This work sets out to fill a perceived gap in the literature on the political economy of the Gulf both by linking its dynamics and evolution over time with those of global capitalism and by extending the analysis to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as a whole, noting the increasingly important role the Gulf states have come to pay in its political economy. Moreover, the operation of these dynamics of capitalism and politics are analyzed as operating not only at and between these three levels—national, regional, and global—but also at a range of more fine-grained scales simultaneously, each helping shape the others.

In recent years, others—including, perhaps most prominently, Steffen Hertog, Mehran Kamrava (including his edited volume The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf, 2012), Giacomo Luciani, and most recently Jim Krane (Energy Kingdoms: Oil and Political Survival in the Persian Gulf, 2019)—have contributed much to our understanding of the Gulf’s political economy in its own right. The region’s place in the global political economy remained relatively sparsely covered until it received lucid attention in Kristian Coates Ulrichsen’s 2016 book, The Gulf States in International Political Economy. The historical roots and context of both the local political economy and its regional and global linkages have also been examined by a range of authors, including in some of the emerging literature on the Indian Ocean space. Adam Hanieh acknowledges some of this work, but this volume is distinctive in three ways: (1) in adding the analytical focus interlinking the Gulf and the wider MENA region; (2) in its argument on “the co-constitution” of the Gulf and global political economies—in other words, in making the case that the Gulf not only plays an increasingly important place in the world economy but also has been shaping the dynamics of global capital just as the latter has shaped the political economy of the Gulf; and (3) in Hanieh’s notion of the “cross-scalar interlockings of social relations” (p. 15), meaning that these dynamics play out on multiple scales simultaneously, as opposed to the local–global, center–periphery dichotomies previously deployed as means of understanding the way “global capitalism” works.

The author stresses the shaping role of neoliberalism—underpinned by financialization and the internationalization of capital in these dynamics—in an approach that for some readers’ tastes may be overly laden with Marxian jargon and assumptions, not least because key parts of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states’ economic policies are arguably anything but neoliberal. But he balances this, first, with a deep engagement with empirical detail on the economic components and flows within the Gulf states’ economies and between them and the wider region and the globe—presented in clear and accessible ways—and, second, with an appreciation for other factors in the political environment and historical trajectories of these states. Hanieh’s argument that the state is a social form of class power (p. 25) might for some be too sweeping as an all-encompassing description and explanation, but it is well made and buttressed by ample empirical material. Certainly, he adduces plenty of evidence to support the core claim that the “capitalist class” of these states is “closely connected to the ruling families” (p. 24), which, indeed, are part of that capitalist class—an observation that was advanced in some other recent work that, perhaps surprisingly, is not engaged with in this volume (for instance, Steffen Hertog, “State and Private Sector in the GCC after the Arab Uprisings,” Journal of Arabian Studies, 3 (2), 2014; Steffen Hertog, Giacomo Luciani, and Marc Valeri (eds.), Business Politics in the Middle East (2013); Mehran Kamrava (ed.), The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf (2012); Mehran Kamrava, Gerd Nonneman, Anastasia Nosova, and Marc Valeri, “Ruling Families and Business Elites in the Gulf Monarchies: Ever Closer?” (2016); and Mehran Kamrava, “State-Business Relations and Clientelism in Qatar,” Journal of Arabian Studies, 7 (1), 2017). A compelling case is also made that Gulf financial flows are “an essential component to understanding the concrete form of the contemporary world economy” whose “uneven and hierarchical structure … shapes the nature of capital accumulation and class formation in the Gulf itself” (p. 7).

Even while acknowledging the substantial differences (and indeed conflicts) between the GCC states, much of the book documents the similarities characterizing them in the terms presented earlier; it extends those commonalities to their dependence on the United States and on hydrocarbon sales, which underpin these states’ reliance on migrant labor. Both the deployment of hydrocarbon revenues and dependence on migrant labor are in turn unquestionably connected to the exclusive definition of citizenship in each of the GCC states.

Following an extensive first chapter laying out these arguments, chapter 2 goes into greater empirical detail on the ways in which the Gulf is interconnected with the global economy, demonstrating the “ongoing centrality of the Gulf to the structure of global finance” (p. 51); it also discusses these states’ importance as importers of arms and other goods, which he argues is linked to the “hegemony” of the United States and the West, reflected in concomitant political/military alliances. Chapter 3 lays out in very welcome detail the key capitalist groups/actors in the GCC states, with particular emphasis on industry, real estate, and finance and their links with the “state”: it is here that the argument is fleshed out that these are “class states,” in which the “capitalist class” includes the ruling families. Although the argument is compelling overall when it comes to the private sector, it is less so where state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are concerned. Even if it is true that leading families are represented on their boards and otherwise find business opportunities deriving from such SOEs, an argument can surely be made that serving the interests of the “capitalist class” is not the only or even main purpose of some of the most competitive of those SOEs.

In chapter 4, the Gulf states’ involvement in food and agribusiness in the wider MENA region is analyzed, followed in chapter 5 by an examination of their role in urban development in the region, particularly in real estate, power, water, transport, and telecoms. Chapter 6 homes in on the Gulf-MENA “regionally articulated circuits dominated by Gulf finance capital.” In all these chapters, again, key information about all the key players is listed in several clear, informative tables.

In chapter 7, the author turns to the “Vision” plans of the GCC states, where he claims support for his underlying thesis by pointing to the prevalence of public–private partnerships (PPPs) as a tool in these plans. Although noting the combination of promised cuts in public spending and public sector employment, and the effects these cuts are bound to have on the private sector, Hanieh argues that by and large the largest capitalist actors are generally relatively isolated from the worst of this impact, and it is the smaller ones that suffer. With respect to his overall argument, the author makes the case that rather than simply “coping” with these pressures, the state capitalist elite is using the occasion to “make new markets” (p. 227).

The final chapter uses the Qatar crisis (2017–) as an example of how the Gulf’s intertwining with the wider MENA region plays out in the sort of competition we have witnessed. Although the crisis has indeed obviously demonstrated an interconnection between Gulf politics and those of the wider region, this reviewer at least was not persuaded that one would glean a great deal from the book’s theoretical apparatus to help one understand the dynamics of this particular crisis.

Yet, overall, this book is unquestionably a major, important, and impressively researched contribution to our understanding both of the Gulf’s political economy and its intertwining with that of the wider region and the globe. Anyone henceforth working in this field will need to engage with it.