Comparable Differentials, Distinct Architectures. Parliamentary Mediation, Emiri Concentration, and The Citizenship Differential in Kuwait and Qatar.

Abstract

Kuwait and Qatar allocate to their citizens similar income entitlement over non-citizens; however, they constitute it in different ways. This thesis examines that entitlement, which it conceptualizes it as the citizenship differential, across two closely paired, resource-dependent Gulf monarchies distinguished by one institutional variable, given that Kuwait maintained an active elected Assembly during the period studied, while Qatar did not. Disaggregating official household survey data through five distinct channels (employment, asset income, government transfers, subsidies and legal restrictions on non-citizens), using four Kuwaiti survey waves (1999/2000 – 2019/2021) and one Qatari survey for 2006/07, the analysis inclusive of imputed rent yields disparities of 2.72 times in Qatar and 2.91 times in Kuwait. Qatar’s differential is driven from state transfers and subsidies and Kuwait’s stems from employment. Therefore, their near-identical totals are the product of arithmetic cancellation rather than a shared institutional design. Meanwhile, non-citizens across both jurisdictions converge on the same floor due to the kafāla system. Due to Qatar’s limited data disclosure constituted of only one survey, the comparison rests on the two closest survey waves. This study advances a channel-by-channel disaggregation of the income gap, while extending existing institutional frameworks of welfare stratification from class cleavages to the divide between citizens and expatriates.