Sectarian Politics In The Persian Gulf

Author : Lawrence G. Potter
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 019937726X
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sectarian Politics in the Persian Gulf written by Lawrence G. Potter and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by C. Hurst & Co..""--Title page verso.

Author : Frederic M. Wehrey
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231536100
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sectarian Politics in the Gulf written by Frederic M. Wehrey and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Foreign Policy's Best Five Books of 2013, chosen by Marc Lynch of The Middle East Channel Beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and concluding with the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings, Frederic M. Wehrey investigates the roots of the Shi'a-Sunni divide now dominating the Persian Gulf's political landscape. Focusing on three Gulf states affected most by sectarian tensions—Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—Wehrey identifies the factors that have exacerbated or tempered sectarianism, including domestic political institutions, the media, clerical establishments, and the contagion effect of external regional events, such as the Iraq war, the 2006 Lebanon conflict, the Arab uprisings, and Syria's civil war. In addition to his analysis, Wehrey builds a historical narrative of Shi'a activism in the Arab Gulf since 2003, linking regional events to the development of local Shi'a strategies and attitudes toward citizenship, political reform, and transnational identity. He finds that, while the Gulf Shi'a were inspired by their coreligionists in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon, they ultimately pursued greater rights through a nonsectarian, nationalist approach. He also discovers that sectarianism in the region has largely been the product of the institutional weaknesses of Gulf states, leading to excessive alarm by entrenched Sunni elites and calculated attempts by regimes to discredit Shi'a political actors as proxies for Iran, Iraq, or Lebanese Hizballah. Wehrey conducts interviews with nearly every major Shi'a leader, opinion shaper, and activist in the Gulf Arab states, as well as prominent Sunni voices, and consults diverse Arabic-language sources.

Author : Toby Matthiesen
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804787220
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sectarian Gulf written by Toby Matthiesen and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-03 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As popular uprisings spread across the Middle East, popular wisdom often held that the Gulf States would remain beyond the fray. In Sectarian Gulf, Toby Matthiesen paints a very different picture, offering the first assessment of the Arab Spring across the region. With first-hand accounts of events in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, Matthiesen tells the story of the early protests, and illuminates how the regimes quickly suppressed these movements. Pitting citizen against citizen, the regimes have warned of an increasing threat from the Shia population. Relations between the Gulf regimes and their Shia citizens have soured to levels as bad as 1979, following the Iranian revolution. Since the crackdown on protesters in Bahrain in mid-March 2011, the "Shia threat" has again become the catchall answer to demands for democratic reform and accountability. While this strategy has ensured regime survival in the short term, Matthiesen warns of the dire consequences this will have—for the social fabric of the Gulf States, for the rise of transnational Islamist networks, and for the future of the Middle East.

Author : Nelida Fuccaro
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521514355
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf written by Nelida Fuccaro and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the political and social life of the Gulf city and its coastline, as exemplified by Manama in Bahrain. Written as an ethnography of space, politics and community, it addresses the changing relationship between urban development, politics and society before and after the discovery of oil.

Author : Laurence Louër
Publisher : Hurst Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1849042144
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Transnational Shia Politics written by Laurence Louër and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2011 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book illuminates the historical origins and present situation of militant Shia transnational networks by focusing on three key countries in the Gulf, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, whose Shia Islamic groups are the offspring of Iraqi movements. The reshaping of the area's geopolitics after the Gulf War and the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 have had a profound impact on transnational Shiite networks, pushing them to focus on national issues in the context of new political opportunities. For example, from being fierce opponents of the Saudi monarchy, Saudi Shiite militants have tended to become upholders of the Al-Sa'ud dynasty.The question remains, however, how deeply in society have these new beliefs taken root? Can Shiites be Saudi or Bahraini patriots? Louer concludes her book by analysing the transformation of the Shia' movements' relation to central religious authority, the marja', who reside either in Iraq and Iran. This is all the more problematic when the marja' is also the head of a state, as with Ali Khamenei of Iran, who has many followers in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Author : Nader Hashemi
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190862750
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sectarianization written by Nader Hashemi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Middle East descends ever deeper into violence and chaos, 'sectarianism' has become a catch-all explanation for the region's troubles. The turmoil is attributed to 'ancient sectarian differences', putatively primordial forces that make violent conflict intractable. In media and policy discussions, sectarianism has come to possess trans-historical causal power. This book trenchantly challenges the lazy use of 'sectarianism' as a magic-bullet explanation for the region's ills, focusing on how various conflicts in the Middle East have morphed from non-sectarian (or cross-sectarian) and nonviolent movements into sectarian wars. Through multiple case studies -- including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and Kuwait -- this book maps the dynamics of sectarianisation, exploring not only how but also why it has taken hold. The contributors examine the constellation of forces -- from those within societies to external factors such as the Saudi-Iran rivalry -- that drive the sectarianisation process and explore how the region's politics can be de-sectarianised. Featuring leading scholars -- and including historians, anthropologists, political scientists and international relations theorists -- this book will redefine the terms of debate on one of the most critical issues in international affairs today.

Author : Geoffrey F. Gresh
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804795061
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gulf Security and the U.S. Military written by Geoffrey F. Gresh and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. military maintains a significant presence across the Arabian Peninsula but it must now confront a new and emerging dynamic as most Gulf Cooperation Council countries have begun to diversify their political, economic, and security partnerships with countries other than the United States—with many turning to ascending powers such as China, Russia, and India. For Gulf Arab monarchies, the choice of security partner is made more complicated by increased domestic and regional instability stemming in part from Iraq, Syria, and a menacing Iran: factors that threaten to alter totally the Middle East security dynamic. Understanding the dynamics of base politicization in a Gulf host nation—or any other—is therefore vitally important for the U.S. today. Gulf National Security and the U.S. Military examines both Gulf Arab national security and U.S. military basing relations with Gulf Arab monarchy hosts from the Second World War to the present day. Three in-depth country cases—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman—help explain the important questions posed by the author regarding when and why a host nation either terminated a U.S. military basing presence or granted U.S. military basing access. The analysis of the cases offers a fresh perspective on how the United States has adapted to sometimes rapidly shifting Middle East security dynamics and factors that influence a host nation's preference for eviction or renegotiation, based on its perception of internal versus external threats.

Author : Geneive Abdo
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190233168
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The New Sectarianism written by Geneive Abdo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shi'a-Sunni conflict is one of the most significant outcomes arising from the Arab rebellions. Yet, there is little understanding of who is driving this tension and the underlying causes. By delving deeply into the historical factors leading up to the present-day conflict, The New Sectarianism sheds new light on how Shi'a and Sunni perceive one another after the Arab uprisings, how these perceptions have affected the Arab world, and why the dream of a pan-Islamic awakening was misplaced. Geneive Abdo describes a historical backdrop that serves as a counterpoint to Western media coverage of the so-called Arab Spring. Already by the 1970s, she says, Shi'a and Sunni communities had begun to associate their religious beliefs and practices with personal identity, replacing their fragile loyalty to the nation state. By the time the Arab risings erupted into their full fury in early 2011, there was fertile ground for instability. The ensuing clash-between Islamism and Nationalism, Shi'a and Sunni, and other factions within these communities-has resulted in unprecedented violence. So, Abdo asks, what does religion have to do with it? This sectarian conflict is often presented by the West as rivalry over land use, political power, or access to education. However, Abdo persuasively argues that it must be understood as flowing directly from religious difference and the associated identities that this difference has conferred on both Shi'a and Sunni. The New Sectarianism considers the causes for this conflict in key countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Bahrain and the development of regional trends. Abdo argues that in these regions religion matters, not only in how it is utilized by extremists, moderate Islamists, and dictators alike for political purposes, but how it perpetually evolves and is perceived and practiced among the vast majority of Muslims. Shi'a and Sunni today are not battling over territory alone; they are fighting for their claim to a true Islamic identity.

Author : Toby Matthiesen
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107043042
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Other Saudis written by Toby Matthiesen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the politics of the Shia in the oil-rich Eastern Province of Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia since the nineteenth century.

Author : Mehran Kamrava
Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 081565152X
Total Pages : 395 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The International Politics of the Persian Gulf written by Mehran Kamrava and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-29 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of the contemporary history of the Middle East, the Persian Gulf has stood at the center of the region’s strategic significance. At the same time, the Gulf has been wracked by political instability and tension. As far back as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain zeroed in on the Persian Gulf as a critical passageway to its crown jewel, India, and entered into protectorate agreements with local ruling families, thus bestowing on them international legitimacy and, eventually, the resources and support necessary to ascend to kingships. Today, the region is undergoing profound changes that range from rapid economic and infrastructural development to tumultuous social and cultural transformations. Far from eroding the area’s political significance, these changes have only accentuated rivalries and tensions and have brought to the forefront new challenges to international security and stability. 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.