Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn't (Stanford Briefs)

Interesting and different perspective on events and players in the Gulf region.Have some substantial differences with the author's viewpoints on events in Bahrain, based on long-time experience and residence in Saudi Arabia and some related periods in Bahrain on programs for HRD and industrial training (I've been a "Gulfie" area specialist in various capacities since the mid-1970s).I've read better, and I've read worse. While I have no regrets about buying and reading this book, I would recommend some other materials instead as "read ahead to get smart quick" references to Americans heading to the "upper Gulf" region (including Saudi Arabia).

i really like the book and wish to have the Arabic education

Very informative! This book deserves more attention than it has received. Well written!

Everything you never knew you wanted to know about the Gulf, with the ins and outs of key players, written well and with obvious local perspective.

The writer is biased which denied him form providing a more comprehensive overview

For a Middle Easterner or anyone already familiar with how the GCC does politics in our region of the world, the book simply reiterates common knowledge. Sectarian Gulf states that the Arab Spring resurrected three visible threats to the Middle East’s ancien régimes. The first is the “Shia threat,” encapsulated by Iran’s looming presence and aggressive vociferation. The GCC countries are all governed by Sunni ruling families, and any Iranian interference in the region threatens old hierarchies in favor of Islamic states that follow the Shia sect.However, in addition to the fear of growing Shia sentiment, the GCC’s royal families also worry that the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which regained its intensity after winning elections in Egypt and Tunisia, might also destabilize the region’s power structures. Hence, Sunni Islamism has become just as much a paramount threat to the status quo as Shia Islamism.Finally, the GCC regimes have had to contend with a third, even more dangerous threat: people power, which succeeded in toppling dictators in various other Arab countries. To prevent “the people”—the secular majority who view themselves as disenfranchised by current political systems—from uniting against the Gulf monarchies, the GCC’s royal elite hired sectarian identity entrepreneurs to help this group maintain its dominance. “[S]ectarianism,” writes Matthiesen, “was not just a government intervention but the result of an amalgam of political, religious, social and economic elites who all used sectarianism to further their own aim” (p. ix).Overall, while Sectarian Gulf is merely an introductory account of the GCC’s political reaction to the Arab Spring, it remains highly relevant. This book illustrates how post-Arab Spring sectarianism is a particular strategy to divide “the people” and ward off the threat of serious, structural reforms.

I read the book and all information was fake and not a truth.

The author explains how gulf rulers often fueled sectarian animosity to undermine the uprisings that took place in the gulf, particulary in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The uprisings that erupted on legitimate grounds to change the status quo and grant people their basic freedoms were depicted by gulf rulers as the works of 'foreign agents'', namely Iran and its allies. Such a pretext gave the gulf rulers leverage to crack down on dissident and weaken cross sectarian opposition movements that called for democracy and freedoms. The author's personal experiences during the uprisings at the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain and the eastern province in Saudi Arabia are surely an eye opener to the reader.

That has been an excellent read. It is precise, and provides a clear picture of recent socio- political events in the Gulf. It's fast, and rather enjoyable (comparing similar readings in the field).

libro sencillo de leer, apto para todos los públicos. Un desarrollo simple que permite una comprensión rápida de lo que ha sucedido estos años.