Infrastructure PPPs in the GCC states: the cases of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar

This chapter presents the characteristics of the institutional environments surrounding infrastructure development in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and describes the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive aspects of infrastructure project delivery in each state. The aim of the chapter is to offer a critical examination of how the local contexts in each GCC state have shaped the meanings associated with PPPs, the three governments' rationales for adopting them, and a general discussion of existing PPP projects in each state. This chapter provides a macro-level perspective that traces the institutional dynamics and factors that have contributed to the institutionalization of EPC as the predominant and most persistent form of project organizing in those three GCC states, and the overarching institutional challenges that problematize the adoption of PPPs. This chapter fills a considerable gap in the extant PPP literature by situating the GCC states of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar within international PPP debates. The chapter builds on the relevant scholarly and professional bodies of PPP literature to elucidate the meanings and various forms of PPPs, as well as the rationales behind why governments worldwide are attracted to their adoption for infrastructure development. This framework is then used to analyze the initial empirical data gathered from the three GCC states.