Thread by @thegulfblog

1/ My new book 📖 😊

"SECURITY POLITICS IN THE GULF MONARCHIES: CONTINUITY AMID CHANGE”

Published by the super people at @ColumbiaUP

cup.columbia.edu/book/security-…

Discount code at the bottom of the 🧵 😉

2/ If you need one book 📙 to understand the contemporary Gulf monarchies, this book aspires to be it. It takes you from the foundations of the modern monarchies through to today.

3/ It is the fruits of *many* years work. It bucks the recent trend of single country or single issue studies & looks across the six monarchies
#Kuwait 🇰🇼, #Saudi 🇸🇦, #Bahrain 🇧🇭, #Qatar 🇶🇦, #UAE 🇦🇪, #Oman 🇴🇲

4/ Ultimately, it offers a detailed & richly referenced but accessible analysis of the stability ⚖ and security 🔒of the Gulf monarchies – and how these ideas have changed & evolved.

5/ It takes a diverse approach to the concept of security 🛡️ borrowing a structure from the 🇩🇰 Copenhagen School folk, hence chapters on:

🗳 Political Security 🗳
👥 Societal Security 👥
🏦 Economic Security 🏦
🪖 Military Security 🪖
♻️Environmental Security ♻️

6/ 🗳 Political Security 🗳

Tribal dynamics. National identities🚩: emergence, changes, active management. Gulf citizenship. Role of taxes. Arab Spring. Foreign workers: shifting importance. Ideological currents: pan-Arabism, religious pressures, US-led democratization...

7/ ... rising confidence & resilience today, Chinese 🇨🇳 model? Hydrocarbon 🛢🔀 transition. Slimming space for social interaction. Elite leadership dynamics, generational changes. Groupthink.

8/ 👥 Societal Security 👥
Critical importance of migration‍: idea transmission💭, societal shaping, state building 🏗 roles. Forging of Gulf’s exclusive citizenship 🛂. State control of citizenship narratives. Lingering tribal influences. States as influence takers to makers💪

9/ .... Qatar, UAE and the secret sauce of governance in the Arab world. Democratization ☑ and its discontents.

10/ 🏦 Economic Security 🏦
Emergence of critical non-renewable, finite, naturally occurring resource – & how the search for it, extraction, processing, sales catalyzed & shaped more or less everything, dominating the entire economic and state edifice. I speak of pearling 🦪

11/... That died, and along came another, oil 🛢️Elites entrenched in power. Norms established. General failures to diversify ⛽ Pots of money emerged, SWFs 💵 State financial largesse. Founding of new industries 🏭 Mega & gigaprojects. Changes in the “rentier mindset” 🤔

12/ 🪖 Military Security 🪖
Conflictual region 👊, founding of armed forces ⚔️, persistent proliferation of threats 🥊 Whimsical procurement 🛒 Coup proofing. US 🇺🇸 protection curse. Abqaiq attack de-robing the US Emperor. Mosaic 🧩 security henceforth. Local potency emerging.

13/♻️Environmental Security ♻️

Climate change. Food 🍳and water 🌊security. Technological 🤖 answers to fiendish questions. Catastrophically blooming 🧑‍🌾🌾the desert🏜️ Unsustainable economies. Desalination 🚰 – single points of failure. Subsidies 💰 masking everything – so far...

14/ Regional experts like @MehranKamrava @abaabood @Dr_Ulrichsen say nice things about it on the back, so it must be good 😉

15/ Sincere thanks to 👏🙏 @abuaardvark @caelyncobb 👏for support and help throughout the project.

16/ 💰 💸💰
You can get 20% off using the code: CUP20 at the @ColumbiaUP website

cup.columbia.edu/book/security-…

💰 💸 💰

The book is available in hardback 📕, paperback 📘, e-book 💻 from April 2023.

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