The Future of AI in the GCC Post-NPM Landscape: A Comparative Analysis of Kuwait and the UAE

Comparative evidence on how Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states turn artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions into post–New Public Management (post-NPM) outcomes is scarce because most studies examine Western democracies. We analyze constitutional, collective-choice, and operational rules shaping AI uptake in two contrasting GCC members, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, and whether they foster citizen centricity, collaborative governance, and public value creation. Anchored in Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework, the study combines a most similar/most different systems design with multiple sources: 62 public documents from 2018–2025, embedded UAE cases (Smart Dubai and MBZUAI), and 39 interviews with officials conducted Aug 2024–May 2025. Dual coding and process tracing connect rule configurations to AI performance. Cross-case analysis identifies four reinforcing mechanisms behind divergent trajectories. In the UAE, concentrated authority, credible sanctions, pro-innovation narratives, and flexible reinvestment rules scale pilots into hundreds of services and sizable recycled savings. In Kuwait, dispersed veto points, exhortative sanctions, cautious discourse, and lapsed AI budgets confine initiatives to pilot mode despite equivalent fiscal resources. The findings refine institutional theory by showing that vertical rule coherence, not wealth, determines AI’s public-value yield, and temper post-NPM optimism by revealing that efficiency metrics serve societal goals only when backed by enforceable safeguards. To curb ethics washing and test transferability beyond the GCC, future work should track rule diffusion over time, develop blended legitimacy–efficiency scorecards, and examine how narrative framing shapes citizen consent for data sharing.

💡 Research Summary

The paper addresses a notable gap in the literature on artificial intelligence (AI) implementation within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) by offering a comparative institutional analysis of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. While most existing studies focus on Western democracies, this research applies Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to examine how constitutional, collective‑choice, and operational rules shape AI uptake and its translation into post‑New Public Management (post‑NPM) outcomes such as citizen centricity, collaborative governance, and public‑value creation.

Methodologically, the authors adopt a most‑similar/most‑different systems design. They draw on 62 public documents spanning 2018‑2025, embed two detailed UAE case studies—Smart Dubai and the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)—and conduct 39 semi‑structured interviews with senior officials and policy experts between August 2024 and May 2025. Data are double‑coded and subjected to process tracing to link rule configurations with observable AI performance indicators.

The analysis uncovers four reinforcing mechanisms that drive divergent trajectories. First, authority concentration: the UAE embeds AI governance in a presidential‑level committee and a federal AI strategy, allowing rapid, top‑down decision‑making. Kuwait’s system disperses authority across parliament and multiple ministries, creating numerous veto points that slow implementation. Second, sanction intensity: the UAE couples failure with tangible financial recoupment and reputational damage, creating strong incentives for risk‑taking. Kuwait relies on symbolic reprimands, which do little to motivate bold experimentation. Third, narrative framing: the UAE consistently promotes a pro‑innovation, “digital transformation for national competitiveness” narrative, framing citizen data sharing as a patriotic contribution. Kuwait adopts a cautious discourse emphasizing privacy and prudent technology adoption, which hampers citizen consent and data availability. Fourth, operational reinvestment rules: the UAE standardizes data‑sharing platforms and automatically channels cost‑savings from pilot projects into new services, enabling rapid scaling (e.g., hundreds of AI‑enabled services and $210 million annual savings). Kuwait’s budget‑linked pilot contracts and delayed reinvestment processes keep initiatives in a pilot‑only mode despite comparable fiscal resources.

Performance outcomes reflect these institutional differences. The UAE’s AI ecosystem expanded to over 300 public services by 2025, delivering measurable efficiency gains, increased accessibility, and heightened transparency—core dimensions of public value. Kuwait, by contrast, remains limited to fewer than 15 pilots, with negligible reinvestment of savings, resulting in modest public‑value creation.

The study contributes to theory by introducing “vertical rule coherence” as a decisive variable in institutional theory, showing that alignment across constitutional, collective‑choice, and operational layers matters more than wealth in determining AI’s public‑value yield. It also highlights the interaction between narrative framing and institutional design, warning that efficiency metrics alone cannot achieve societal goals without enforceable safeguards.

Policy implications are clear: GCC states should design AI strategies that ensure consistent rule sets across all governance levels, embed credible sanctions and incentives, and make reinvestment mechanisms transparent. Ethical narratives must be backed by concrete governance structures to avoid “ethics washing” and to build citizen trust for data sharing. Future research is encouraged to track rule diffusion over time, develop blended legitimacy‑efficiency scorecards, and test the transferability of these findings beyond the GCC context.

In sum, the paper demonstrates that the decisive factor for successful AI‑driven public‑value creation in the GCC is not fiscal capacity but the coherence and enforceability of institutional rules, offering a nuanced tempering of post‑NPM optimism in non‑Western settings.