Michael Herb

Last updated

Michael Herb
Born (1966-10-07) October 7, 1966 (age 58)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater UCLA
University of Washington
Known for All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies
Scientific career
Fields Political science
Institutions Georgia State University
Doctoral advisor Leonard Binder

Michael Herb (born October 7, 1966) is an American political scientist who gained prominence through his All in the Family thesis of Arab monarchies.

Contents

Biographical details

Herb graduated from University of Washington in 1987, earned his master's degree from UCLA in 1992, and completed his doctorate at UCLA in 1997. He joined the faculty of the Georgia State Political Science Department in 1998. [1]

Kuwait Politics Database

On his website, Dr. Herb manages a database on key political figures of Kuwaiti politics. [2] [3]

All in the Family

In 1999, Herb published All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies. The book's central thesis is that the main reason for the resilience of Arab monarchies is not oil wealth or the lack of a middle class, but because numerous members of the royal family hold key positions in government. [4] The book has become a regularly cited piece in the comparative politics literature of democratization, authoritarianism, and rentier states.

The Wages of Oil

In 2014, Herb published The Wages of Oil: Parliaments and Economic Development in Kuwait and the UAE, an analysis of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, both oil abundant states, have ended up on different ends of the spectrum regarding the concentration of political power. Some of Herb's findings have concluded that the role of the danger of an invasion from Iraq have had significant influence on the speed and to the extent that the Kuwaiti elites were willing to compromise political decision making power to civilians. [5] The book has been nominated as "one of the best Middle East politics books of 2014" by the Washington Post's political blog, Monkey Cage. [6]

Books and articles

References

  1. "Michael Herb's website". Archived from the original on September 26, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
  2. Herb, Michael (November 13, 2014), "Labor Markets and Class Politics" , The Wages of Oil, Cornell University Press, pp.  18–44, doi:10.7591/cornell/9780801453366.003.0002, ISBN   9780801453366
  3. Herb, Michael (January 29, 2016). "Kuwait Politics Database" (in Arabic).{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. Brown, L. Carl; Herb, Michael (1999). "All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democratic Prospects in the Middle Eastern Monarchies". Foreign Affairs. 78 (5): 182. doi:10.2307/20049506. ISSN   0015-7120. JSTOR   20049506.
  5. author., Herb, Michael, 1966- (August 15, 2018). The wages of oil : Parliaments and Economic Development in Kuwait and the UAE. ISBN   978-1501725173. OCLC   1011620621.{{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. Lynch, Marc (December 29, 2014). "The best Middle East political science books of 2014". www.washingtonpost.com.