Abstract

The accepted understanding of what constitutes executive government in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is that power rests with the Cabinet. This is, however, only partially correct. In reality, executive power over national security is excised from the Cabinet, and instead rests with a group of legislatively-defined agencies and posts. In other words, institutionally the UAE’s executive branch is bifurcated, with one part handling ‘high’ policy, meaning national security, and the other ‘low’ policy, that is all the rest. This article describes the unobserved part of the UAE’s executive branch. In doing so, it provides a significant advance in the understanding of the somewhat opaque nature of government in the UAE. Importantly, it provides a more nuanced understanding of the sources of power as they relate to the powerful Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a person often (mis)characterised as the de facto leader of the UAE.

摘要

对于什么构成阿拉伯联合酋长国（UAE）的行政政府，人们公认的理解是，内阁掌握着权力。但是，这只是部分正确。实际上，对国家安全的行政权力是从内阁中剥夺的，而是由一组由立法机构定义的机构和职位来行使。换句话说，从制度上讲，阿联酋的行政部门是分叉的，一部分负责处理“高”政策，即国家安全，另一部分处理“低”政策，剩下的就是其余部分。本文介绍了阿联酋执行部门中未被观察到的部分。这样，它在了解阿联酋政府的某些不透明性质方面提供了重大进展。重要的，