Abstract
This article aims to discuss how the emirate of Dubai has developed and adapted to globalisation through administrative reforms.
Dubai has developed continuously since the early twentieth century as a port city, and its economy became diversified in an endeavour to build an oil-independent country in the oil era. This process of economic development, especially after the 1990s, can be described as a globalisation strategy, i.e., the strategic formation of infrastructure and environment to attract people, goods, money, and information to adapt to globalisation and expand them globally to seek business opportunities. In other words, globalisation is the key to survival in the contemporary world, and administrative reform in the government of Dubai is very important to understand it. We can point out that the global financial crises in 2008 and 2009 demonstrated that Dubai has integrated international politics, economy, and finance.
We would like to address the following questions in this paper: What types of administrative reforms were introduced in Dubai and what were the resulting achievements? In this study, we first briefly describe the development process and its position in the UAE and establish globalisation strategy as a means of survival for the emirate of Dubai. We then clarify the actions of the government during the reform process. Finally, besides the responses to evaluations of the Dubai debt crisis, we examine the characteristics and achievements of the administrative reformsand point out the underlying reasons for their introduction by the Dubai government.
In conclusion, we can identify five major reasons for which the New Public Management (NPM)-style administrative reforms is considered an important strategy for Dubai: (1) developing economies require reinforcement of administrative capacity, (2) easing and reforming of regulations are needed to boost investment and business activities, (3) building frameworks and institutions is necessary for new economic development, (4) increase in population size and number of companies necessitates expansion of administrative services, and (5) fiscal changes are needed to improve the government financial condition. However, difficulties arose after the global financial crisis in 2008, and Dubai has entered a new phase that requires new strategies and reforms.
