Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Rentier states follow different policy priorities and trajectories. This paper explores development policies, specifically within the energy sector, in the state of Kuwait between 2014 and 2018 using topic modeling. It employs a Latent Dirichlet Allocation model to 177,468 collected articles from two major local newspapers. Results show that certain Rentier policies, such as energy and water subsidies, persist in the country. However, other evidence shows that alternative policy approaches, such as public-private partnerships with foreign investors, are implemented to transfer citizen rents in the form of subsidies into new job creation for a growing youth population. The results also show that environmental and energy conservation efforts are discussed within the public sphere, but only broadly speaking and within certain limits, such as species and marine conservation. Understanding the mechanisms of policymaking in the Rentier state and their underlying structures can further policy research at large and inform international decision-makers on policy issues within a given context.