"Wasta-based decision and allocation systems are politically effective, and can be economically effective if a quality control mechanism is in place. A quality control system in accordance with traditional values holds the wasta responsible for the performance of the client. The wasta must be a guarantor who assumes responsibility for the client's performance."

Does this happen in practice (holding the wasta responsible for the performance of the client) or is it rather a hypothetical way for the system to impose effective quality control?

Would be interesting to hear your take on how such a quality control system might operate (that is, a specific example).

Ah, the oft-mentioned wasta. Kudos for bringing it up, secretdubai. (by the way, Wasta means source as well) Well, considering the fact that I've been here pretty much all my life, wasta is sewn in the fabric, as it were, of the UAE's social life, economic processes, etc. and there is precious little people like us can do about it. As for the verbose suggestion of somehow "regulating" it, I fail to see the logic and request further clarification of how that can be brought about, in the same manner as the earlier comment. Wasta is limited almost exclusively to nationals, and gets along famously with the "preference" concept as well, which people with limited vocabulary, such as myself, might refer to as racial stereotyping and bias.

Wasta, being an issue of connexions, is not exclusive to nationals. Although nationals in the UAE are obviously the key ultimate sources.

Leaving that aside, rather clearly the issue of having connexions to get places is not unique to the region - fully half of my experience has some ties to getting in the door due to knowing people.

The key issue is how much blood ties or quasi familial ties drive decisions over more or less "merit."

Rather clearly if the Gulf and the rest of the region wish to become economically efficient, Wasta needs to be transformed. Nothing will make it go away, ingrained part of human behaviour, but it can and must be transformed

Reminds me a lot of Mexico. I don't think this is confined to the Middle East as a problem, really. In Mexico it's the large Latin extended family, which probably functions in ways very similar to the way a tribe does in the Middle East. And even getting a passport renewal done in less than, oh, a year, will involve some grease, same as for the Bahraini diarist.
Even in NYC, once you get below the big companies into the mid-sized and small ones, you get a lot of family connection stuff going on, although a person does usually have to have some minimal qualifications for whatever job the person gets.
It's probably more a function of how robust the economy is than anything else: if there's a lot of opportunity, family connections will matter less, if not, they'll take on increasing importance.

The expat/national combinations are all too common. In Saudi oil refineries (at least non-ARAMCO ones, ARAMCO might be different), the "managers" are usually unqualified nationals, and the guy just below him is the hard-working expat.

Oh I've heard some absolutely super stories about nationals at Aramco and the kind of "jobs" they do! Granted there are talented and hard working Saudis employed there, but there are still plenty of old guard on six-figure US salaries, with jobs such as "official poster stamper".