This chapter embarks on a rigorous examination of the evolving social contracts within the Gulf states delineating their foundational role in facilitating the region’s pursuit of decarbonization, climate change adaptation, and socioeconomic diversification. The analysis delves into the intricate web of socioeconomic, political, national security, and sociocultural transformations inextricably linked to the ongoing economic restructuring within the region and assesses how these countries navigate this multifaceted transition amid a complex interplay of domestic and global pressures.

Chapter 4 discusses the year 1956 as bringing together two crises that coincided in time almost to the hour but were starkly different in their causes and consequences. These are the Suez Canal Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution. India was intimately involved with both in very different ways. On the one hand, in the Suez Canal Crisis, India assumed again the mediatory role so well constructed during the Korean War. The anti-colonial fervour of the crisis and India’s support of the Egyptian cause did not impede India from mediating with both sides and contributing substantially to the closing of the crisis. On the other hand, in the case of Hungary, Nehru exposed himself to severe criticism, both international and domestic, for his delayed and ambiguous response to Soviet actions in suppressing the revolution. Both these events are discussed in conjunction as an attempt to read them as a discursive moment in which non-alignment as an approach to world politics encountered its first challenge and Nehru responded through an ambiguously constructed idea of Europe.

What are the politics of choosing specific frames? This chapter is anchored on this question and finds a marked difference between frames employed at the field level and those by subfields in each country. It finds, for example, that the Kenyan national subfield’s favored frame resembled those selected by fields in the Global North. Concomitantly, it finds an ambivalence in using the genocide frame to talk about the atrocities in Darfur, arguing that this ambivalence is due to perceptions of how the frame would affect peace negotiations and the posture taken by transnational organizations such as the ICC, UN, and AU.

Focusing on the field’s structure, this chapter shows that African journalists use the ethnic conflict frame to cover African atrocities. This frame is deployed by African journalists even though they and scholars argue that it is stereotypical and oversimplifies complex social processes. This chapter contextualizes its use within Africa while pushing against simplistic readings of its existence. It argues that this frame engages in the politics of who is African while relying on specific collective memories about political manipulation of identity, colonial subjugation, and the war on terror discourse.

The forms of punishment and informal privatization in schools have wide-ranging implications for student subjectivities and practices. This chapter focuses in particular on the resulting patterns of noncompliance, failed disciplinary supervision and gendered contestation. It provides background on the wide-ranging negative consequences of harsh punishment for young people. It focuses in particular on noncompliance and its assumed links to working class education, to gender traditionalism and to assumptions about authoritarian Arab schools. It charts patterns of contestation and retaliation among girls and boys and the responses of school authorities to them, and explains the attempts of educational authorities to uphold a semblance of discipline and educational supervision. In contrast to depictions of authoritarian Arab schooling and its role in producing obedient submissive citizens, the chapter describes the collapse of this model of schooling and the kind of authoritarianism it implies in the case of Egypt. In the place of obedience or submissiveness, it highlights pervasive forms of noncompliance and illusory forms of control over schools in the context of state withdrawal and de facto privatization.

The chapter focuses on religious and ethnic affiliation as social factors that influence the structure of variation in several Arabic-speaking communities. We go beyond the simplistic correlations between religious/ethnic groupings and language, and seek to uncover the histories and social meanings of variation based on such groupings. We include examples, both old and new, to illustrate variation according to these factors.

Many Arab countries have experienced deep social, political, and psychological struggles and transformations, yet political psychological analyses of the region remain scarce. This chapter provides a brief overview of the historical context, present, and future directions of the field. Some challenges are epistemological and theoretical, including culturally decontextualized literature and under-theorised topics. Other challenges lie in research production, with difficulties in acquiring qualified researchers, institutional support, training, representative samples, and elaborate, culturally relevant approaches. The final set of challenges are social, political, and ethical in nature, especially pertinent in unstable and conflict-ridden settings, where sensitive questions may pose risks to the community and researchers, trigger suspicion, and highlight researchers’ positionalities and biases. Despite these challenges, however, growing recognition of critical, indigenous, innovative, and collaborative psychology points to promising signs for the future of political psychology in the Arab region, much like the rest of the Global South.

Chapter 6 explores how ideas about history and geography shaped Turkey’s relations with NATO and the Arab world. After joining NATO by de-emphasizing the alliance’s geographic character, Turkey went on to embrace NATO membership as proof of its European identity. Subsequently, Turkish and American officials clashed over what it meant for Turkey to be a “bridge between East and West.” During the 1950s, Turkey’s initial sympathy toward the Arab world quickly transformed into hostility as Arab nationalism took a pro-Soviet turn. As a result, Arabs who were initially seen as victims of British imperialism suddenly, in a Cold War context, became agents of Soviet imperialism instead.

Trump’s personal relationships with Middle Eastern leaders have disrupted the long-standing bureaucracy and image of American public diplomacy, especially as new policies hinge on Trump’s tweets about his personal feelings. This chapter reads Trump’s positionality vis-à-vis Middle Eastern politics through the lens of stance-taking, which structures relationships, ideologies, and identities. One of the striking dimensions of Trump’s stances with respect to the Middle East is the way he indexes Arab and Muslim hierarchies. By aligning with rich Arab Gulf states and dis-aligning with the larger majority of Muslims and Arabs, Trump produces a cluster of simplified binary stances evaluating “good/rich” and “bad/poor” Arabs and Muslims. Saudi royalty are friendly billionaires; al-Sisi of Egypt and Netanyahu of Israel are his partners in fighting Islamic terrorism; and the rest of Arabs and Muslims represent either radical Islamic threats or uncivilized refugees. Trumpian speeches about “rich Arabs” buying American arms and goods and the total absence of “other Arabs” (ordinary people in non-wealthy, but also Arab countries) are consistent with his overall diplomatic and economic view of “America First,” which speaks largely to an internal American base and is not only unconcerned with other cultures, but also callous to refugees and immigrants.