The United Arab Emirates (UAE): Issues for U.S. Policy January 2014

The UAE’s relatively open borders and economy have won praise from advocates of expanded freedoms in the Middle East, but have also produced financial excesses, social ills such as human trafficking, and opportunity for UAE-based Iranian businesses to try to circumvent international sanctions. The social and economic freedoms have not translated into significant political change; the UAE government remains under the control of a small circle of leaders who allow citizen participation primarily through traditional methods of consensus-building. To date, these mechanisms, economic wealth, and reverence for established leaders have enabled the UAE to avoid wide-scale popular unrest.