The narrative of the Arab Spring, as we know, is a complicated one. It can seem at first like a monolithic movement of the Arab peoples all demanding the same wants and needs from their governments. However, much like the myth of Arabs as a monolithic people, which has been dispelled time and time again, the Arab Spring likewise cannot be seen in such a fashion. Each country, each citizen, has a story or a demand that differs from that of their neighbors. The experiences of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria have been drastically different from one another.

Moreover, the experiences of the aforementioned countries differ greatly from those of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. To explore the specificity of the Arab Spring, and the variety of responses to it, we will focus on just two countries within the GCC, Kuwait and Bahrain. The manifestations of the Arab Spring in Kuwait and Bahrain reflect a particular and complicated experience of identity. Though I do not want to reduce the complexities of the Arab Spring just to a discussion of identity, we will see how identity must be a major factor in our analysis. Below we will explore a variety of scholarship on different facets of identity, see how these numerous strands of identity manifest in Kuwait and Bahrain, and extrapolate on how those concentric circles of identity impact the Arab Spring and the region's future. Like Arabs themselves, identity in the Arab Gulf is not monolithic. Instead, there are concentric circles of identity, each of which overlaps with the others and each of which influence politics in the region. Concentric circles of identity, in turn, affect a nation's political and social development, producing tensions along the way. Tensions can be either a catalyst or a limiting agent for both minor and major forms of change, leading to the building, articulating or dismantling pre-existing political systems.