Informed by Marxian, postcolonial and feminist perspectives on cities, finance and work and employment, this thesis interrogates the transnational capital and labour involved in the production of the built environment in Dubai, UAE since 2002. Over the past decade, the autocratic city-state has undergone an extensive and rapid transformation characterized by the launch of an array of large-scale real estate projects, which have formed a key component of the state's wider efforts to diversify, liberalize and internationalize the local economy. Beyond Dubai and the UAE, other member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - which comprises Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait - have pursued similar economic development agendas in which newly-internationalized and neoliberalized property markets have played an integral role. Based on fieldwork in Dubai and the state of Kerala, India, this thesis follows Dubai's recent urban development from boom to bust, exploring the roles of transnational construction workers and global capital in fuelling material and political change in the city. Specifically, I examine four distinct but interconnected facets of Dubai's political economy of urban production. These are: the significance of commodified, marketized and internationalized real estate assets to local and regional post-oil diversification strategies; the profound role played by local real estate markets in the development of Dubai' s finance and banking landscapes; the gendered, embodied and urban dimensions of migrant construction workers' labour struggles in recent years, and the impacts of the global economic crisis on construction migrants employed in the city in 2008. Together, these four analyses offer a multi-dimensional perspective on Dubai's recent growth which seeks to resituate the city in scholarly debates about capitalist urbanization, and which draws wider empirical and theoretical attention to the distinctly urban dimensions that define contemporary processes of labour rights formation, neoliberalization and political economic change across the Gulf region.

This thesis seeks to analyse the role of 'offsets' in the UAE economy, particularly as an FDI mechanism, and to evaluate the extent to which the offset programme has delivered a developmental impact in terms of diversification, technology transfer, and job creation for nationals. Offsets are a common countertrade practice in defence procurement. The UAE has employed 'indirect offsets' as a strategy for broad-based economic development since 1992. As its offset requirement takes the form of joint venture investment with local partners, offsets resemble an FDI vehicle.

The principal question that this thesis addresses is the validity of the Export-Led Growth hypothesis (ELG) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), using annual time series data over the period 1975-2012. Therefore, the research identifies and evaluates the causal relationship between exports and economic growth, by shedding further light on the causal effects, subcategories of exports can have. In doing so, various unit root tests have been applied to examine the time-series properties of the variables, while the Johansen cointegration test is employed to test the existence of a long-run relationship between the variables. Moreover, the multivariate Granger causality test and a modified version of Wald test are applied to examine the direction of the short-run and long-run causality respectively. The findings confirm that the ELG hypothesis is valid for UAE in the short-run, highlighting the importance of export sector in the UAE economy. However, by disaggregating merchandise exports into primary and manufactured exports, this research provides evidence that a circular causality exists between manufactured exports and economic growth in the short-run. Primary exports and especially fuel and mining exports, contrary to the generally held belief, do not cause economic growth in UAE, however are essential for the industrial production. In addition, the research provides statistically significant evidence to support the existence of a bidirectional causality between re-exports and economic growth in the long-run. Thus, further increase in the degree of export diversification from oil could accelerate economic growth in UAE.

This thesis provides a critical analysis of Dubai’s approach to economic development planning over the period covered by its first three formalized plans that is 1996 to 2010. Dubai experienced a period of very rapid economic growth in the ten years before the 2008 global financial crisis, despite being a small economy with little oil; oil revenues only accounted for 2% of GDP in 2011. This dissertation analyzes and evaluates how the nature of Dubai’s strategic planning changed over the period 1996 to 2010 and the factors underpinning those changes. The thesis also offers an assessment of the potential for Dubai to develop and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage in the future. To help evaluate Dubai’s first three formalized economic development plans, this thesis identifies and discusses a number of theoretical frameworks and concepts to identify key concepts and relationships between ideas and practice in the field of economic development planning. In particular, a comparison is drawn between corporate strategic planning and economic development planning approaches and their relevance to the Dubai context. Given the blurred boundaries between the state and commerce, both approaches have potential relevance, at least in part, to Dubai. Dubai’s economic development plans are set against the historical, political, economic, social and cultural and context of the Emirate. The plans are analyzed using computer-based text analytics and summarized in mindmap form. This allows the major themes of the plans to be compared and progression between the plans to be identified. The plans are analyzed from a number of perspectives including the role of government, the expected contribution of the private sector and the role of higher education and research in promoting development. However, the main area of analysis is the extent to which the plans successfully identify development paths which will result in sustainable competitive advantage for Dubai. The thesis also reports on the results of semi-structured interviews with prominent experts. The interviews provide an important source of evidence and opinions on the successes and shortcomings of Dubai’s planning and plans and the actions which need to be taken if Dubai is to achieve its long-term aim of becoming and innovation an innovation driven knowledge-based economy.

As a depletable resource oil is a useful source of economic growth, but may not be relied upon for long-term sustainable development. Diversification from oil is needed to achieve this. This research applies three models to examine the most important determinants of oil and non-oil sector economic growth in two of the largest economies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The empirical analysis applies the Johansen approach and ECM to access the relationship between all variables, both in the long and short-term. Given the governments’ determination to reduce dependence on oil income, this study focuses on the role of non-oil sectors. Explanatory variables in the models included exports, government spending, investment (private and public), tourism (religious and international), labour and capital, while GDP is used as the dependent variable. The results reflect the fact that the main determinants of economic growth in Saudi Arabia are related to the oil sector. The analysis of the long-term relationship between selected variables in the main model find that total exports have the greatest influence on economic growth, while tourism is the least influential variable. Moreover, empirical results show that all variables are important in the growth of the Saudi economy except non-oil exports. The role of religious tourism is not found to be significant in the process of economic growth when the economy as a whole is taken into consideration. Nonetheless, when isolating the non-oil sectors, the effect of religious tourism has a greater influence on economic growth. Concrete evidence also exists as to the importance of the role of an additional variable – government spending – in enhancing economic growth. In the UAE, the impact of both oil and non-oil sectors is highly prominent. This is particularly evident when the economy is divided into two segments (oil and non-oil). With the exception of government spending and public investment in the non-oil sector, the estimated results show that overall both sectors (oil and non-oil) are in fact responsible for this growth. With regard to tourism, the study’s findings confirm its importance in both models. It is found that non-oil exports in the non-oil sectors have the greatest positive impact on economic growth, followed by tourism and private investment respectively. Overall, this study's outcomes suggest that the omission or exclusion of important variables and factors in non-oil sectors such as tourism and the exclusive concentration of empirical studies on the role of oil exports and government spending as the engines of growth, might be both biased and misleading. This thesis has both theoretical and practical implications. Through isolating the non-oil sector from the oil sector, the study is able to detect and highlight the potential role of tourism as a future crucial factor in determining economic growth in oil rich countries, especially in the GCC.

Dubai’s rapid double-digit economic growth was severely challenged by the global financial crisis of 2007, which raised many concerns questioning the sustainability of the Dubai model of economic development and the viability of the emirate’s economic managerial practices. Although the economic landscape of Dubai has experienced a significant transformation over the last two decades, from a basic traditional economy of US $17.9 billion in 2001 to a diversified non-oil dependent economy of US $ 86.7 billion in 2012, there are few convincing empirical academic studies to assess and explain the Dubai model of economic development. This doctoral research provides a crucial assessment of the Dubai model in light of its political and socio-cultural contexts. For this purpose, a multidisciplinary theoretical framework that stems from the literature of economic geography, cultural economy and managerialism, has been designed in order to critically interpret the mechanism of the emirate’s economic practices in today’s global capitalism. This involves a methodological approach based on the study of narratives and performance to explain Dubai’s narratives and macro-economic performance. The multidisciplinary theoretical framework adopted is useful in analysing the Dubai model as an alternative to the discipline of mainstream economics, which ignores cultural and social dimensions and conditions that not only influence but also shape a given economic landscape. The research was undertaken by analysing a wide range of data, including intensive macro-economic statistics, financial and economic reports, international and local press, as well as conducting empirical in-depth elite interviews with fifty-six key stakeholders in the economy of Dubai: senior government officials, representatives of financial institutions, senior managers in the private non-financial sector, and academics. The research findings reveal that although the political and socio-cultural contexts naturally support Dubai's economic model, institutional and managerial problems were also exposed following the global financial crisis and the property shock of 2007. Dubai represents a financialized economy in which the government has adopted a hybrid model of government-driven developments and corporate managerial features within an environment that encourages commercial liberalism and market capitalism. However, despite this financialized economy, tensions remain in Dubai's pursuit of these goals. Finally, the research stresses the need for appropriate government mechanisms to foster oversight over economic performance and long-term sustainable economic development.

This study explores the socio-economic development path of the former Trucial State of Dubai, now an economic powerhouse within the Federal State of the United Arab Emirates. This thesis emanated out of the researcher’s need to understand the development trajectory of Dubai from the perspective of a development discourse, as literature and debates on the city’s developmental trajectory have generally focused on micro-and macro-economic variables and a sectoral emphasis without considering the total and complex development matrix. The author proposes a rentier, developmental and competition (RDC) Model as a basis for understanding the state-led social and economic development of the Emirate of Dubai. Empirically, the study examines a whole raft of home-grown social and economic development policies that fall exclusively within the domain of the Dubai Strategic Plans (DSPs). Conceptually, the thesis argues that although the Dubai Inc model has successfully changed the socio-economic landscape of the Emirate, nevertheless, a soft underbelly of the model displays the exploitative nature of unbridled free market capitalism. Methodologically, triangulation backed up the qualitative research methodology by utilising a mixed-methods approach to enhance the richness of the research. Specific data collection methods used included in-depth semi-structured interviews and non-participative observation, supported by documentation analyses of relevant documents. The research findings unambiguously demonstrated that the socio-economic transformation of Dubai, between 1998 and 2008, was a result of the aforementioned hybrid model, which this thesis uses as its theoretical framework. The conclusion drawn from the study is that there is no one path to development; the Government of Dubai is cognisant of that and has thus used the capacity of the state to transform the once impoverished and marginalised sheikhdom into a ‘commodified’ city-corporate entity. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Developmental Studies)

This study explores the socio-economic development path of the former Trucial State of Dubai, now an economic powerhouse within the Federal State of the United Arab Emirates. This thesis emanated out of the researcher’s need to understand the development trajectory of Dubai from the perspective of a development discourse, as literature and debates on the city’s developmental trajectory have generally focused on micro-and macro-economic variables and a sectoral emphasis without considering the total and complex development matrix. The author proposes a rentier, developmental and competition (RDC) Model as a basis for understanding the state-led social and economic development of the Emirate of Dubai. Empirically, the study examines a whole raft of home-grown social and economic development policies that fall exclusively within the domain of the Dubai Strategic Plans (DSPs). Conceptually, the thesis argues that although the Dubai Inc model has successfully changed the socio-economic landscape of the Emirate, nevertheless, a soft underbelly of the model displays the exploitative nature of unbridled free market capitalism. Methodologically, triangulation backed up the qualitative research methodology by utilising a mixed-methods approach to enhance the richness of the research. Specific data collection methods used included in-depth semi-structured interviews and non-participative observation, supported by documentation analyses of relevant documents. The research findings unambiguously demonstrated that the socio-economic transformation of Dubai, between 1998 and 2008, was a result of the aforementioned hybrid model, which this thesis uses as its theoretical framework. The conclusion drawn from the study is that there is no one path to development; the Government of Dubai is cognisant of that and has thus used the capacity of the state to transform the once impoverished and marginalised sheikhdom into a ‘commodified’ city-corporate entity. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Developmental Studies)