The Political Impact of Labor Migration in Bahrain

This paper shows that, in Bahrain, the main political consequence of migration has been the deepening of state/society conflict. While having old historical roots, this conflict has been fostered in the recent period by the collapse of the “caste system” that, since the 1970s, used to regulate the relations between foreigners and nationals in the labor market by preventing the two groups from being in competition for jobs. I conclude that in order to evaluate the possible political impact of migration in the Gulf States, one has to look first at the structure of the relation between the national population and the migrants, rather than focus on the number of foreigners