Historical Sociological Factors and the Social Contract in the UAE: Implications for state-society Relations in the Gulf Region in the Context of the Arab Spring

A reassessment of the Arab Monarchical System of Government in an age of failed Arab states.  A case study of the United Arab Emirates.

Sub questions might then be – 

1. What is the role of the head of state and what is the relationship between the state and the people (social contract, society and government) – https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2017/02/arab-fractures-citizens-states-and-social-contracts?lang=en
2. what are the attributes of Monarchical systems in Arab world (system of governance, Islamic influence and values, where power lies, decision making, leadership, local democratic outlets – ie local councils or whatever, moral authority, etc) see intro chapter and ideas in https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/islam-and-the-moral-economy/4535D368155087E40563112D8EC5BE35#fndtn-information
3. To what extent does the United Arab Emirates government meet the needs of its citizens (or subjects, don’t know what they say in Arabic), how? (so, you need a chapter case study and draw on studies of and data on the UAE, this might be a chance to employ some aspects of a historical sociology lens.)
4. Can Monarchy endure and thrive as an alternative system to the dominant liberal western model of government by elected representation? (back to the debates on democratisation v monarchy enduring).

Regardless of how you refine this research topic and area I think for your theoretical framing you will be dipping into the IR discipline (of course) and I mentioned that you might find the sub field of Historical Sociology in IR useful for your study (George Lawson writes on this – see his older theoretical paper on historical sociology, but others too – John Hobson’s work could be useful for framing theories and ideas).  But don’t get lost in all the theoretical debates in Historical Sociology – this global study might have some useful sections in Part III for you in thinking about state systems  https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/global-historical-sociology/904DC8F97819C35B3DBEF0D0E9167AF4#fndtn-contents .  And you will need to dip into area studies with ref to the middle east and Gulf in particular (and Charles Tripp has done interesting stuff – Tripps conceptual work in Arabic might be useful background for your literature review chapter (Al-Sultah wa-l-Sha`b – masarat al-muqawamah fi al-sharq al-awsat – his book ‘Islam and the moral economy’ will fascinate you, I think, but you just want to cherry pick from it some background concepts and ideas on thinking about Islam and political, economic, social systems based on it for the Gulf and UAE), Michael Willis at Oxford works on Morocco/Maghreb and it might offer some useful insight in backgrounding Arab monarchies.