Political Order

This chapter investigates the nature of political order established in the Persian Gulf during colonial and postcolonial periods. In this chapter, I argue that the nature of political order determines the level of oil exploitations. Since the discovery of oil, the region has experienced British imperial penetrations in colonial era and American neo-imperial interventions in the postcolonial era. Both imperial powers established global political orders in line with their economic interests and so-called security concerns. The British needed the Gulf oil to maintain and control its formal and informal colonies, while the Americans have used it to exercise its power at a global scale. The chapter initially introduces scholarly debates on the nature of global political orders of the Anglo-American empires and later explores the repercussions of these orders on the Persian Gulf.