Steal, spend or hoard? Explaining authoritarian distribution in Kuwait in the 1940s and 1950s

When Kuwait received its first oil export revenues in 1946, its regime expeditiously built a comprehensive welfare state. Not all authoritarian regimes are as generous, and a recent literature has emerged that seeks to explain when and why authoritarian regimes distribute their revenues. For the most part, the existing literature, on Kuwait and authoritarian regimes generally, focuses on conflicts between the regime and groups in society. I argue that conflicts within the regime itself, among the leading members of the ruling family, had a crucial role in driving the construction of the welfare state in Kuwait in the 1940s and 1950s. Control of the state was divided among members of the ruling family who competed for wealth, power and a chance to become the next ruler. This gave members of the ruling family an incentive to spend Kuwait’s new oil wealth through their state departments, fuelling the construction of a generous welfare state.