Centers of Power in the Arab Gulf States

In eight crisp, comprehensive, and accessible chapters, the longtime Gulf analyst Coates Ulrichsen provides a rich overview of the dynamics in the countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. He examines not only the rulers themselves but also the elites with whom they consult, their partially successful efforts to build formal administrative institutions, their varying approaches to popular representation, and how their regimes respond to political opposition, including through generous distributive policies and sometimes harsh repression. This comparative perspective allows him to draw out the considerable variation among governments that are too often bracketed together as indistinguishable absolute monarchies or rentier states. From Kuwait’s long and checkered history of parliamentary politics to dynastic rivalries and political marriages among the region’s ruling families, from the ambitious aspirations of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth funds to the UAE’s recruiting of Colombian and South African soldiers, Coates Ulrichsen conveys with precision and clarity the diverse purposes, resources, strategies, and tactics of some of the world’s oldest ruling monarchies—and some of the region’s most powerful countries.