ABSTRACT
My immediate purpose is to consider how phenomena characteristic of the Persian Gulf situation may modify typical patterns of social and political change in the Third World. This chapter is, however, an abridge ment of a more detailed and comprehensive exercise in structural-func tional analysis which poses the questions: first, what amount of political disintegration is inevitable in the oil-producing principalities of the Gulf and what are the optimum and pessimum positions; second, what type of political organization is likely, at different stages of social change, to prove most appropriate there; and third, whether such organization can be expected to emerge spontaneously or with a practicable measure of political engineering. These questions, though not integral to our present purpose, are also touched on here. For reasons of brevity conceptualiza tion and empirical detail have been virtually excluded or relegated to the notes; it should, moreover, be mentioned that the principalities under review are Kuwait, Qatar and the more developed of the Trucial States, the rather different circumstances of Bahrain calling for separate treatment. Also in the interest of brevity, domestic relations of existing principalities are considered in abstraction from foreign or even regional relations. Abstraction of this kind must clearly constitute one approach to com prehensive analysis; but it must equally clearly be supplemented, par ticularly in view of current discussions and decisions on federation. Federation, however, retains many of the existing problems and adds more, while incorporation by force or diplomacy in an external state would require a change of focus.
