Country profile
United Arab Emirates
Al Imarat al Arabiyah al Muttahidah
Asia · Western Asia
AE · ARE
- Capital
- Abu Dhabi
- Population
- 11,294,243
- Area
- 83,600 km²
- Democracy index
- 18
- Regime type
- Closed Autocracy
Events
Ballots from United Arab Emirates
The latest elections, referendums, and opinion polls from United Arab Emirates. Community totals are not official results.
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Classification
Democracy profile
The score and regime label are assigned by Porto Voto using our in-house democracy index and classification framework, not ratings from governments or external agencies.
Democracy index
18/100
Regime type
Closed Autocracy
The United Arab Emirates continues to operate as a highly centralized closed autocracy where political authority is vested in the hereditary rulers of the seven emirates. There are no national political parties, and the Federal National Council functions as a purely consultative body with no legislative power, ensuring that governance remains an exclusive executive domain. The state maintains absolute control over the public sphere through pervasive surveillance, strict limitations on freedom of expression, and the systematic suppression of any form of organized dissent. While the country is characterized by significant economic modernization and a focus on international engagement, this prosperity exists within a framework where judicial independence is absent, civil society is effectively prohibited, and institutional accountability remains nonexistent. The political environment is completely closed to meaningful competition, and the regime prioritizes total stability and internal control over the protection of fundamental civil liberties or democratic pluralism.
Last evaluation:
How we classify regimes →World Factbook
Country background
A concise introduction to United Arab Emirates, together with notes on how power and law are organized, to put local ballots in context.
The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf coast granted the UK control of their defense and foreign affairs in 19th-century treaties. In 1971, six of these states -- Abu Dhabi, 'Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Ash Shariqah, Dubayy, and Umm al Qaywayn -- merged to form the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Ra's al Khaymah joined in 1972.
The UAE's per-capita GDP is on par with those of leading West European nations. For more than three decades, oil and global finance drove the UAE's economy. In 2008-09, the confluence of falling oil prices, collapsing real estate prices, and the international banking crisis hit the UAE especially hard.
The UAE did not experience the "Arab Spring" unrest seen elsewhere in the Middle East in 2010-11, partly because of the government's multi-year, $1.6-billion infrastructure investment plan for the poorer northern emirates, and its aggressive pursuit of advocates for political reform. The UAE in recent years has played a growing role in regional affairs. In addition to donating billions of dollars in economic aid to help stabilize Egypt, the UAE was one of the first countries to join the Defeat ISIS coalition, and to participate as a key partner in a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.
In 2020, the UAE and Bahrain signed a peace agreement (the Abraham Accords) with Israel -- brokered by the US -- in Washington, D.C. The UAE and Bahrain thus became the third and fourth Middle Eastern countries, along with Egypt and Jordan, to recognize Israel.