Oman: Politics and Society in the Qaboos State

by Marc Valeri

With the help of British advisors, Sultan Qaboos overthrew his father, the ruler of Oman, in 1970, yet few expected the new leader to thrive. Sultan Qaboos was an unfamiliar figure to his own people, and Oman was a poor country wracked by multiple civil wars. Nevertheless, Sultan Qaboos cemented his rule by introducing a policy of national unification and assimilating all of Oman into an oil rentier state framework. He also promoted the idea that the figure of the sultan could embody the state, which later led to a celebration of the sultan as an incarnation of Oman's "renaissance." Based on years of research, Marc Valeri treats the political career of Sultan Qaboos as a case study revealing the social and political mechanisms of authoritarianism in postcolonial states. Valeri examines how Sultan Qaboos established and constantly renewed his base in order to meet internal and external challenges to his power. He also considers what happens when one part of this model, namely an oil-rent economy, falters, and the privileges enjoyed by half the population are no longer tenable. In particular, Valeri addresses the creation of a different model and how this pursuit depends as much on the network of power and privilege that has developed alongside polity as on the interference of economic and technological forces. At the same time, different and overlapping identities-ethnic, religious, historical, or a combination thereof-persist and in some cases reemerge, intertwining with challenges to wider state- and nation-building exercises and to the regime's legitimizing strategies. In conclusion, Valeri expands his focus beyond the state of Oman, evaluating the practices of other Arab monarchies in Morocco, Jordan, and the Persian Gulf.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[shayma · Rating 4 out of 5]

i try to avoid reading books by white men but this was an experience. i’m in my last week of u*derg*ad and this is my first time strolling a library for resources for a research project instead of browsing online (advised by my professor). i grew up learning bits, pieces and fragments of omani history but this helped place my knowledge in alignment. very very insightful, interesting and engaging. it’s one thing to feel oman as a bodily experience and another to read about its history from books! i know Sheikh and Dr. Sultan Al-Qassemi has written extensively about trucial oman and i would love to learn from his books as well inshaAllah <3

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very solid and fascinating overview of Omani politics. All in all written very clearly even if very much an academic text.

Some of the tribal/cultural background stuff is complicated but Valeri does a great job in laying things out and the book's summary of the early history of what would become Oman (especially in regards to the early rivalry between the Imam & the Sultan), the development of Oman into an actual state after the 1970 and overall post-1970 political development was illuminating.

As an undergrad student just dipping their toes into Middle East studies (and who actually had to play as the new Sultan Haitham in a MENA politics sim), I really wish I'd been able to read this in its entirety earlier as it helped me personally with some aspects of the domestic situation (and how on earth Qaboos managed to hang on to power for so long) and the domestic situation the new sultan has inherited.

[R.Alsouli · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Sultan Qaboos has had to create among the inhabitants of this territory a feeling of belonging to a common "imagined community ".