The Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies held the third lecture of its monthly series on Tuesday 2 May 2023, hosting Ghanim Alnajjar, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Kuwait University, to present “The Political Economy of Land in the Gulf: Land Acquisition Policy in Kuwait”. The lecture was held at the Arab Center and moderated by researcher Abdulrahman Albaker.

Alnajjar began his lecture by stressing the importance of the land, referring to the principle he adheres to that “the land is real, while the state is imagined.” He clarified that what distinguishes this principle is the concept of sovereignty, which in itself is a relative concept. He explained that a real economy cannot be established in the state without reclaiming land capable of contributing to economic production and development. Given that the Gulf states are newly established, the issue of land and its ownership is partly linked to how state property is distributed and the role of the ruling families in that, and to the private ownership of land. This varies from one Gulf state to another and there are difficulties in collecting data on how land is used in these countries.

Alnajjar then moved on to talk about Kuwait, which, in his opinion, as one of the few countries that nationalized its lands, presents a unique case in the region. In Kuwait, 97% of the land became state property, not the property of the ruling family, so the latter could not distribute it. He traced this back to the increase in oil revenues starting from the early 1950s, when the political leadership in Kuwait at that time, represented by Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah (1895-1965) invested these profits in two channels. The first was investments, as the British persuaded Sheikh Al-Sabah to invest these funds in the UK, so the Kuwait Investment Board was established in London in 1953. This became the first sovereign wealth fund in the world, according to Alnajjar, and it has enjoyed different tax exemptions from all other parties, and it remains in this capacity.

The second channel was represented in development projects, which necessitated expropriation. Before that, land ownership was not an issue, as the land was common, and some members of the ruling family were gifting deeds to land in a process marred by corruption, especially when the land registry began. This led to the emergence of an economic-political conflict, as several members of the ruling family and merchants objected to land registration based on gift deeds. Therefore, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah issued, in 1954, a decision to nationalize state land. Therefore, the expropriation process continued until 1982.

Alnajjar’s analysis of the expropriation process showed that this process was not based on equality or justice. The state expropriates land that falls on private property to establish a project by force for public benefit. If the owner wants to file a complaint in this regard, they must resort to a grievances committee, which can at most increase the value of the land but is unable to refuse the state’s appropriation of the land. He concluded that the nationalization of lands and the policy of expropriation disrupted the possibility of establishing economic projects and became rooted in politics, in addition to the fact that land ownership was linked to the issue of housing, exacerbating the problem of land ownership and valuation. He called for more research into land policy in the Gulf countries.