History and Government of Kuwait
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Kuwait gained its independence from Britain in 1961, and since that time it has been a constitutional monarchy whose ruler, called the Emir, has episodically shared some power with a National Assembly elected by adult male Kuwaitis. The National Assembly has been suspended from time to time, once in 1976 and again in 1986, showing that it is secondary in terms of power to the emir. Reopening the National Assembly became the goal of the prodemocracy Constitutionalist Movement in 198990. Just before the Iraqi invasion in 1990, a compromise National Council, partially elected and partially appointed and with more limited power, was convened by the Emir, and it was reconvened following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. However, this did not placate the popular opposition, which prompted the Emir to schedule elections for October 1992 ("Kuwait: Government"). Democracy was institutionalized in Kuwait in 1921 when the nation inaugurated the consultative council. In 1937, the legislative assembly was established. After independence, the constituent assembly promulgated the constitution and then legislated laws to control ministries and government foundations and authorities; this was inaugurated in 1962. The first National Assembly was elected in 1963. Since that time, parliamentary activity has been maintained through direct universal suffrage. A new National Assembly building costing more than 25 million Kuwaiti dollars was inaugurated in 1985. During the Iraqi inva
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n. Several thousand additional students attend colleges and universities overseas, principally in the United States, Britain, and Egypt, usually on state scholarships ("Kuwait: Government").
Overseeing this apparatus is a large and complex bureaucracy, much of it developed since World War II, and the National Assembly. This National Assembly is one of the few elected legislative bodies in the region. Preinvasion Kuwait was one of the most politically open states in the region and the most open in the gulf, with a relatively free press and an assembly elected by a small electorate of adult male citizens. The authors of the postindependence constitution of 1962 were aware of the precedent set in the 1938 Legislative Assembly, and they considered the creation of an elected legislative body as an important way to increase the popular consensus and thereby further legitimize the rule of the Al Sabah, which at the time saw its position threatened by the Iraqi claim to the entire territory of the new state. After the election of the first National Assembly, the body evolved to serve as a broad forum for discussion and dissent. The men who dominated this assembly were not the historical elite but were primarily Kuwaitis who ben
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Some common words found in the essay are:
National Assembly, Kuwait Legislature, National Council, Shaykh Jabir, Hadith Commercial, Future Generations, Constitutional Movement, Government Democracy, Preinvasion Kuwait, National Bloc, national assembly, kuwait legislature, assembly elected, national council, iraqi invasion, adult male, national assembly elected, kuwait government, ruling family, october 1992 kuwait, research studies kuwait, emir suspended, legislative assembly, center research studies, elections october 1992,
Approximate Word count = 1585
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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