Modernization Of The Arab World

"Written under the auspices of the Center of International Studies and the Program in Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University."

In an historically informed critique of the theory and practice of development assistance, this book examines Britain's foreign aid programme in the Middle East in the 1940s and 1950s. After an assessment of the origins of what was dubbed the 'peasants, not pashas' policy - notably the link between development, sterling balances, and post-war imperial strategy - the author focuses on planning and policy debates between British development experts, their American rivals, and Middle Eastern technocrats. These debates, which centred on issues such as afforestation, irrigation, and rural credit, raise important questions about the nature and limits of the development process within the Middle East and the Third World which the author explores in his analysis. This 1996 book will be of interest to development practitioners and scholars in development studies, as well as to students of Middle East and imperial history.

The entire Gulf is passing through a transitional phase. The member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are witnessing change in varying degrees. The change has become too evident from the 1960s. It was oil, more than any other factor, which was responsible for a rapid transition. Control over oil production and marketing have led to the strengthening of governmental role as owner and distributor of oil income. The regions tribal society is being transformed into a modern society. Political modernization is a recent phenomenon if the nature and extent of structural and informal transformations are taken into account. Three broadly defined phases of political change can be discerned in the Arabian Peninsula: the traditional, the neo-traditional, and the modernizing or post-traditional. The modernizing phase was initiated by radical policies of socio-economic development, including the necessary restructuring of replacement of regimes and a redefinition or expansion of the scope and role of the state. However, the pace and direction of change is not clear enough. The coming few decades are crucial in this regard.