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Town Politics in Eastern Arabia in the 1950s

Abstract This article analyses the traditional political institutions of the Arab shaikhdoms of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States (later the United Arab Emirates). Based on anthropological fieldwork during 1953–6, as well as historical research, it links the political authority prevailing in the Gulf in the 1950s with earlier political developments in the nineteenth century. It argues that political change in the shaikhdoms, both past and present, has never involved a change in the system of government, only a change of rulers. It also finds that tribal migrations or secessions between shaikhdoms played a key role in political alliances and the formation of shaikhdoms in Eastern Arabia: these movements were both a source of conflict between, and cohesion among, the shaikhdoms' various communities.