2025 Awards
Gulf Book Award
Selection Committee
- Dr. Dania Thafer, Senior Fellow and Executive Director at Gulf International Forum
- Dr. Kristian Ulrichsen, Fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute and Senior Nonresident Fellow at Gulf International Forum
- Dr. Mehran Kamrava, Professor of Government at Georgetown University Qatar, Board Director at Gulf International Forum
- Dr. Rory Miller, Professor of International Politics, Co-Director of the Small States Research Program, and Director of Energy Studies Certificate at Georgetown University Qatar
- Dr. Steven Wright Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar
2025 Gulf Book Award Winner
Dr. Courtney Freer’s The Resilience of Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait: Parliament, Rentierism, and Society is the 2025 recipient of the Gulf Book Award. The first English language political history of the Kuwaiti parliament, this book provides an unprecedented holistic treatment of grassroots contemporary Kuwaiti politics in English in over two decades, incorporating the country's political dynamics into broader debates about the limits of authoritarianism and the practice of democracy in the Arab world, particularly in oil-wealthy states. As an author, Freer uses the lens of parliamentary elections as a means of understanding the political ideologies that have dominated in Kuwait since independence. As such, it situates the dynamics of Kuwaiti politics within broader political science debates about whether democratic institutions in "hybrid regimes" are meaningful arenas for popular contestation or only serve to enhance autocratic rule.
Given the varying portrayals of Kuwait as robust authoritarianism, "upgraded" authoritarianism, or a noteworthy site of democratic participation, The Resilience of Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait: Parliament, Rentierism, and Society focuses on the ideologies that have mobilized political blocs, rather than solely focusing on the institutions of political power themselves. Freer includes extensive fieldwork and the use of Arabic and English primary sources to assess and examine the institutional setting that Kuwait presents and traces the dominant ideological strands in the country, considering the comparative mobilizational potential of ascriptive identities like tribe and sect.
Gulf Studies Journal Article Award
Selection Committee
- Dr. Courtney Freer, Senior Non-Resident Fellow at Gulf International Forum and Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University
- Dr. Gawdat Bahgat, Senior Non-Resident Fellow at Gulf International Forum and Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University
- Dr. Yasmina Abouzzohour, Nonresident Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and lecturer at Princeton University
2025 Journal Article Award Winner
Dr. Elizabeth Monier’s "Religious Tolerance in the Arab Gulf Sstates: Christian Organizations, Soft Power, and the Politics of Sustaining the “family–state” beyond the Rentier Model" is the 2025 recipient of the Gulf Studies Journal Article Award.
The states of the Arabian Gulf present a novel case for the examination of relations between authoritarian governance and Christian organizations. The economic clout of the Gulf states has been central to political stability and legitimacy. Still, they are increasingly seeking to expand and consolidate the soft power and resilience through political and diplomatic initiatives. This article examines how the Christian organizations established in recent decades by large migrant communities are incorporated into this strategy and how they are responding. It argues that religious tolerance has formed a central discourse in governmental policies and narratives that construct the Gulf states as modern progressive nations, despite their unique political systems based mainly on constitutional monarchies with limited political participation;. tThis constructs local Christian communities as a source of soft power, despite their position as a religious minority.
Gulf Studies Graduate Paper Award
Awardees:
Dana Abu-Haltam is a 4th-year PhD candidate and a graduate teaching associate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her dissertation examines how Middle Eastern and North African countries navigate the US-China competition. Dana won the award for her work on “Beyond Survival: Saudi Arabia’s Geopolitical Strategy Amid U.S.-China Competition,” that has been recognized for its outstanding analysis of Saudi foreign policy in a time of great power competition.
Felix Matheson is a first-year MA student at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, with research interests in sport in the Gulf. These interests will take him to Qatar this summer, where he will conduct research for his thesis. Felix won the award for his work on , “A Gulf in Understanding: Challenging Prevailing Narratives Around Sports Investment in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.” His research been recognized for its outstanding analysis to understanding the use of soft power and sports diplomacy in the GCC.