Mehran Kamrava
Mehran Kamrava is Professor of Government at Georgetown University Qatar. He is the author of a number of journal articles and books, including, most recently, A Concise History of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Troubled Waters: Insecurity in the Persian Gulf (Cornell University Press, 2018)
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caused by the interplay of two sets of dynamics, one related to struc-
tural factors, and the other a product of agency. Structurally, compe-
tition among the region’s two middle powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia,
along with those of a small state that views itself as a middle power
and behaves as such, the UAE, is both transforming the Persian Gulf’s
security architecture and also keeping regional tensions high.
Moreover, elite political priorities within some of the most active
actors in the region are changing in favor of tension reductions.
caused by the interplay of two sets of dynamics, one related to struc-
tural factors, and the other a product of agency. Structurally, compe-
tition among the region’s two middle powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia,
along with those of a small state that views itself as a middle power
and behaves as such, the UAE, is both transforming the Persian Gulf’s
security architecture and also keeping regional tensions high.
Moreover, elite political priorities within some of the most active
actors in the region are changing in favor of tension reductions.
Glittering skylines, high urbanization rates, and massive development projects in the Gulf have increasingly attracted the attention of urban development scholars and practitioners. Within the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an average of 88 percent of the total population live in cities, while on average only 56 percent of Yemen, Iraq, and Iran’s population live in urbanized spaces. The tempo and spatial ethos of urbanization in the Gulf differ markedly from patterns of traditional urbanism in other developing countries. Within a matter of decades, Gulf port cities have rapidly evolved from regional centers of cultural and economic exchange to globalizing cities deeply embedded within the global economy. Exponentially evident features of Gulf cities such as international hotel chains, shopping centers, and entertainment complexes have classified these cities as centers of consumption. Other urban trends, such as exhibition and conference centers, media and knowledge cities, and branch campuses of Western universities have integrated Gulf cities within numerous global networks.
From the advent of oil discovery until present day, forces of economic globalization and migration, national conceptualizations of citizenship, and various political and economic structures have collectively underpinned the politics of urban planning and development. While oil urbanization and modernization direct much of the scholarship on Gulf cities, understanding the evolution of the urban landscape against a social and cultural backdrop is limited within the academic literature. For instance, within the states of the GCC, the citizen-state-expatriates nexus has largely geared the vision and planning of urban real-estate mega-projects. These projects reflect the increasing role of expatriates as consumers and users of urban space, rather than as mere sources of manpower utilized to build the city. Other state initiatives, such as the construction of cultural heritage mega-projects in various Gulf cities, reveal the state’s attempts to reclaim parts of the city for its local citizens in the midst of a growing expatriate urban population.
Spatial and temporal segregation are evident in highly privatized, zoned, and segregated spaces in Gulf cities. As part of the state’s drive to create knowledge economies, international higher education institutions convey broader social dynamics such as social stratification, national identity, and citizenship in relation to the creation of knowledge economies. Residential areas, ranging from traditional neighborhoods to gated compounds, inform us about the socio-spatial process of transnationalism within Gulf cities, as well as the inhabitants’ sense of identification with their respective residential communities. In addition to issues of class, nationality, and identity, gender and mobility within the city are vital to understanding urbanizing Gulf societies in relation to the demographic imbalance.
The political economy of urban development is an emerging area of inquiry in the scholarship of Gulf cities. For instance, the spectacular architectural design of cultural heritage mega-projects is indicative of increasing cosmopolitanism of urbanized Gulf cities and their aim to cater to global audiences. A particular area of interest is the extent to which the state engages with international consultants, local planners and architects in constructing cosmopolitan heritage projects that solidify both national and transnational identity.
Other sites in the city, such as the presence and use of public space in the urban landscape, can help in understanding processes of social interaction and the form and function of authority in the city. Some spaces, such as the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain, have become symbolic sites of political contestation. Other seemingly less securitized sites and features of Gulf cities, such as Souqs (traditional marketplace), seek to reinvent traditional forms of urbanism by reconciling culture and the creation of public space.
In addition to the development projects and planned spatial configurations of Persian Gulf cities, political and economic dislocation has also given rise to informal settlements. Greater academic focus on these unplanned areas may provide insight into the city’s more inclusive areas, how transnational connections are formed by their users, and the ability of city dwellers to participate in shaping the form and function of their city’s space.
Gateways to the World: The Rise and Fall of Port Cities in the Persian Gulf takes a systematic, multi-disciplinary approach. It begins with a broader look at how the emergence and significance of cities along the Persian Gulf waterway should be contextualized. It then moves to historical examinations of the emergence of national borders and boundaries, how they became “port cities” of various kinds, what are the semantics of studying them, and what the glittering skylines and cityscapes and their remaining traditional neighborhoods mean for the international political economy and for the identity of their residents. This book presents a comprehensive, and much-needed, study of the nature and variety, the importance, and the domestic and international consequences of port cities along the Persian Gulf.
Nations tend to have remarkable resilience, adapting and surviving for centuries and millennia under the most adverse of circumstances. But when conquered and defeated, collapsing or collapsed, they survive mostly in symbols and in lore only, as subjective means of identity rather than as objective entities with tangible hierarchies and rhythms, social organizations and living cultural products. Under conditions of defeat and conquest, they find themselves having to adapt and assimilate to survive, or at least moderate and modulate in order not to antagonize. Their essence changes in the process. They get massaged and altered not just around the edges but also in their very core.
In the Palestinian case, the ensuing changes have been profoundly detrimental to the reconstitution of the Palestinian nation. After the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian entrepreneurial and upper middle classes in the West Bank and Gaza found themselves unwitting partners with agents and forces of the occupation. In-gathering and national reconstruction meant helping the re-emergent nation grow and develop economically, and doing so was possible only through Israel. Inadvertently, nation-building became employed at the service of deepening the occupation.
A similar fate befell the state-building process. Beginning in 1994, the Palestine Liberation Organization, which up until then had conceived of itself as a state-in-exile, superimposed itself on to Gaza and the West Bank and began an earnest process of developing new and additional institutions for governing Palestinian territories. But it soon became painfully evident that the newly-established Palestinian National Authority was highly constrained in the scope of its powers, and had at best only a small area in which it could exercise authority. Its governance purview hardly reached beyond a dozen towns and cities, and most Palestinian villages, designated by Israel as belonging to so-called Area C, remained difficult for it to access. By enforcing law and order and running much-needed services in the small Area A it controlled, the PNA soon emerged as little more than Israel’s subcontractor, a small-time administrative machinery designed to make the occupation more effective and more efficient, and, presumably, more enduring.
Today, the book argues, the prospects for Palestine meaningfully reconstituting itself politically or nationally are non-existent. The Palestinian nation lives on only in symbols and folklore and in memories proactively prolonged. But its days as a national entity are long gone by. And, as a political entity—even if the flag and the elected office and the United Nations seat meant something—a Palestinian state would still not be able to accomplish most other tasks expected of it.
Across the Arab world and the Middle East, 'authority' and 'political legitimacy' are in flux. Where power will ultimately reside depends largely on the shape, voracity, and staying power of these new, emerging conceptions of authority. The contributors to this book examine the nature and evolution of ruling bargains, the political systems to which they gave rise, the steady unravelling of the old systems and the structural consequences thereof, and the uprisings that have engulfed much of the Middle East since December 2010.
Kamrava presents Qatar as an experimental country, building a new society while exerting what he calls "subtle power." It is both the headquarters of the global media network Al Jazeera and the site of the U.S. Central Command's Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center. Qatar has been a major player during the European financial crisis, it has become a showplace for renowned architects, several U.S. universities have established campuses there, and it will host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Qatar's effective use of its subtle power, Kamrava argues, challenges how we understand the role of small states in the global system. Given the Gulf state's outsized influence on regional and international affairs, this book is a critical and timely account of contemporary Qatari politics and society.
Explaining the different ways in which globalising forces have shaped new dimensions to the political economy of the Persian Gulf states, this book evaluates the changes that have occurred, especially in light of the ongoing global economic crisis. Mutually beneficial rentier arrangements have guided the GCC countries formation of oil-based economies and labor relations in the past, but will this necessarily be the case in the future? This book addresses key issues including discussion on the future demographic aspects of the GCC; the feasibility of establishing a GCC monetary union; the effects of rentierism on state autonomy; and analysis of sovereign wealth funds and Islamic banking models.
What are the key domestic drivers of nuclear behaviour and decision-making in the Middle East? How are the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council seeking to employ nuclear energy to further guarantee and expedite their hyper-growth of recent decades? Are there ideal models emerging in this regard that others might emulate in the foreseeable future, and, if so, what consequences is this development likely to have for other civilian nuclear aspirants? These region-wide themes form the backdrop against which specific case studies are examined.
Together, the essays in this volume present a comprehensive, detailed, and accessible account of the international politics of the region. Focusing on the key factors that give the Persian Gulf its strategic significance, contributors look at the influence of vast deposits of oil and natural gas on international politics, the impact of the competing centers of power of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the nature of relationships among countries within the Persian Gulf, and the evolving interaction between Islam and politics. Throughout the collection, issues of internal and international security are shown to be central.
Drawing on the comprehensive knowledge and experience of experts in the region, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf shines a bright light on this area, offering insights and thoughtful analyses on the critical importance of this troubled region to global politics.
Contributors: Nasr Abu-Zayd, Adonis, Mohammed Arkoun, Walter Denny, Nelly Hanna, Sherman Jackson, Patrick Laude, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Tariq Ramadan, John Voll
Challenging stereotypical views, the book explores competing political and religious ideologies in contemporary Iran
Interdisciplinary in approach, the book will appeal to historians, sociologists, philosophers and students of religion
Presents unique sources that are not easily accessible to English-language readers
Coverage of the Islamic Republic here falls into the general categories of history, politics, economics, society and culture. The most significant aspects of the life in Iran since the revolution-the era of the Islamic Republic so far-are stressed. The wide range of entries shows the richness and complexity of Iranian society, its multiple and varied facets, its expressions and outward manifestations, and its nuanced responses to political repression, instability, war, pervasive crisis and the chronic tension between modernity and tradition. Some of the entries designed to highlight these important phenomena revolve around the country's ethnic mosaic, the social role and position of women, veiling, the educational system, sports, intellectuals, the arts and artistic expression, literature, poetry, cuisine, healthcare, and the family. Other entries range from regionalism and urban development to the petroleum industry, agriculture, the banking system, issues of wealth and poverty, class structure and economic mobility, and the private sector. In a number of significant areas economic, social and cultural phenomena intersect. These intersections are reflected in entries on broadcasting and communications technology, the Internet, public relations, electronic and print media, and family planning and healthcare. A chronology, selected bibliography, and photos complement the entries.
No other book examines the subject of weak states in the Middle East. Fragile Politics begins with laying the theoretical framework for their study, examining the theoretical controversies surrounding the topic, the causes and characteristics of weak states, and their consequences for the Middle East, before examining a series of case studies.