How to balance hereditary leadership, conformity to Islam, and the demands of a traditional society based on the family and tribal configurations with the vital need to promote modern economic development? The Modernization of Tradition is a direct study of just such a dilemma in the Arab Gulf States. The modernizing impact of the Ottoman, and especially British Empires was overshadowed by the effect of vast oil revenues in such countries as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as the other Gulf States. This huge new influx of capital created the need for a different kind of bureaucracy geared to different aims, and led to considerable political change. These cultural poles--the drive to look to the future and the yearning to stay true to the past--have engendered tensions in the states of the Arabian peninsula, where hereditary monarchies and modern political and social infrastructures sit uncomfortably together.
Prologue: Hitchhiking on the Road to Makkah * Tradition and Change: Arabia at the Beginning of the 20th Century * The Assault upon Tradition and its Resilience * Political Change in the Pre-Oil Era * Oil and Socioeconomic Transformation * Political Change in the Oil Era * The Preservation and Modernization of Tradition * Social Change and Continuity in the Oil Era * From Hukumah to Dawlah: Political Institutions and Structure * Political Behaviour: Decision-Making and Participation * Change and Tradition: Arabia at the End of the 20th Century * Challenges for the Next Century * Challenges for Individual Countries * The Future of Monarchies in the Gulf
J.E. Peterson is a Middle East specialist who has taught at Bowdoin College, the College of William and Mary, the University of Pennsylvania and Portland State University.
