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Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

Author: Courtney Freer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-09-23

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1838606092

Gulf societies are often described as being intensely tribal. However, in discussions of state building and national identity, the role of tribalism and tribal identity is often overlooked. This book analyses the political role of tribes in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE aiming to understand the degree to which tribes hinder or advance popular participation in government and to what extent they exert domestic political power. The research traces the historical relationship between ruling elites and nomadic tribes, and, by constructing political histories of these states and analysing the role of tribes in domestic political life and social hierarchies, reveals how they serve as major political actors in the Gulf. A key focus of the book is understanding the extent to which societies in the Gulf have become 're-bedouinised' in the modern era and how this has shaped these states' political processes and institutions. The book explores the roles that tribes play in the development of “progressive” citizenship regimes and policymaking today, and how they are likely to be influential in the future within rentier environments.

Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

Author: Courtney Freer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-09-23

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1838606106

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Gulf societies are often described as being intensely tribal. However, in discussions of state building and national identity, the role of tribalism and tribal identity is often overlooked. This book analyses the political role of tribes in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE aiming to understand the degree to which tribes hinder or advance popular participation in government and to what extent they exert domestic political power. The research traces the historical relationship between ruling elites and nomadic tribes, and, by constructing political histories of these states and analysing the role of tribes in domestic political life and social hierarchies, reveals how they serve as major political actors in the Gulf. A key focus of the book is understanding the extent to which societies in the Gulf have become 're-bedouinised' in the modern era and how this has shaped these states' political processes and institutions. The book explores the roles that tribes play in the development of “progressive” citizenship regimes and policymaking today, and how they are likely to be influential in the future within rentier environments.

Tribal Modern

Author: Miriam Cooke

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014-01-21

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0520280105

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"Tribal Modern analyzes what is most distinctive about Arab Gulf culture over the past 15 years and how this culture shapes distinctive national identities. It highlights the tribal as the decisive element in modern Arab Gulf culture and identity. The question incredulous outsiders ask is: how could fishermen, pearl divers and pastoral nomads catch up with the rest of the modernized world? Observers remain skeptical about the apparent clash between the modern and the backward tribal. But in these newly rich desert societies different meanings attach to the tribal generally coded non-modern. Tribes here are not primitive; they are the instruments and symbols of identity for hypermodern Gulf societies. Nationals make claims based on a newly imagined tribal identity that entitles them alone to the rights and privileges of modern citizenship. Tribal Modern explores the interweaving of the tribal and the modern into a national brand. Structural, performative and cognitive, the brand is being built into heritage and fantasy architecture; it is performed in neo-tribal sports, dress codes and language, especially neo-Bedouin poetry contests. The tribal signals a new aristocratic identity in the anonymity of 21st century globalization. The tribal in the Arab Gulf states is a fundamental and constitutive part of the modern. The tribal modern shapes a national brand to project political power abroad and prestige at home. Most studies of these new, mega-rich countries come from the social sciences. Tribal Modern looks at cultural indices of local self-assertion. It provides a cultural analysis of Gulf Arab social formation that examines the intersection of race, class and gender"--Provided by publisher.

From tribe to State - Volume 2

Author: FRAUKE HEARD-BEY

Publisher: EDUCatt - Ente per il diritto allo studio universitario dell'Università Cattolica

Published: 2014-05-12

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 8867802119

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Kuwait and Al-Sabah

Author: Rivka Azoulay

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-07-23

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 183860507X

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The Emirate of Kuwait hardly resembles the city-State it was at the start of the 20th century. The discovery of oil in 1938 rapidly transformed the tiny tribal sheikhdom of the Al-Sabah into a modern oil-producing state where, by the early 1980s, citizens were enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the world. While much has been written on the reasons why and how the Al-Sabah became a ruling dynasty, little is known about the nature of their authority and its relationship to Kuwait's social structure. Rivka Azoulay shows how despite the rapidity of change in the oil-rich, family-run emirate, it is the pre-oil dynamics of social and political life that dictate how society operates. The author shows that Kuwait's ambitious diversification plans to reduce oil-dependence by 2035 require a renegotiation of the regime's pact with society, which threatens the pre-oil alliances upon which the Al-Sabah's regime has been built.

Oil Monarchies

Author: F. Gregory Gause

Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9780876091517

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This timely book demystifies the politics of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman, and focuses on the new pressures that have emerged since the Gulf War. Gause illuminates the foreign policy tightrope these states walk in the Middle East: self-defense is problematic, regional pressures translate directly into the domestic arena, and relations with the United States cause as well as solve many problems. Gause examines the interplay of Islamic fundamentalism, tribalism, and, most importantly, oil wealth that has determined the power structure of the Gulf monarchies. He shows what influences really drive politics in the Middle East as well as how U.S. foreign policy must respond to them in order to forge more meaningful ties with each country and preserve the stability of a fragile region that is vital to U.S. interests.

The Red and the Blue

Author: Steve Kornacki

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 0062438999

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From MSNBC correspondent Steve Kornacki, a lively and sweeping history of the birth of political tribalism in the 1990s—one that brings critical new understanding to our current political landscape from Clinton to Trump In The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him Speaker. The Clinton/Gingrich battles were bare-knuckled brawls that brought about massive policy shifts and high-stakes showdowns—their collisions had far-reaching political consequences. But the ’90s were not just about them. Kornacki writes about Mario Cuomo’s stubborn presence around Clinton’s 1992 campaign; Hillary Clinton’s star turn during the 1998 midterms, seeding the idea for her own candidacy; Ross Perot’s wild run in 1992 that inspired him to launch the Reform Party, giving Donald Trump his first taste of electoral politics in 1999; and many others. With novelistic prose and a clear sense of history, Steve Kornacki masterfully weaves together the various elements of this rambunctious and hugely impactful era in American history, whose effects set the stage for our current political landscape.

Rentier Islamism

Author: Courtney Freer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0190862017

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While scholars have long looked at the role of political Islam in the Middle East, it has been assumed that domestic politics in the wealthy monarchical states of the Arabian Gulf, so-called "rentier states" where taxes are very low and oil wealth subsidizes the needs of citizens, are largely unaffected by such movements. However, the long accepted rentier theory has been shortsighted in overlooking the socio-political role played by Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the super-rentiers of Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. While rentier state theory assumes that citizens of such states will form opposition blocs only when their stake in rent income is threatened, this book demonstrates that ideology, rather than rent, have motivated the formation of independent Islamist movements in the wealthiest states of the region. In the monarchical systems of Qatar and the UAE, Islamist groups do not have the opportunity to compete for power and therefore cannot use the ballot box to gain popularity or influence political life, as they do elsewhere in the Middle East. But, as this book points out, the division between the social and political sectors is often blurred in the socially conservative states of the Gulf, as political actors operate through channels that are not institutionalized. Simply because politics is underinstitutionalized in such states does not mean that it is underdeveloped; the informal realm holds considerable political capital. As such, the book argues that Brotherhood movements have managed to use the links between the social (i.e. informal personal networks) and political (i.e. government institutions) to gain influence in policymaking in such states.Using contemporary history and original empirical research, Courtney Freer updates traditional rentier state theory and argues that political Islam serves as a prominent voice and tool to promote more strictly political, and often populist or reformist, views supported by many Gulf citizens.