Saudi Arabia provides a clear, concise yet analytical account of the development of the Saudi state. It details the country’s historical and religious background, its oil rentier economy and its international role, showing how they interact to create the dynamics of the contemporary Saudi state.The development of the state is traced through three stages: the formative period prior to 1962; the centralization of the state and the initiation of intensive economic development...

Since the end of the Cold War, the new Chinese leadership generation has had to promulgate new guiding principles for handling global diplomacy which acknowledges China's new position. Given the dramatic changes in the international system and its domestic economic success for the growing "China's rise" idea on the global stage, China in the 21st century faces a mixture of old and new challenges, including terrorism, hegemonism, and authoritarianism. While Deng Xiaooping combined Taoism, a...

With Saudi Arabia being of immense importance both politically and economically in the Middle East, this book provides a much needed, broad ranging survey of the development of the Saudi economy from the 1960s to the present day.Written by a highly reputable author, the book includes an analysis of how political and social factors have shaped policy, and how the Saudi state is coping with the dynamics of a rapidly changing economic and political situation.

Sudanese Intellectuals in the Global Milieu: Capturing Cultural Capital propels Sudanese intellectuals into the global intellectual milieu and argues for their place in world intellectual history. The contributors posit that Sudan is currently in its most uncertain and perhaps most generative period, as the unrest, conflicts, and upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries threw Sudanese intellectuals and activists into identity, economic, environmental, religious, and existentia...

Asia constitutes the hub of the transformation of global economic power today. The Gulf, itself part of Asia, is of increasing importance in this transformation. This book documents the growing interactions between the economies of the Gulf states and those of the rest of Asia. These relationships are critical to how the world economy develops over the next decade, and how economic (and perhaps strategic) power is distributed. This volume assembles cutting-edge thinking by 16 specialists o...

Saudi Arabia is one of the most important countries in the modern world. Not only does it possess some 25 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves, it also plays a crucial role in the wider Gulf region where over 50 per cent of proven reserves are located. Developments in Saudi Arabia will inevitably affect the economic well-being of the Western industrialised world, Japan and much of the Third World. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is ruled in a traditional way by an all-powerful king a...

The crucial importance of the Gulf region today – which may be defined as comprising the states of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with Iran as a non-Arab onlooker – has stimulated surprisingly little interest in academic circles. Much of what has been written, moreover, focuses exclusively on those aspects of direct concern to external interests. The focus of this book is on the Gulf region as an area with its own problems of social, economic...

Written in 1985, at a time when the world oil industry was facing a difficult period of over-supply and falling prices, this book examines some of the most important strategic issues facing both the producers and consumers of oil and gas. A theme underlying al the papers is the need for strengthening the co-operation between producing and consuming nations, especially between the Arab Gulf States and the members of the EU. The security of supply is also examined in the light of regional in...

First Published in 1982, Iraq: The Contemporary State presents insights into the political, social, and economic developments in Iraq. The author argues that Iraq, is a country which the outside world will need increasingly to understand for the stability of the wider Gulf region. Unlike most Arab oil-producing states, moreover, Iraq has substantial agricultural and hydrocarbon resources. This book covers themes like class determination and state formation in Iraq; developments in...

Contributions to this book question the concept of the clash of cultures. The challenge to the West does not lie in the monolith of Islam turning aggressively outward to Europe and the US, but in the rivalries between regimes ruling over societies divided by an imbalance in wealth and power.