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Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ARAM231: Politics and Reform in the Gulf

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, the syllabus will cover all of the following topics:

• Pre-oil socio-political characteristics and dynamics of the Gulf states
• The politics of oil and rent in the Gulf; historical review of political reform trends in the Gulf
• Politics and reform in Saudi Arabia Politics and reform in Kuwait
• Politics and reform in Bahrain Politics and reform in Oman
• Politics and reform in Qatar
• Politics and reform in the UAE
• Politics and reform in Iran
• Politics and reform in Yemen
• Towards democratisation or liberalised autocracy?

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

• Gulf States Newsletter (GSN) and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s reports on the Gulf states, electronically;
• The International Crisis Group’s reports at www.crisisgroup.org;
• Human Rights Watch (Middle East) produces good reports on the Gulf states: http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-east/n-africa
• Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) (weekly)

Indicative Reading List

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; 2^nd 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, 65^th 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.

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