This book studies values and attitudes in the Gulf region. In light of global power shifts, the threatening collapse of internal security in the West, and uncertainty about the current leadership vacuum in world society, this book explores a future leading role of the Gulf countries in such institutions as the
G-20 and the OECD. Based on rigorous analysis of macro-level data and opinion surveys with relevance for the Gulf region, it analyzes the global macro-factors shaping the Gulf's future at a time of the global COVID-19 crisis and depression and rising global tensions. Starting with an empirical time series analysis of the long cycles of global politics and economics, it highlights the implications for the Gulf region. Offering a multivariate analysis of civil society values in the Gulf, the author analyzes value changes and attitudes on antisemitism, political Islam, internal security, democracy, and other issues of Arab politics. The partially optimistic conclusions of the study testify to the underestimated and incipient maturity of the Gulfs civil society and strongly suggest that the Gulf's future is rather with the free societies of the West and not with a Neo-Ottoman Empire in whatever form.

"Exceptional in scope and right up-to-the-minute in coverage"

Brian M Pollins, Associate, Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University.

"An outstanding and topical book by an astute scholar of the MENA region"

Professor Hussein Solomon, Academic Head of Department, Political Studies and Governance, University of the Free State, South Africa.

"The most comprehensive and insightful study on the subject to date"

Manfred B. Steger, Professor of Sociology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa and Global Professorial Fellow, Western Sydney University.

Arno Tausch is a Honorary Associate Professor of Economics, Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary (since Fall Semester 2010) and Adjunct Professor (Universitaetsdozent) of political science at Innsbruck University, Department of Political Science, Innsbruck University, Austria (since 1988). He served as an Austrian diplomat abroad and was attaché, and later counselor for labor and migration at the Austrian Embassy in Warsaw, 1992-1999. He authored or coauthored books and articles for major international publishers and journals, among them 22 books in English, 2 books in French, 8 books in German, and around 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and also numerous articles in the media of several countries.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Factors affecting the Gulf's future.- Chapter 2. Methodology and data for assessing the effects of Global Cycles and Value Change on the Future of the Gulf Region.- Chapter 3. Covid-19 and the contours of the impending global crisis: Western meltdown, Gulf fallout?.- Chapter 4. Caught in the Thucydides Trap? Revisiting Kondratieff Waves, Warfare and World Security and their implications for the Gulf region.- Chapter 5. Learning from classical Arab writers: G-Zero and the cultural aspects of changing global leadership: rediscovering Ibn Khalduns Asabiyya with the latest PEW Global Survey and World Values Survey data.- Chapter 6. Value change and patterns of development in the rich Arab countries.- Chapter 7. Antisemitism the second contemporary pandemic and what the Gulf countries can do to overcome it.- Chapter 8. Saudi Arabia - Religion, gender and the desire for democracy.- Chapter 9. Executive Summary, Conclusions and Perspectives.