Oil-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa have launched reforms of long-standing energy subsidies thought to comprise an important source of legitimacy for autocratic regimes. The actions challenge enduring academic assumptions of the illegitimacy of retrenchment in polities underwritten by hydrocarbon rents. Here, I argue that a series of converging trends provided political cover for the reforms, including fiscal stress from low world oil prices, escalating regional instability, international environmental pressure, as well as untenable growth in domestic consumption of exportable commodities. While the reforms signal an important shift in state–society relations, the new policies appear to be designed to update — rather than jettison — rent-based autocratic governance.

中东和北非的石油输出国已经对长期的能源补贴进行了改革，这些补贴被认为是专制政权合法性的重要来源。这些行动挑战了持久的学术假设，即碳氢化合物租金所支持的政体裁员的合法性是不合法的。在这里，我认为，一系列趋同的趋势为改革提供了政治掩盖，包括世界低油价带来的财政压力，区域动荡加剧，国际环境压力以及可出口商品的国内消费增长不可持续。尽管这些改革标志着国家与社会关系的重要转变，但新政策似乎旨在更新而不是抛弃基于租金的专制治理。