Modernization Of Tradition: Political Change In The Arabian Peninsula

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.