Fig 1.22: Dubai twisted tower (Cayan Tower) in Dubai Marina. Developed by Cayan Group (KSA) and built by the contractor Arabtec. Photos taken from different angles.
(Source: Oula Aoun)
2.5 Public-private syncretism and ‘zero politics’
Two central elements mark the governance system in Dubai: a public and private syncretism and a total flattening of political space.
In Dubai, we pass from public managerialism to public-private entrepreneurialism. The question is not even about the poor performance of the former and the need for better management culture, as is often suggested by those who criticize the public sector; it is one that goes to the very relevance of the concept of public-private separation.
15 Projects where foreigners are allowed to buy properties.
Indeed, if the ultimate goal is a performance that would ensure growth and wealth, the same strategy and action plan should be adopted in both public action and private action.
This logic is the core of the Dubai system, although it is in many ways the opposite of the neoliberalism that seeks to free the market from state intervention.
This public-private entrepreneurialism finds its most perfect expression in Dubai. The vast majority of public services are privatized. In giant holding companies, including nearly 200 different companies that together account for the majority of service providers, the state is a partner and the Maktoum family and its local allies hold the majority of these companies.
These holdings are managed as private companies. The state does not subsidize them.
However, they can count on important interpersonal networks that link them and their leaders with leading government officials. This represents huge social capital that supports their development of activities at local and international levels (Schmid, 2009).
Even if practices of good managerial governance are highlighted to emphasize that these holdings operate in accordance with international standards and practices, the system of holding companies as it functions in Dubai cannot be dissociated from the Maktoums and the personal vision of the Sheikh for his city. In fact, the Maktoums personally hold all companies that are strategic for the development of Dubai, including Emirates Airlines, the port of Jebel Ali, Burj Al Arab, etc. – and most importantly, the land.
On the other hand it is in the office of the Sheikh that the strategic orientation of development in all sectors is defined, to be later formalized and expanded by the staff and the consultants of the relevant companies and holdings. In this decision-making system, every strategic decision is the responsibility of the Sheikh and his restricted circle of allies and consultants.
The Dubai system is indeed a zero politics system. In 1930, a protonationalist movement of merchants, mainly Arab, who were affected by the pearl trade collapse, called for a modernization of society in which citizens would have greater role and the ruler would not have a monopoly over state resources and political decisions (Al-Sayegh, 1998).
In 1950, again, a reformist movement inspired by the wider anticolonialism in the Arab world tried to challenge the ruler, and proposed a more participatory citizenship. With
the oil wealth of the 1970s, the ruler was able to co-opt the reformists of the day and rebuild a new definition for nationalism.
Moreover, the British, at that time the ‘protectors’ of the city, preferred a stability ensured by the Maktoums’ absolutism (Davidson, 2005). Since then, the flattening of the political space has been maintained by other means. As shown by Kanna (2011), those who wield power and their allies, upholding the ‘wisdom of the market’ and the entrepreneurial culture, have succeeded in implementing a practice that consolidates a specific citizenship culture.
The negotiation and exchange space would become the economic one and not the political one. This has been done through a subtle forging of the identity of the citizens in Dubai and of the status of all who reside in this city. It is about a balance between an aspiration to enrichment for all and a paternalistic governance by the Maktoums (Kanna, 2011), within a context of fear for the fragility of a system that only the Maktoums are represented as capable of protecting (Smith, 2010).
UMPs a reflection of specific governance
Despite the seeming proliferation of actors, the key and decisive ones are all close to or even controlled by the government, or in other words, by the Sheikh. These government-controlled developers have the role of defining the character and main uses of the city parts, and the relatively fewer private developers seem to follow the trend with their relatively less ambitious megaprojects.
The weak role of the municipality, as a regulatory and control body, doesn’t necessary indicate an absence of governmental involvement, since the other less classical authorities (TECOM, JAFZA, and others) that control a major part of the city development are themselves directly controlled by the government that is as well managed and directed by the Sheikh.
Analysing the political dimension surrounding Dubai’s UMPs, and more particularly the way the power and the land are distributed among the main developers closely related to
the government and to the Sheikh, helps to clarify the status of UMPs within this political structure. Distributing the land to the main developers in order to implement UMPs allows the Sheikh to confer power on the main urban actors while continuing to exercise control over the city’s various parts.
The multitude of free zones, and more particularly of UMPs developed as free zones characterized by their own legal regulatory framework, is also expressive of the existence of fragmented areas of power. However, through these differentiated urban logics, UMPs can be seen as the means by which the city is managed, and by which the Sheikh allocates territory among the different players while fostering a situation where the overlapping of prerogatives and authorities may frequently occur.