After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies (19 page)

Soft power in the West: financing universities and manipulating research

All six Gulf monarchies have for years sponsored a number of leading Western universities and some of their professors, research centres, and research programmes. Of special interest have been those universities and departments which have historically focused on Middle Eastern Studies, Islamic Studies, and especially Persian Gulf studies. In the past, most of these donations—many of which amount to millions of dollars—tended to come directly from members of Gulf ruling families. While this still sometimes happens, it is now more frequent for the funding to be channelled through state-backed charities or ‘foundations’, as this seems to smooth the way for recipient institutions to perform due diligence on their foreign backers, helping them to create some distance from regimes or unpalatable individuals whom their staff and student bodies may object to. Nevertheless the various buildings, jobs, and programmes that have been sponsored in this manner invariably still are adorned with the names of Gulf rulers or their powerful relatives.

Most of these gifts have no strings attached per se, and there is generally no follow-up control after the gift is made. However, donors have usually been able to rely on a culture of self-censorship taking root in the recipient institutions. After all, if a university or institute receives a major grant from such a forthcoming source—as opposed to bidding for competitive
research grants—it is likely that it will hope to get more from the same pot in the future. In these circumstances junior members of staff or postgraduate students tend to feel uncomfortable discussing either the source of the funding or pursuing sensitive topics relating to the donor country. It is almost inconceivable, for example, to imagine an academic with no alternative source of income researching and writing a serious critique of a regime that has either paid for his or her salary, scholarship, or the building that houses his or her office. In many leading universities this is now no longer a possible scenario, but instead a likely one.

In addition to promoting self-censorship, the donations also tend to encourage the steering of academic debate away from the Gulf monarchies themselves—and especially studies on their domestic politics or societies—by instead promoting research on ‘safer topics’ in the broader region or on Arabic language or Islamic Studies. Indeed, the latter two fields are particularly palatable as they provide further support for the monarchies’ attempts to build up cultural and religious legitimacy resources. In Saudi Arabia’s case the funding of leading Islamic Studies centres also seems to be part of an effort to make the Saudi state’s highly controversial interpretation of Islam more ‘mainstream’ and acceptable, at least in scholarly and government circles. What all of this will soon lead to (and in some cases already has led to) is an academic discipline that carefully skirts around the key ‘red line’ subjects such as political reform, corruption, human rights, and the prospects of revolution—as these are usually perceived by university fundraisers and executives as likely to anger or antagonise their Gulf patrons. As such, this particular stream of funding is in some ways an even more powerful and sensitive soft power strategy for the Gulf monarchies, as it is not primarily aimed at influencing public or even government-level opinion in the West. Rather its more subtle objective is to sway academic opinion in the West, or at the very least foster a ‘chilling atmosphere’ of apologetic behaviour or avoidance when it comes to intellectual discussion of the Gulf monarchies.

The historic links between Britain and the region have meant that the Gulf monarchies have been particularly attracted to funding British universities, and these currently represent the best examples of the strategy. Indeed, it is now difficult to find any leading British institution focusing on the Middle East that has not received all of the varieties of gifts. Exeter University, home to Britain’s only centre for Gulf Studies, presently
lauds the ruler of Sharjah—Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi—as its most generous donor, having installed him as the founding member of its College of Benefactors in 2006. This is unsurprising as Sultan paid for the university’s Al-Qasimi Building (which houses its Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies),
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and funds two endowed professorships—the Al-Qasimi Professor of Arabic Studies and Islamic Material Culture and the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies. In the past, there was also an Al-Qasimi Chair of Gulf Politics, but no longer. Similarly at Durham University, home to one of the Britain’s largest clusters of academics working on Middle East studies, the ruler of Sharjah has paid for another Al-Qasimi Building (which originally housed Durham’s Institute for Middle East and Islamic Studies and now houses its School of Government and International Affairs), and funds an endowed professorship—the Sharjah Chair in Islamic Law and Finance. Elsewhere in the UAE, the Abu Dhabi-funded Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy gave some $15 million to launch the London School of Economics’ new Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, and a further $3 million to name the main lecture theatre in LSE’s New Academic Building after Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan.
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It has also funded an endowed professorship—the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East—the holder of which does not focus on the Gulf states. On a smaller scale, before becoming Abu Dhabi’s current ruler, Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan had already paid for the Khalifa Building at the University of Wales in Lampeter,
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which now houses the university’s Department of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, along with a small mosque. Dubai has also been active, with members of its ruling family having funded the Al-Makoum College in Dundee, which is currently accredited by Aberdeen University and focuses on several niche fields including Muslim communities in Britain and ‘Islamic Jerusalem’ studies.

Kuwait has been a similarly generous donor to British academia, with the British Society for Middle East Studies’ main annual book prize being named after and funded for many years by a member of the ruling family.
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Since 2010 the prize has been administered by Cambridge University, with the ruling family member remaining as one of the five judges. More substantially, since 2007 the government-backed Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences has been funding a substantial $15 million, ten year research programme at the LSE on ‘development, governance, and globalisation in the Gulf states’ and has funded an endowed
professorship—the Kuwait Professorship of Economics and Political Sciences. Despite KFAS stating that the incumbent professor should ‘… take a first hand interest in key issues affecting the economic development of resource rich economies, particularly the Gulf States as well bringing recognition of Kuwait to prestigious academic and policymaking circles around the world’, it appears that neither of the two postholders since 2007 have actually focused on the Gulf states.
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In May 2011 the prime minister of Kuwait—a key member of the ruling family—began sponsoring Durham University, funding an eponymously named $3.5 million research programme along with a similarly eponymous endowed professorship—the His Highness Sheikh Nasser bin Muhammad Al-Sabah Chair in International Relations, Regional Politics, and Security.
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Only months later, as discussed later in this book, Nasser was ousted as prime minister following popular protests and allegations of corruption, but the university has opted to retain the gift.

There are now many examples of substantial donations from other Gulf monarchies in British universities—again mostly from government-backed entities or influential ruling family members. Qatar’s ruler has paid Oxford University about $3.5 million to endow a new professorship named after himself—the His Highness Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Chair in Contemporary Islamic Studies
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while Oman’s ruler has paid for two endowed professorships at Cambridge University, which again seem to be safely distanced from any discussion of Gulf politics—the His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Professor of Modern Arabic Studies and the His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Chair for Abrahamic Faiths and Common Values.
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Not to be outdone, in 2008 Saudi Arabia’s influential Al-Waleed bin Talal Al-Saud paid for a $13 million Centre for Islamic Studies, also at Cambridge,
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and provided comparable funding for setting up the Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University. Most symbolic perhaps, is the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies, which is a ‘recognised independent centre of the University of Oxford’. Founded in 1985, it has a substantial new building nearing completion and many endowed fellowships. Although some of its funding has come from British and US entities and other parts of the Islamic world, the bulk of the funding is believed to originate in the Gulf monarchies. Saudi Arabia alone is believed to have already donated about $30 million to the centre.
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Although not a university as such, Britain’s Sandhurst Academy—the elite training school for Britain’s military and the
alma mater
for several
current Gulf ruling family members—has also been receiving substantial donations. In 2009, for example, the UAE was reported to have financed the building of a new hall of residence at the academy to house a hundred cadets.
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Tellingly, the following day it was announced by Britain’s ambassador to the UAE that the Queen’s Household Cavalry would perform at Abu Dhabi’s International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition later that year—the first overseas display ever performed by the squadron. He also went on to state that ‘The fact is that there is no relationship the United Kingdom has with countries in the Middle East that is more important to us than that with United Arab Emirates’ while a senior British military personality stated that ‘I think that anything we can do to cement the relations between Abu Dhabi and the UK is a good thing’.
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Similar, although often smaller donations, have been made to universities in other parts of Western Europe and the Commonwealth. At the Australian National University, for example, there exists the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Senior Lectureship at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, funded by Dubai’s deputy ruler. In Canada, at McMaster University, there exists the Sharjah Chair in Global Islam, funded by Sharjah’s ruler. And in France, at Sciences-Po, a five year KFAS-funded Kuwait Programme has been running since 2007—much like the KFAS-LSE programme. Such funding has found its way into US universities, too, but the US has historically been a more troublesome recipient given the relative influence of its Israel lobby, which has on occasion sought to block such gifts. In 2000, for example, the Harvard University staff and student body signed a petition to reject an offer of an endowed professorship in Islamic studies from Abu Dhabi’s ruler on the grounds that a think-tank linked to the ruling family—the Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-Up—was allegedly promoting anti-Semitism and that there were well-documented human rights abuses in the UAE. The original plan for the professorship, which would have been named after the ruler, was to have the usual broad focus, thus allowing the incumbent to circumvent discussion of the Gulf monarchies.
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Similarly in 2007 the University of Connecticut pulled out of a relationship with Dubai for much the same reasons.
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Nevertheless significant donations have still been made over the years, with funds from Saudi Arabia having been channelled to the University of Arkansas (which received $27 million for its Middle East Studies Center), and with
Cornell University, Rutgers University, Princeton University, and a number of others also receiving donations. The University of Southern California’s Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture, for example, is named after the former Saudi king, Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, while Georgetown University’s renowned Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding was renamed the Prince Al-Waleed Bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding following a $20 million gift from Al-Waleed in 2005. This prompted a congressman in 2008 to question whether the centre had ever been critical of the Saudi government.
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Most recently, in 2011 the College of William and Mary, one of the oldest higher education institutions in the US, accepted a gift from Oman’s ruler to establish an endowed professorship—the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Academic Chair of Middle East Studies. Meanwhile Harvard University now appears to have accepted a $1 million donation from the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, despite its earlier rejection of Abu Dhabi ruling family funds. The gift, made out to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, has helped set up a graduate training scheme at Harvard for Abu Dhabi’s top public officials, while also helping to ‘advance the mission of the School’s Middle East Initiative, a nexus for convening policymakers and scholars on the region’. Upon signing the agreement, the Abu Dhabi crown prince’s court stated that ‘this… echoes President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s steadfast belief that the progress of nations is built on education, and Crown Prince His Highness General Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan’s unwavering commitment to education and the constant development of the future ranks of leaders’.
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In an almost mirror image of the funding of cultural institutions strategy, the Gulf monarchies’ funding of Western universities and research programmes has now also been taking place in reverse, with several leading US and British higher education institutions having been invited to set up branch campuses in the region. It is important to differentiate, however, between those Western universities (usually mid-or low-ranking institutions) that have set up campuses in free zone operations—such as those in Dubai’s Knowledge Village—which have sought commercial success and have usually not received financial inducements from the governments involved,
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and those higher ranked institutions that have been building much larger, more lavish campuses—most notably in Abu Dhabi and Qatar. It is the latter category of universities which
matter, as these are receiving massive funding from the governments in question and are now tied in to these monarchies’ soft power strategies. After all, if a monarchy can claim to have a working and highly visible relationship with a big brand university from one of the world’s most established democracies, one with a powerful military, then any reputational price that is being paid—no matter how high—is certainly deemed to be a wise investment. In Abu Dhabi both New York University and La Sorbonne have established operations, with one of Abu Dhabi government’s key personalities now sitting on the former’s board of trustees back in New York.
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While in Qatar a whole host of universities are establishing themselves in ‘Education City’—a giant complex funded by the Qatar Foundation, the aforementioned vehicle of the ruler’s wife. Described as ‘five star universities imported
profectus in totum
from abroad’,
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these currently include Georgetown University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Weill Cornell Medical College, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, and University College London. In many cases, with generous salaries to offer, they have attracted leading academics in their given specialities. It is difficult to ascertain the real running costs of these campuses; however it is likely that Education City’s total cost is about $33 billion dollars, with the individual campuses costing between $100 and $200 million each.
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While there are very few UAE national students attending NYU
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or La Sorbonne in Abu Dhabi,
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there are at least a modest number of Qatari nationals attending the various Education City institutions.
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However, most students are expatriates (either those from families resident in the Gulf states or the wider region or, in Abu Dhabi’s case, those flown in on very generous scholarships),
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and with the exception of Georgetown University
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very little academic attention is currently being paid to the Gulf monarchies themselves—especially in the field of political science.