(This event is organised by MEI’s Political Economy Research Cluster, as part of its quarterly public talks series.)
Abstract
This talk will address a topic that is discussed a lot more broadly than it is actually understood, and also one that has become increasingly polarising — the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf. We will examine the specific functions and ideologies of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, as well as the ways in which they differ from Brotherhood affiliates elsewhere. Furthermore, the talk will evaluate how GCC states’ domestic experiences with Islamism have influenced their foreign policies, in particular the recent blockade on Qatar.
About the Speaker(s)
Dr Courtney Freer is a research fellow at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her academic work focuses on the domestic politics of the Arab Gulf states, with a particular concentration on Islamism and the role of religion. She received her DPhil in politics from the University of Oxford in 2015, having written a thesis revising rentier state theory by examining the socio-political role played by Muslim Brotherhood groups in Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The findings of this work were published by Oxford University Press in May 2018 as Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies. She previously worked at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar and the US–Saudi Arabian Business Council in Washington, DC.
