The study of Kuwait's 20th-century history has usually focused on the role of two forces, the sheikhs and the merchants, as illustrated by the work of prestigious scholars, such as Jill Crystal, Michael Herb, Jacqueline Ismael, Miriam Joyce, Rosemarie Zahlan, among others. These authors have often assumed that the ruling family and the merchant class were the only powerful players in Kuwait's political history. As contended in this book, the argument presented by these scholars does not accurately reflect the role and influence of other social forces, including the intelligentsia, the pearl divers and the religious scholars, who had a profound impact on the country's political and cultural development. An understanding of the role of these social forces, called here ‘balancing powers,’ is crucial to comprehending Kuwaiti political developments during the period under study, and the key impact they have had on Kuwait political developments between 1921 and 1962.

As argued here, the balancing powers have had a significant influence on Kuwaiti political life since the beginning of the twentieth century. The emergence of the power of these forces took place in 1896, under Mubarak al-Sabah's authoritarian rule. Because of this, it became necessary for merchants to resort to economic and social measures to put pressure on Mubarak al-Sabah. The clearest example of this was the migration of senior pearl merchants from Kuwait to Bahrain in 1910, which led 6,000 divers to plan to migrate with their families and their assets to Bahrain. The decision of the divers, one of the categories of the balancing powers, to join the merchants and the capitalists in Bahrain was particularly critical for the economy of Kuwait, as illustrated by Mubarak al-Sabah's obsession to go to Bahrain and appease the merchants.

This encouraged another balancing force, the religious scholars, to put pressure on the ruler to retreat from publicly supporting the British during World War I, by using their religious prestige to influence the population. The reason behind this was that the merchants who opposed Britain and supported the Ottoman Empire were not able to face Mubarak openly, so they used the religious scholars to force him to withdraw.