Comments on: ♟️ Letting Agrabah go: why we must de-orientalise our approach to the Arab Gulf states https://theloop.ecpr.eu/letting-agrabah-go-why-we-must-de-orientalise-our-approach-to-the-arab-gulf-states/ ECPR's Political Science Blog Tue, 18 Jul 2023 01:41:52 +0000 hourly 1 By: Okan Arikan https://theloop.ecpr.eu/letting-agrabah-go-why-we-must-de-orientalise-our-approach-to-the-arab-gulf-states/#comment-44728 Tue, 18 Jul 2023 01:41:52 +0000 https://theloop.ecpr.eu/?p=8947#comment-44728 Maybe part of the problem is the "disciplinary" focus that somehow prefers to code, label and categorize the polity to make it explainable, intelligible and more often than not compatible with the existing social theory. In many instances existing disciplinary theory is way too positivistic and even simplistic to account even for a modicum of all the regional peculiarity. The researcher sets on the task of searching for empirical evidence for "theory" generated elsewhere and naively claiming to have a universal application, otherwise no theory and no science.

Another aspect of the issue is the comfort of fitting the regional context in these simple (Western?) "social scientific" terminology; monarchies, autocracies, rentier states, revisionist states, alliances, tribalism, Islamism, etc. In fact, social reality is way too complex, fluid and context dependent than we prefer to visualize it. This is the crux of the matter and a reminder for us that we have yet a long way to go. Scholarship of transdisciplinary area (regional) study have potential in bringing in the detail and knowledge of the specific geography, yet they need to accommodate theory in their work, something regional experts traditionally disregarded. All in all, a very hefty task in any case.

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