Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ARA3163: Politics and Reform in the Gulf

This module descriptor refers to the 2023/4 academic year.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Aarts, Paul and Carolien Roelants. Saudi Arabia: Kingdom in Peril (London: Hurst, 2015).

Abrahamian, Ervand. A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Al-Rasheed, Madawi. A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge University Press, 2002; 2nd ed.: 2010).

Al-Rasheed, Madawi. A Most Masculine State. Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Axworthy, Michael. Revolutionary Iran. A History of the Islamic Republic (London: Penguin, 2014).

Ayubi, Nazih. Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East(London: I.B. Tauris, 1995).

Beaugrand, Claire. Stateless in the Gulf: Migration, Nationality and Society in Kuwait (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017).

Beblawi, Hazem and Giacomo Luciani (eds.). The Rentier State (London: Croom Helm, 1987).

Coates Ulrichsen, Kristian (ed.). The Changing Security Dynamics of the Persian Gulf (London: Hurst, 2017).

Crystal, Jill. Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Davidson, Christopher (ed.). Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monarchies (London: Hurst, 2012).

Davidson, Christopher. After the Sheikhs. The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies (London: Hurst, 2012).

Freer, Courtney. Rentier Islamism. The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf Monarchies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Gause, F. Gregory. Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994).

Hanieh, Adam. Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (London: Palgrave McMillan, 2011).

Hanieh, A. Money, Markets and Monarchies. The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Herb, Michael. All in the Family. Absolutism, Revolution and Democratic Prospects in the Middle Eastern Monarchies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999).

Herb, Michael. The Wages of Oil. Parliaments and Economic Development in the UAE and Kuwait (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014).

Hertog, Steffen. Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).

Kamrava, Mehran. Qatar. Small States, Big Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013).

Khalaf, Abdulhadi, Omar Alshehabi and Adam Hanieh. Transit States. Labour, Migration and Citizenship in the Gulf (London: Pluto Press, 2014).

Kostiner, Joseph (ed.). Middle East Monarchies (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000).

Lackner, Helen (ed.). Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition (London: Saqi, 2014).

Lacroix, Stephane. Awakening Islam. The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia (Harvard University Press, 2011).

Matthiesen, Toby. Sectarian Gulf. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring that Wasn’t (Stanford University Press, 2013).

Menoret, Pascal. Joyriding in Riyadh. Oil, Urbanism and Road Revolt (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

al-Naqeeb, Khaldun. Society and State in the Gulf and Arab Peninsula (London: Routledge, 1990).

Niblock, Tim. Saudi Arabia: Power, Legitimacy and Survival (London: Routledge, 2006).

Shehabi, Ala’a and Marc O. Jones (eds). Bahrain’s Uprising: Resistance and Repression in the Gulf (London: Zed Books, 2016).

Valeri, Marc. Oman: Politics and Society in the Qaboos State (London: Hurst, updated revised ed., 2017).

Zahlan, Rosemarie S. The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1998).

The Middle East and North Africa 2019 (London: Routledge, 2018, 65th edition): chapters on Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen. This reference work, providing an account of the political histories of these states (as well as lots of information on the economy, and directories of political parties, media organisations, etc., plus a bibliography on each of these states) is available at the Library.