245 out of a possible 1. By contrast, Denmark that figured top on the list in 2020 had a scoring of 0.91; 0.878; 0.696; 0.869; and 0.87 respectively for the five indices, with an average aggregate of 0.845. The one possible consolation for Kuwait in regard to this relatively low ranking is that it ranked higher than its other five peers in the GCC bloc.
A year from the V-Dem report, Kuwait fared no better than its other GCC siblings in the 2021 Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research division of the UK-based Economist Group. The Democracy Index, which measures the state of democracy in 167 countries, is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories that measure pluralism, civil liberties and political culture. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes each country into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes.
Sadly, Kuwait along with other GCC states fall in the authoritarian regime group, which is characterized by absolute monarchies or dictatorships that may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with only meager significance. Again, the only redeeming point for Kuwait is that it ranked on top of other GCC states with its 110th global spot. Other GCC states that ranked lower respectively were Qatar (114); Oman (130); the UAE (134); Bahrain (144); and Saudi Arabia (152).
If yet another assessment of Kuwait’s poor democratic rankings was needed, it came from the Freedom in the World index, which is an annual survey and report by the US-based non-governmental organization Freedom House. The Freedom in the World index, which measures the degree of civil liberties and political rights globally, produces scores on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free) based on a points system that goes from 0 to 100. Depending on these ratings, the nations are then classified as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free.
In the 2021 Freedom in the World index Kuwait was characterized as ‘Partly Free’ scoring 5 respectively for its civil liberties and political rights, and receiving 37 points out of a possible 100. Other GCC countries fared even lower and were considered in the ‘Not Free’ category, including Qatar that received 25 points, Oman (23), the UAE (17); Bahrain (12) and Saudi Arabia (7).
In its foreword to the 2021 report, Freedom House notes that today the word democracy has been applied, rightly or wrongly, to states of all types, including by the ‘Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea’. And, in a December 2021 joint op-ed by the Russian and Chinese ambassadors to the United States, both countries referred to themselves as ‘democratic’.
Democracy means more than just having a parliament, periodic election exercises or ensuring majority rule. Ideally, democracy is a governing system based on the will and consent of the governed; has institutions that are transparent and accountable to all citizens; adheres to the rule of law, and ensures respect for human rights. The ideal democracy also calls for an openness to alternations in power, with rival candidates or parties competing fairly, and when gaining power, governing for the good of everyone in the country, not just themselves, or those who voted for them, or to further their parochial interests. In a consummate democracy there is a level playing field so that all people, no matter the circumstances of their birth or background, can enjoy the universal human rights to which they are entitled and participate in politics and governance.
But democracy is also more than just an ideal; it also involves an ongoing process of self-correction and incremental improvements to its functioning, and empowers and encourages people to constantly and peacefully strive towards bettering the democratic experience. This unique and inherent capacity for self-correction is what makes democracy so successful at delivering long-term stability and prosperity for its people. Kuwait can take consolation in the fact that there is no country in the world which is a perfect, ideal democracy.