Radical Transformations and Radical Contestations: Bahrain's Spatial-Demographic Revolution (original) (raw)

Book Review: Contested Modernity: Sectarianism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Bahrain

Contemporary Arab Affairs, 2022

The historiography of the Gulf has long been dominated by narratives orig- inating in the British colonial archive, where the thoughts and perceptions of late nineteenth-century British colonial officers can still be traced in much writing in English on the Gulf today. In Bahrain’s case, not only was the same ethno-sectarian language found in the colonial archive in such writing, but also the mode of thought, political coding, and interpretations of society have remained consistently within the colonial framework. In Contested Moder- nity, Omar al-Shehabi interrogates what he calls “the ethno-sectarian colonial gaze” used to navigate Bahrain’s modern history in much of the Anglophone scholarship on the country and the region. He achieves this by challenging and dismantling the idea that ethno-sectarian political mobilization is a prod- uct of Bahrain’s native social relations.

Political movements in Bahrain across the long 20th century (1900-2015)

The Oxford Handbook for the Contemporary Middle-Eastern and North African History, 2017

This chapter traces the birth, rise, and evolution of political movements in Bahrain throughout the long twentieth century, taking as its starting point the beginning of direct British presence in the local political scene in 1900, and ending with the aftermath of the mass protests that engulfed the islands in 2011. It highlights four intersecting dichotomies that have characterized these political movements across time: trans-sectarian versus ethnosectarian, national versus transnational, reformist versus revolutionary, and public versus underground. It sheds light on the importance of externally imposed structural factors on local developments on the island, including British colonial absolutist rule, the discovery of oil and the subsequent fluctuation in the commodity's global prices, and the rise of American hegemony. Taking its cue from the work of the autonomistas, the analysis also highlights the central role that political movements have played in shaping the actions and reactions of the state. The state's attempts to contain these movements, and the contestation between the two sides, played a central role in shaping the contours of both state and society across Bahrain's long century.

Divided rule and the birth of sectarianism, nationalism, and absolutism in Bahrain

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2016

This study argues that political mobilization based on ethnosectarian identities in Bahrain is a modernist product of the contestations that occurred in the period of increasing British colonial involvement in the early twentieth century. Two concepts are utilized: The first is the colonial "ethnosectarian gaze", marked primarily by its underlying epistemology that saw ethnosectarian cleavages as the main analytic units for approaching local political power, practice, and discourse. The second is "contested and divided rule". With the advent of Curzon's "forward policy" in the Gulf, Britain actively divided sovereignty between itself and the local ruler, with actors on the island faced with two conflicting sources of jurisdiction. The British viewed issues of jurisdiction primarily through an ethnosectarian lens, and increasingly so did other actors, creating an inter-feeding dynamic between ethnosectarianism, nationalism, and divided rule. Two emergent forms of political mobilization are emphasized. The first mobilized based on ethnosectarian identity-specific demands and grievances. The other took an overtly nationalist, trans-sectarian, anti-colonial tone, having its roots in the al-Nahda renaissance that swept the Arab world in the nineteenth century. Thus, colonialism, absolutism, ethnosectarianism, and nationalism went hand in hand, products of a similar period of divided rule, their lingering effects still felt today.

Fixing the Kingdom: Political Evolution and Socio-Economic Challenges in Bahrain

Occasional Paper 3, 2010

This work is written by Steven Wright. Bahrain has entered into a more ‘progressive’ phase of its history under King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Various parliamentary and legislative restructuring, in addition to discernable changes within civil society, have taken place. Yet genuine socio-economic challenges remain on the horizon, which may pose risks to the political order. The reforms were drive by a recognition that far reaching political and economic changes were needed in order to combat the risk of a return to the widespread riots that Bahrain was plagued with during the late 1990s. The focus of this study is to show that internal power politics within Bahrain’s ruling elite largely explain the manner in which the reforms have been implemented in the initial years of King Hamad’s reign. A key aspect of this was a desire by the King to enhance his autonomy vis-à-vis the Prime Minister through a populist mandate. This study also surveys key social and political developments in Bahrain and illustrates some of the important challenges which remain within the Kingdom.

Group conflict and political mobilization in Bahrain and the Arab Gulf: rethinking the rentier state

Choice Reviews Online, 2016

GROUP CONFLICT AND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION IN BAHRAIN AND THE ARAB GULF: RETHINKING THE RENTIER STATE Justin Gengler Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015 (226 pages, bibliography, index, illustrations, maps) 30.00(paper),30.00 (paper), 30.00(paper),75.00 (cloth)While certainly not the first work to challenge the rentier state thesis, the prevailing theory explaining the Gulf's unique combination of material wealth and authoritarian stability, Justin Gengler's Group Conflict and Political Mobilization in Bahrain and the Arab Gulf is one of the most comprehensive. Using Bahrain as a case study, Gengler exposes the numerous shortcomings of rentierism as a theoretical framework through which to understand the region. He successfully argues that in spite of Bahrain's distinction as the only Shi'i-majority Gulf state, his conclusions can be extended to Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf because Bahrain is influenced by similar social, economic, and structural factors, including the unequal distribution of resource wealth and the proclivity of ruling elites to adopt divide-and-rule tactics. More broadly, Gengler's book is also a critique of Gulf exceptionalism, joining work by other scholars of the region, including F. Gregory Gause, Christopher Davidson, and Morten Valbjorn and Andre Bank, who argue that Gulf Arab societies are capable of adopting democratic values and that the perceived structural stability of the authoritarian Gulf monarchies is a myth.The book begins with a detailed critique of the primary assumptions underpinning the rentier thesis, in particular the widely held belief that Gulf citizens' political quiescence can be bought in exchange for a cradle-tograve welfare state funded by oil revenues. Gengler shows that this concept, rooted in the idea that citizens apportion political support on the sole basis of their economic situation, is an oversimplification that fails to account for the mobilizing potential of the ethnic, religious, and tribal affinities that exist throughout the Gulf and are arguably most pronounced in Shi'imajority Bahrain. In contrast to classic rentier theorists such as Hazem Beblawi, who argue that resource-rich distributive states are able to bypass identity-based politics, Gengler demonstrates that in the case of Bahrain, political orientation is more reliably predicted by sectarian affiliation than personal wealth (or lack thereof).Rentierism relies on the assumption that hydrocarbon rents are distributed relatively evenly among the populace by the Gulf's benevolent rulers, and that every citizen has a fair share of their country's wealth. Gengler demonstrates, however, that oil revenues are utilized disproportionately to patronize sectarian and tribal "in-groups" at the expense of the country's distrusted Shi'i majority. Gengler shows that this phenomenon is not exclusive to Bahrain: the nature of the various "in-groups" may differ in most other Gulf states, but the tactic, essentially a form of divide and rule, remains the same. Similarly, in contrast to the traditional rentier model, in Bahrain, Gengler shows, "it is not public-sector employment that secures political allegiance; rather it is political allegiance that tends to secure public-sector employment" (59). Because Bahraini Shi'a are barred from gaining employment in key ministries and the military due to suspicions of disloyalty, the government is unable to make use of what is typically a powerful means of purchasing support. As such, repression has become an indispensable method of asserting control, arguably of at least equal importance to financial incentives. Repressive measures dramatically increased following the 2011 uprising, which was brutally suppressed by the Saudi-dominated Peninsula Shield Force. This period has also seen an alarming rise in human rights violations, including the widespread use of torture, collective punishment, and extrajudicial imprisonment.Gengler proposes an alternative model for explaining political behavior in the Gulf, "a theory of group-based political mobilization," which asserts that the Gulf states have developed a structural tendency toward political segmentation along ethnic, tribal, and/or religious lines. …

The Spatialisation of Gender in Bahrain: Capital, Patriarchy and a “Woman’s Place”

This research paper identifies multiple spatialisations interacting over time and space, with a specific focus on the spatialisation of gender relations in Bahrain. The essay adopts a conception of space interlinked with that of time, thinking in terms of “stretched out social relations”. The political economic and socioeconomic consequences of those spatialisations are conceived in a number of case studies and spatial observations; assessing issues ranging from the spatial mobility of local women to the spatial confinement of migrant domestic labourers. In all of the considered cases, the interests of the ruling elite and the capitalist class in furthering capitalist accumulation are perceived as the main lever behind the transformations in the spatialisation of gender. This essay argues that capitalism and patriarchy have accommodated themselves to each other, and have been jointly articulated through the spatialisation of gender relations.

Bahrain's Uprising (Edited Book)

Bahrain's Uprising: Resistance and Repression in the Gulf (Edited Book), 2015

The 2011 uprisings that started in Tunisia and swept across the region have been extensively covered, but until now the Gulf island of Bahrain has almost been forgotten from the narration of events that have dramatically changed the region. Bahrain's Uprising examines the ongoing protests and the state’s repression, revealing a sophisticated society shaped by its political struggle against a reactionary ruling elite that see’s the island as the bounty of conquest. The regime survived largely through foreign political and economic patronage, notably from Britain, America, and Saudi Arabia – a patronage so deep, that the island became the first immediate target of the Arab Spring’s counter-revolutionary mobilisation that continues today. The book explores the contentious politics of Bahrain, and charts the way in which a dynamic culture of street protest, a strong moral belief in legitimate democratic demands and creative forms of resistance continue to hamper the efforts of the ruling elite to rebrand itself as a liberal, modernising monarchy. Drawing on powerful testimonies, interviews and conversations from those involved, this broad collection of writings provides a rarely heard voice for the lived experiences of Bahrainis and the research of young scholars studying them. From the trial speech by one of the most prominent political leaders of the uprising, to the evocative prose of an imprisoned poet, the book harnesses the power of storytelling, to lead into scholarly articles that address the themes of space, social movements, postcolonialism, social media, and the role of foreign patrons. Published on the eve of the 2016 bicentenary of British-Bahrain relations, the book in particular focuses on the role of the British government, together showing the depth of historical grievance beyond the sectarian narrative that has come to define the limited reporting of events in the country. Bahrain’s Uprising provides a powerful insight into the Arab Spring's forgotten front, and will be of lasting value not only to scholars and students of the Middle East, but also to activists seeking to learn from, and build upon, Bahrain history and the uprising's legacy.