I am very grateful for Begüm Adalet’s perceptive review of my book. It raised excellent questions and was a pleasure to read. It is clear to me that Adalet and I agree on several important points. For example, I agree that the rhetoric of contemporary social engineering, including terms such as “creativity” and “critical thinking,” can take on very different meanings from those imagined by the social engineers themselves, especially in authoritarian political contexts. Inspired by that insight, my second book project will interrogate how different notions of tolerance can emerge, evolve, and get transmogrified within authoritarian regimes like Jordan and the UAE, and it will include an analysis of how both the rhetoric and practice of tolerance may be used for strategic purposes.
Adalet’s points about the book’s emphasis on elite perspectives with respect to social engineering are also well taken. In part, that approach was deliberate, due to what I see as a significant gap in our understanding of the inner workings of authoritarian regimes and a resulting tendency to impute preferences and styles of reasoning. As a result, I wanted to study these more directly through ethnographic data collection in palace contexts. Yet, as Adalet’s book reminds us, social science always involves selection, and pursuing one line of inquiry—such as trying to peer into the “black box” of autocratic reasoning—necessarily comes at the expense of others. Complementing a palace-based ethnographic approach with more detailed ethnographic evidence on everyday citizen perspectives, beyond the focus groups and surveys I conducted, would add further richness to our understanding of social engineering and its implications in the UAE.
The questions raised about rentier state theory are also valuable. I share many of Adalet’s concerns, especially about the theory’s seeming determinism and the way it can overlook both the nuances of class dynamics and the power of ideas. At the same time, I do not see my book as endorsing rentier state theory or as neglecting the political and economic interests of the ruling class. For instance, as I point out, my findings with respect to social engineering outcomes do not align well with theories of the rentier state. I also emphasize how ruling elites have a strong interest in maintaining the political status quo, even as they wish to radically alter the economic one, at limited cost to themselves. My ethnographic evidence shows that social engineering focusing on education and citizen-building is viewed as less politically threatening than material interventions, especially drastic reductions in public sector salaries and other neoliberal “shock treatments” often recommended by international consultants. Although I do not agree with the implied paternalism, praise-filled nationalism, and other aspects of this social engineering strategy—indeed, much of the book is devoted to its ironies and unintended consequences—I think it is critical to understand ruling elites’ approach.
Adalet’s insightful commentary offers much to ponder, and I will conclude on another point of agreement emerging from this dialogue that may be worthy of further research. Although we adopt different methods and research questions, we both find that standard narratives often present social engineers as one-dimensionally conceited and self-assured. Yet that has the effect of eliding, in Adalet’s words, the “fragilities and anxieties that mark expert thinking and practice” (p. 15). My book also underscores the affective and uncertain dimensions of social engineering. I develop that theme further in my recent work on expert advisers to Gulf ruling elites, including Western consultants. What is interesting is that knowledge often appears to gain a life of its own, plunging ahead with ever more certitude despite the doubts of the actors themselves, and even when they do not exactly conceal those doubts. That renders it ever more important to understand the ways in which knowledge, expertise, and ideology may intertwine.
