I conclude with a review of my findings in Chapters 3–7. I elucidate the relationship between “oil” and “Islam” and what that relationship teaches us about politics in Gulf monarchies. The overwhelming message is that with their abundant wealth, Gulf rulers have been exploiting not only oil rents but also religious doctrine and its (re-)formulations to function as tools of social management and social control. Their aim is to bolster their authoritarian ambitions: ruling families’ capacity to both dominate and shape their societies and retain their monopoly over resources. For the sake of maintaining – and enriching – dynastic states and constructing the nation, oil and Islam are their principal tools.

This chapter examines two related heads of power: the immigration power in section 51(xxvii) and the aliens power in section 51(xix) of the Australian Constitution. Immigration is concerned with the act of a non-Australian entering into Australia and the process of an immigrant becoming absorbed into the Australian community so that they are no longer an immigrant. Whether a person is an immigrant is largely a question of fact. By contrast, alienage is a legal status. Within the limits of the concept of ‘alien’, Parliament has power to determine who is and is not an alien. The contemporary position is that an alien is anyone who is a non-citizen. The aliens power includes the power to take away citizenship so as to turn a citizen into an alien. The case law shows that all immigrants are aliens but that not all aliens are immigrants. Both heads of power can be used to regulate the conduct of individuals, including providing for their deportation. Because the meaning of the concepts involved is clearer, Parliament nowadays tends to rely on the aliens power to support legislation dealing with migration and related policy areas.

There was, first of all, the PRC State Council’s 2014 white paper, which is said to have contributed in turn to the 2014 protests, then there was the peculiar ‘missing booksellers’ affair in late 2015, and after that the extension of Mainland Chinese Law, in 2017, to the Kowloon terminus of a newly constructed rail link. In addition, there was the ‘article 22’ issue and it may on reflection be best to begin with that.

Section 4 of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM), “Political Society,” treats a seemingly eclectic collection of subjects. A key to understanding this section lies in Hume’s understanding of the relationship between history, context, and politics. One of the most significant changes he made to his presentation of the political virtues when he recast it for EPM was to drop the conjectural history that had figured prominently in the account he published in the Treatise. This change reflected his deep appreciation of the importance of history and context in the development of conventions of political society and sharpened his critique of social contract theory and republican political thought. On Hume’s account, all of the virtues necessary for life in society are valued for their utility. However, though humans share a universal need for rules to govern their interactions, the specific rules that emerge in particular contexts are rarely objectively necessary. The conventions of political society are not the products of rational calculation but, instead, often arise from historical accidents and develop through a process of habituation. For this reason, the conventions of any particular society, even those that promote universal interests, can only be fully understood contextually.

By the eighteenth century, it was a fundamental precept of the law of nations that “whoever uses a citizen ill, indirectly offends the state, which is bound to protect this citizen; and the sovereign of the latter should avenge his wrongs, punish the aggressor, and, if possible, oblige him to make full reparation; since otherwise the citizen would not obtain the great end of the civil association, which is safety.” Put another way, states were forbidden from arbitrarily harming the subjects of another state. Over the nineteenth century, states developed a robust set of political and legal procedures to manage the conflicts that increasingly emerged as millions of people began to migrate across the Atlantic. But, just who was entitled to protection became a source of irreconcilable tension within the system. Were Italian immigrants who had lived in Argentina for decades entitled to Italian protection? What about Irish immigrants in America? Such questions befuddled policymakers and jurists.